Why did we build high-rise public housing projects?

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  • čas přidán 16. 10. 2017
  • Watch this video ad-free on Nebula: nebula.tv/videos/city-beautif...
    In the spring of 2007, the Chicago Housing Authority demolished the last of the 28 buildings in the Robert Taylor Homes housing project. Robert Taylor Homes is one of several high profile housing project demolitions, from St. Louis’s Pruitt-Igoe to fellow Chicago project Cabrini Green. The demolitions serve as an admission that high-rise public housing wasn’t a good idea. The housing that replaced them are all low rise projects better integrated within existing neighborhoods. So why did anyone back then think it was a good idea? Why did housing authorities build these high rise projects in the first place?
    Resources on this topic:
    Hunt, D. B. (2001). What Went Wrong with Public Housing in Chicago? A History of the Robert Taylor Homes. Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, 94(1), 96-123.
    "Demolished: The End of Chicago's Public Housing" by David Eads and Helga Salinas. apps.npr.org/lookatthis/posts...
    "When Public Housing Was Paradise" by Joy Connelly openingthewindow.com/2011/06/...
    "Elizabeth Wood, 93, Innovator In Early Days of Public Housing" by Bruce Lambert www.nytimes.com/1993/01/17/us/...
    "A Brief History of Public Housing" by Jennifer Amy Stoloff www.researchgate.net/profile/...
    Video sources:
    - Archive.org, Prelinger Archives
    Photo sources:
    - Wikimedia Commons
    - Flickr user Samuel A. Love
    - Zahiri, N., Dezhdar, O., & Foroutan, M. (2016). Rethinking of Critical Regionalism in High-Rise Buildings. Buildings, 7(1), 4. doi.org/10.3390/buildings7010004
    Filmed in sunny Sacramento, California.

Komentáře • 4,9K

  • @CityBeautiful
    @CityBeautiful  Před 6 lety +1360

    Last time I posted a video, I had 600 subscribers. Thanks to all of the new subscribers out there!

    • @Andreas4696
      @Andreas4696 Před 6 lety +18

      Well deserved.

    • @AGryphonTamer
      @AGryphonTamer Před 6 lety +21

      Keep posting man, this is a wonderful channel, and I don't have nearly enough videos to go through.

    • @Dariovich
      @Dariovich Před 6 lety +6

      Its an interesting topic and the videos are well made. Ive suscribed yesterday after seeing a bunch of them in one sitting.

    • @PersonManManManMan
      @PersonManManManMan Před 6 lety +4

      You are doing really great work, and I am personally very interested in subjects like this.
      I am sure you're gonna keep growing!

    • @PersonManManManMan
      @PersonManManManMan Před 6 lety +5

      If I may ask, I would be interested in this type of subject: building whole city blocks, not just public housing, but also schools, hospitals, shops, industrial places, like in USSR and other examples, are they as bad as public housing or not?

  • @khangphan5174
    @khangphan5174 Před 5 lety +1542

    High-rise public housing projects actually works very well in Asia like China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam. Apartments sold to the middle-class in Asia seemed to create cleaner and safer communities compared to the alley slums of unplanned urbanization.

    • @ljljlj9263
      @ljljlj9263 Před 5 lety +81

      @Adam Buentello exactly!! And they work and live together as a team and family, and they all get along... not many in America can do any of that.

    • @lawden210
      @lawden210 Před 5 lety +24

      @Krok Krok The OP said "Asia" NOT "east Asia"

    • @jun_suzuki42
      @jun_suzuki42 Před 4 lety +52

      And in Singapore too.

    • @redwall1521
      @redwall1521 Před 4 lety +106

      Also, rich people live in cities in basically every country besides the United States. Suburbia is America's thing. It's not necessarily a bad thing but it does keep all the poorer people in cities, in these high density housing areas.

    • @stephhhie17
      @stephhhie17 Před 4 lety +63

      @@eitkoml Exactly, high rise housing works well in the US, you can build two identical towers and one will be a luxury high rise and the other will be a slum depending on who lives in each building.

  • @wba6787
    @wba6787 Před 2 lety +208

    I grew up in a council house (i.e. UK public housing) and so did most of my extended family. It gave us housing security; a good, responsive landlord; and a sense of community. A police officer lived in one of the houses and conflict resolution usually stopped at talking to someone's mom.
    All that to say: the problem isn't with public housing whatsoever. It can provide housing at a level and cost that the private sector simply cannot and does not want to, it sets a standard that private landlords have to compete with, and it gives people security and the ability to live near schools, family, services.
    The US' demonization of projects - at a time where housing is one of the greatest universal issues for its major cities and homelessness/housing insecurity is rampant - is unfortunate and misses the mark. Structural racism, ongoing economic and racial segregation, the distribution of public resources, etc. are and always were the issue.
    Combined with having a "beggars can't be choosers" approach to public housing - wherein residents are simply expected to accept whatever top-down vision some planner or architect dreams up - those influences doom a growing necessity to failure.

    • @Sewblon
      @Sewblon Před 2 lety +2

      "It can provide housing at a level and cost that the private sector simply cannot and does not want to, it sets a standard that private landlords have to compete with, and it gives people security and the ability to live near schools, family, services." But, if the private sector must compete with public housing ,and public housing can provide housing at a level and cost that the private sector cannot, then doesn't that drive all the private land-lords out of business?

    • @rexstout8177
      @rexstout8177 Před 2 lety +13

      @@Sewblon The shit ones - yes. It was mostly the good ones that were around, back when the UK still had council housing.

    • @Sewblon
      @Sewblon Před 2 lety +2

      @@rexstout8177 So what you meant was, public housing provides housing at a level and cost that some private land-lords cannot provide. If it provided it at a level and cost that no private land lords could provide, then even the good ones would go out of business.

    • @rexstout8177
      @rexstout8177 Před 2 lety +1

      Good points. I will take issue with one though. That of "some vision planners and architects dreamt up" It was local and central gov visions not planners (something doesn't pay any attention to these days) and definitely not architects who have no political influence whatsoever.
      If its the aesthetics you are referring to however, then yeah architects have a lot to answer for. However, we can't blame architects for coming up with a cheaper more efficient solution to public housing, that governments then implement half heartedly or without understanding it.

    • @owenbelezos8369
      @owenbelezos8369 Před rokem +10

      @@Sewblon yes it would drive private land lords out of business. but that should be the goal as private landlords almost never put in more money than all their tenants.
      and what moral right does a landlord have to force someone to be in debt to them just to live there, at a certain you basically don't own it anymore as the money you've paid into the property pales in comparison to what the tenants have put in.

  • @audreyjones6845
    @audreyjones6845 Před 5 lety +558

    Y’all don’t know high rise housing projects until you’ve seen Singapore

    • @joshdaniel8729
      @joshdaniel8729 Před 4 lety +17

      high rises were built to accommodate the growing population. More people take up land space so they build buildings vertically to save land space.

    • @user-nf9xc7ww7m
      @user-nf9xc7ww7m Před 4 lety +71

      Singapore forced coexistence by not letting racial or ethnic enclaves develop. Quotas were put in place that every housing bloc be proportional to ethnic and racial make-up of the whole nation.
      Can you imagine if America did that? I'd miss the Chinatowns ambience, but it might force harmony. Imagine every city block being the same racial proportion of the whole US, or even of the state, county, or city.

    • @quinnp8493
      @quinnp8493 Před 4 lety +61

      @@user-nf9xc7ww7m Something that might play an even bigger role is the economic integration of public housing. In Singapore 80% of the population lives in public housing, that means poor, pretty much up to upper class individuals all living together. I think a trap lots of countries, and especially America fall into is viewing public housing as purely a poverty program as opposed to providing a necessary public good.

    • @fzafg
      @fzafg Před 3 lety +6

      nah, hong kong.

    • @jo_ovin1482
      @jo_ovin1482 Před 3 lety +36

      As a Singaporean living in hdb flats, it's nice and comfy. There isn't really that much crime here and it's relatively peaceful with amenities nearby!

  • @almisami
    @almisami Před 4 lety +1641

    The issue was policing and maintenance, not the projects themselves.

    • @punkchris
      @punkchris Před 4 lety +77

      Which is what was stated in the video.

    • @CinereousDove
      @CinereousDove Před 4 lety +55

      Maintenance IS part of a project and needs to be properly planned for.
      What you mean, I guess, are the substance / buildings themselves, which is true.
      Thing is high rise buildings often are build in response to / are a symptom of other issues - here (as becomes apparent in the video) racism and suburbs (=focus of the "market" on what housing is most profitable and not on housing that would be needed or efficient).
      And as long the underlining problems are not addressed - I fear - high rise housing (the affordable ones - not prestige projects at least) will often be the cheapest "not actually a solution" solution.

    • @MACTEP_CHOB
      @MACTEP_CHOB Před 4 lety +15

      @@CinereousDove They are building a lot of 10-16 story human coops in the cities in Russia. Which is kinda unlogical, giving fact that it`s the biggest country on globe.

    • @robertwalker7979
      @robertwalker7979 Před 4 lety +49

      Naw, anytime u have that much poverty in such a small area crime should be expected...

    • @ethanielclyne5810
      @ethanielclyne5810 Před 4 lety +28

      @@hurricane8634 the fact that this has 8 likes is disturbing

  • @mersauff223
    @mersauff223 Před 5 lety +263

    Tf in eastern europe these housing projects are super common

    • @alek488
      @alek488 Před 4 lety +45

      Yeah I’ve seen one in Poland the walls are thick as hell im pretty sure there built to withstand bombs

    • @dirtyyy7668
      @dirtyyy7668 Před 4 lety +92

      @@alek488 half the population of Poland lives in houses like that, it's really common because our country was complitely destroyed and milions of people lost their living space. It was the easiest way for the government to give them any type of housing.

    • @genli5603
      @genli5603 Před 4 lety +44

      Yes, but they house regular people, not just the poorest of the poor, because you lived under communism. Therefore, they are, ironically, less horrible because you don't have only the dregs of society in them.

    • @alb0948
      @alb0948 Před 4 lety +3

      Especially in balkans

    • @DacLMK
      @DacLMK Před 3 lety +8

      Same in the Balkan. I mean they still construct new mid-high rise buildings in my city. I live in a new 8 story building.

  • @vosvodin
    @vosvodin Před 3 lety +86

    In Tukey, if you live in a high rise building close to the city center, it means you are rich. Poor people live in suburbs in detached houses. Only super rich lives in detached houses which are close to the city center and have a good neighboorhood.

    • @davidfreeman3083
      @davidfreeman3083 Před 2 lety +12

      And now increasingly it's also true in the US. Now there are some luxurious high rise residential skyscrapers across the country. And increasingly ppl living in downtown neighborhoods are like the highest earners. So on the flip side, private, market rate & luxurious high rise housing is actually quite successful here in the US. This market has grown exponentially in the last few decades, and still shows an awful amount of potential to grow...

    • @thethreatwrestling.7053
      @thethreatwrestling.7053 Před 2 lety +1

      Some countries change. In US you can live inside or outside the city being a rich person. Outside the city center there are big houses and mansions for the rich lifestyle and inner city condos and penthouses. Also, both areas has lower class properties.

    • @caetanobonamigo6597
      @caetanobonamigo6597 Před 2 lety +1

      Exact same thing in Brazil

    • @diy_lothar4422
      @diy_lothar4422 Před 2 lety

      @@caetanobonamigo6597 Exactly,.only in Brazil the city centre itself is usually degraded. But neighbouring districts are usually attractive to middle ans upper class dwellers.

    • @craigbridgeman522
      @craigbridgeman522 Před 2 lety +1

      @@davidfreeman3083 parts of cabrine green is actually replaced with high rise condos

  • @ShirleyKirsten
    @ShirleyKirsten Před 3 lety +73

    I loved my high rise housing projects --1950s. Marble Hill Projects in the Bronx.. veteran's subsidized originally. It takes a Village. Each building had 14 floors. Neighbors looked after each other. We had elevators.. though they frequently broke down. Over years, the projects became multi-cultural.

    • @valdagriffin
      @valdagriffin Před rokem +4

      Years ago, your right marble hill projects was one of the best, as was Throggs Neck houses. And Palham houses. Our wonderful government CHANGED all of that when they started moving in people who can't appreciate a nice place to live. These people destroyed property as well as brought negativity and crime to these once beautiful places . Then, our federal government stopped financially supporting these complexes, which, of course, started to fall apart. Add horrible people, no funding, lazy workers, and you now have public housing.

    • @nicknico4121
      @nicknico4121 Před 3 měsíci

      Projects became multicultural, aka to house non-whites at the bottom of the pyramid.

  • @andersdenkend
    @andersdenkend Před 4 lety +55

    I'm living in a well maintained high rise. The view is awesome and the apartment nice, nothing to complain about. If you don't maintain the building and utilities, put *only* lowest income families together who are already struggling to survive, well that's just a recipe for disaster. Nothing to do with the actual high rise, though.

    • @mannybruce8950
      @mannybruce8950 Před 2 lety +4

      Right !
      Look at NYC Billionaires Row with all those expensive high-rise apartments . Also Stuyvesant Town housing complex on the east side of Manhattan that looks like any other public housing Project complex but the big difference is the maintenance of the property , the mix incomes , and it haves its own security patrols .
      The problems we see today were created by people attitudes towards other people . Problems that could have been avoided or solved by humans and it is nothing ordained by supernatural forces beyond our control .

  • @Theincredibledrummer
    @Theincredibledrummer Před 6 lety +794

    As a city planner in Auckland, New Zealand,I love this series. But to be fair mate, there is nothing wrong with well designed high rises, especially with good proximity to public transport. Brutalism is the problem.

    • @CityBeautiful
      @CityBeautiful  Před 6 lety +86

      True!

    • @allisondoak9425
      @allisondoak9425 Před 6 lety +11

      If only your higher ups/the central government/residents would agree with you there instead of allowing sprawl over significant horticultural land like they did in the Unitary Plan recently. Although part of the problem has to be developers who feel there’s less risk in suburban development I suppose. I’d have loved to be a fly in the wall for that whole Unitary Plan consultation process.

    • @manuelescamilla1889
      @manuelescamilla1889 Před 6 lety +9

      Its not Brutalism it's 'heroic' architecture! ;)

    • @m.w.6526
      @m.w.6526 Před 6 lety +41

      Post-modern architecture is ruing the WESTERN WORLD. Brutalism needs to be banished. We need our culture back

    • @hellboy6507
      @hellboy6507 Před 6 lety +3

      But its so Metal!

  • @interstateeddietv8551
    @interstateeddietv8551 Před 5 lety +1140

    Low rise housing projects wasn't a good idea either.

    • @iamcleaver6854
      @iamcleaver6854 Před 5 lety +225

      Town houses are a bad idea. Population density will always be too low for public transport to be efficient. You would have to drive to the nearest grosary store or coffeshop. The best solution is what they are doing in northen Eueope now. 5-9 floor appartment buildings with closed off inner gardens without cars.

    • @Magiktcup
      @Magiktcup Před 5 lety +78

      Council estates here in the UK would be considered low rise. They where basically entire new towns build from scratch and at the time where considered the way forward. Half the country's city centers where obliterated in WW2 and a lot of people where living in slums.
      These new council estates where modern and had things that people had never had before. Like an indoor toilet and central heating.
      The problem was that most of these estates where build miles out of the city in the countryside and with little to no transport links effectively isolating the people who lives there and making it significantly harder to get to the city for work.
      Also these estates where initially intended to have people from all levels of society living there. From butchers to bankers to bin men to doctors.
      This was changed to only the most needy. To only the poor.
      So you ended up with a situation where all the poor where stuck in one place miles from the city, isolated from the rest of society and cut off from job opportunities.
      Needless to say the estates quickly became shitholes.
      Shame really. It actually could have worked well.

    • @iamcleaver6854
      @iamcleaver6854 Před 5 lety +89

      That is why we should build mixed developments: apartments and offices in on place. Denser communities allow more opportunities for the locals and for bossiness. I have lived in the UK and I have to say that those suburban chav districts are a pain to live in. No shops nearby. Whole streets of identical houses...

    • @glebsokolov9959
      @glebsokolov9959 Před 5 lety +6

      Iam Cleaver Why do you have a Russian empire flag? 😂 In my opinion, it is best to have neighborhoods that are mixed in terms of hight. The higher must range between 5 and 20 stories like it is in Moscow.

    • @Magiktcup
      @Magiktcup Před 5 lety +24

      @@xxxxxx-br6ix Why would it? Your assuming the town you built is somehow shit and undesirable and unable to function like any other town.
      It's one possible outcome.
      It could go the other way and become overly gentrified.
      Or it could be just like any other town.
      But we are not going to do that by starting out assuming it's going to be a shithole.

  • @mattwolf7698
    @mattwolf7698 Před 5 lety +95

    I would love to live in a high rise, that said, The Projects were some of the ugliest buildings ever built.

    • @NicholasLittlejohn
      @NicholasLittlejohn Před 2 lety +1

      Likely cheapest cost, agreed

    • @DoubleBob
      @DoubleBob Před 2 lety +1

      You should see Soviet and East Asian low income high rise buildings...

  • @thequietrevolution3404
    @thequietrevolution3404 Před 3 lety +227

    Whenever there's a plan to help the poor, there will always be predators to take advantage of any loopholes.
    (edit) "Fun Fact": Ladders from fire trucks can extend no higher than the 8eight floor.

    • @_qwe_fk_1700
      @_qwe_fk_1700 Před 2 lety +7

      @WorldFlex my prof once said that some colleges of his would not stay in hotel rooms higher than the 10th floor so that in case of fire they could escape via the balcony

    • @PatheticTV
      @PatheticTV Před 2 lety +5

      As a Hong Konger I am now scared to enter my home on the 9th floor.

    • @NicholasLittlejohn
      @NicholasLittlejohn Před 2 lety +1

      @@_qwe_fk_1700 it's the law for federal workers

    • @_qwe_fk_1700
      @_qwe_fk_1700 Před 2 lety

      @@NicholasLittlejohn i dont think that there is a law about that

    • @cloroc
      @cloroc Před 2 lety

      Very fun

  • @coolwinder
    @coolwinder Před 4 lety +317

    But why it didn't work. I was listening the whole time, but you didn't answer it.

    • @vespa9566
      @vespa9566 Před 4 lety +76

      Skodra
      Does he have to spell it out for you?
      BLACKS

    • @coolwinder
      @coolwinder Před 4 lety +8

      @@vespa9566 I would appreciate it xD

    • @progressivelibertarianview8832
      @progressivelibertarianview8832 Před 4 lety +8

      It did work. Whatever projects were being conducted in those projects to these ppl by the powers that be, worked perfectly.. And that, is precisely why "it didn't work...."

    • @TytoAlpha
      @TytoAlpha Před 4 lety +4

      not the title of the video

    • @MemphisTiger
      @MemphisTiger Před 4 lety +158

      @@vespa9566 Nothing like a racist response. It wasn't "blacks" it was "poor" combined with the fact once these places were built, they lacked proper upkeep by the city as well as proper policing.

  • @fswint
    @fswint Před 5 lety +610

    NYC Housing Authority (NYCHA) is one of the last to still maintain hi-rise projects (largely because they house a million of the city's 8 million residents), but it is plagued with problems largely because of divestment over the past 30-40 years, sloppy bureaucracy and financial mismanagement. If you live in NYC you know that the City of New York itself is the city's worst slum-lord. We cannot do like other cities did and tear down our hi-rise projects - too many live there - but we need to fix what we have. Looking back in hind-sight, many of the hi-rise projects never should have been built in the first place. Many organic urban communities were destroyed because of that and highway construction.

    • @jandypimpson
      @jandypimpson Před 5 lety +40

      Agreed. The existing public housing in New York needs to be completely rebuilt to be reintegrated with their neighborhoods and existing street grid, but they definitely still need to be in high rise towers. That's because nearly all of new housing development in NYC is in towers. NYC has the density to support it.

    • @pinktoes3875
      @pinktoes3875 Před 5 lety +28

      on the positive side... rats in nyc are cat size so u never run out of protein

    • @dankhank8569
      @dankhank8569 Před 5 lety +33

      There's still dozens of high-rise projects all over Philly. Julien Houses, Wilson Park, WestPark, Fairhill. Some were torn down in the 90s.

    • @WakkoKakko
      @WakkoKakko Před 5 lety +8

      Honestly, if New York City can’t reasonably maintain all the units that it has, (HUD is breathing down its neck over this issue,) then it should consider tearing down 5-10% of its public housing units in order of structural deterioration and shore up the remainder, irrespective of geography or perceived infamy.

    • @wes3591
      @wes3591 Před 5 lety +23

      I don’t understand how people could believe housing poor people in VERY expensive places is a good idea. Their quality of life would be much better somewhere that better suits their productive output. They could afford to live without being tools of the democrats who stack and pack poor people in and keep them dependent so they have a permanent underclass of cheap votes to maintain their power.

  • @ShortVideosRUs
    @ShortVideosRUs Před 4 lety +430

    When the topic of public housing comes up, I often think about how Singapore did it so successfully when America failed so spectacularly. In Singapore public housing worked due to a combination of good policies. That included highly competent government oversight (the ruling party there prides itself on being known as the ones who housed everyone, so they have a large incentive to maintain the quality of housing), constant upkeep and remodeling, and making its residents buy instead of rent (well, these are technically 99-year leases, but that’s besides the point). Additionally, the government create units in each building that were affordable and desirable to its poor, middle, and upper classes, respectively. Then, when placing people in housing, they made sure it mixed people of different ethnicities (there was a big divide between ethnic Chinese and ethnic Malays in the city at the time) and socio-economic classes were together to prevent certain areas from becoming more desirable than others and ensure social cohesion. The government also worked hard to ensure there were ample public transit connections between the housing projects and places of business, so its residents had ready access to employment. It was as much of a work of social engineering as it was actual engineering.
    Basically, this is the opposite of what the US government did. Once built, public housing projects were not maintained or policed. These projects were often built in the peripheries of cities, and without decent public transportation. This, combined with most of its residents already being poor blacks, and this invariably helped perpetuate the cycle of poverty. The projects became seen as a place of crime, drug use, and poverty. America’s history or racism and classism lead to the belief that these projects were a failure due to the failures and inferiority of its residents, ignoring the absolutely awful government planning and mismanagement that went into creating the projects and subsequently leading them to fall into decay. Though, in defense of city governments, the decay of public housing also coincided with huge budget crises of the 1960’s and especially the 1970’s, where deindustrialization and white flight turned cities like Detroit from a vibrant manufacturing center to, well, Detroit. The federal government did little to help.
    America just seems to always fail at implementing large scale social welfare programs, or only ever commits to them half-heartedly.
    Luckily today, there seems to be some progress being made with housing. It’s becoming increasingly popular for the government to subsidize private housing developers to create affordable housing units. These are usually built as low-rise condos or town homes and are integrated into more affluent/middle class communities, or for every few normal housing units, one unit is an affordable unit. These units are actually quite nice, if modest, and are designed to blend into their communities, rather than be towering eyesore that advertise to everyone “the poor live here.” For Americans it seems, affordable housing is more achievable when done quietly through government subsidies to private developers than when done as massive public works projects.

    • @billfeld5883
      @billfeld5883 Před 3 lety +22

      You hit the nail on t he head, you have my vote!

    • @lenaely6146
      @lenaely6146 Před 3 lety +19

      Great info.
      American govt is a failure. The People are trying to get rid of them.
      The 60,70,80 year old plus members are the problem makers and consistent in their problem making and ineptitude.
      They left the under 60 members with nothing but corruption and ineptitude to follow as a plan.
      And potential new members are wasting their time because the system is already designed for failure; not success.
      🤷😬🙄

    • @mannygfigueroa8391
      @mannygfigueroa8391 Před 3 lety +8

      I love the part where you remind everyone that the American right loves to blame social or gasp socialist policies failing on a personal flaw or moral failing instead of blaming the ruling government at the time. The Government is like we failed and you have no one to blame but yourselves.
      Yes in order to have adequate funding not saying I agree with this or anything but yes, the middle class and upperclass must want and desire to live there. I've been homeless before. I know what it's like to always be around homeless people. It's way better to be around your friends or a healthy support system that's for sure.

    • @Bazzookie
      @Bazzookie Před 2 lety +4

      To be honest, the failure of the project housing in the United States was simply part of the entire failure that was the welfare system and the war on poverty. It's one of those policies that sounds good on paper and plays to people's emotions in that its saying, "yay we're helping the poor," but in reality what it created was a system where you were worse off if you sat right outside the threshold to receive welfare benefits creating zero incentive to work towards furthering your financial status and improving your living situation which in turn created a stagnant culture within poor communities, inner city communities particularly. Plus, it incentivized single motherhood by giving more benefits to single mothers which in turn made a father's responsibilities to his children in essence obsolete. In 1960 around 2/3 of black children were living in two parent households, but after the beginning of the war on poverty single parenthood within the black community began to skyrocket. Then there is the obvious increase of crime and everything else from project housing. Obviously there are plenty of other factors that have effected poor communities, particularly in the inner city, but I don't think the effect the welfare state had should be ignored.
      The main goal of the welfare state in most peoples minds would probably have been not to make life better as a poor man, but to help people get out of poverty entirely, I mean that is the "American dream" obviously, but what the welfare state was essentially like is giving a homeless man on the side of the road money. All your doing is giving him what he needs to continue the bad habits which are keeping him homeless in the first place be it alcoholism, serious drug addiction, etc. and money can't help to improve whatever other issues that person may be dealing with like mental health issues. To actually help a homeless man you have to give him the help he really needs. In hindsight, the welfare state feels as if it was genuinely intended as a program that was meant to keep poor people poor even if it actually wasn't

    • @trock7542
      @trock7542 Před 2 lety +2

      A 99 year lease is not a purchase. The state owns the property.

  • @c.s.5770
    @c.s.5770 Před 4 lety +189

    I love my dad for risking his life doing security in these buildings when I was young just to take care of us

    • @joshdaniel8729
      @joshdaniel8729 Před 4 lety +5

      high rises were built to accommodate the growing population. More people take up land space so they build buildings vertically to save land space.

    • @scatterthoughts
      @scatterthoughts Před 4 lety +57

      @@joshdaniel8729 that reply is astoundingly irrelevant

    • @jkknbvvbbj2574
      @jkknbvvbbj2574 Před 3 lety +7

      Lies wasn’t no security in the projects 🤣🤦🏾‍♀️

    • @ms.b14571
      @ms.b14571 Před 3 lety +6

      @@jkknbvvbbj2574 exactly, I lived there so I know.

    • @BlackNapoleon
      @BlackNapoleon Před 3 lety +9

      @@ms.b14571 yes there was, every project or building doesnt have on, there sill projects in nyc that still has it all depends on ssize and how close it is to a "good" place.

  • @strictnonconformist7369
    @strictnonconformist7369 Před 5 lety +50

    I've lived in nice 6 story apartment buildings in the Seattle area, and a practical problem not even hinted at with this is the slow elevator problem: to save money, they tend to have horribly inefficient elevators and not enough of them in such places, and that's in "luxury" apartment buildings. I wonder how many and how slow the elevators were in the projects, when they worked? When it's hard to quickly get in and out, human nature is to not do it very often due to too much friction, even if all your neighbors are friendly. The larger and taller a building, the less likely you are to know your neighbors which leads to a lack of social cohesion and friendliness because people only see each other when they have no real choice getting in and out of the building.

  • @MRTN13
    @MRTN13 Před 6 lety +440

    You forgot the car. You can't live in a suburb without one and the rise of car ownership and the suburb are closely related. Cities are always offer major job opportunities, especially for non-educated workers. So where should they live, in slums? High rise housing is just logical if there's no alternative for transportation.

    • @CityBeautiful
      @CityBeautiful  Před 6 lety +22

      Good point!

    • @jussayinmipeece1069
      @jussayinmipeece1069 Před 6 lety +24

      I think you may have COMPLETELY missed the entire premise of this video.Perhaps you should watch it again because if my instincts serve me right your opposition has more to do with a defense of the white suburbs than any real concern for working people.

    • @techblogger8323
      @techblogger8323 Před 6 lety +1

      MRTN13 it jumped from 20m to like 150m over night

    • @whong09
      @whong09 Před 6 lety +24

      We need high rise housing in SF and the bay area. Property values are way too high and it's starting to choke or at least severely pervert the growing tech industry. Walk around the bad neighborhoods in SF and you'll see the slums today are alive and well. Meanwhile the tech industry continues to grow and the wealthy become wealthier. This is not a safe situation.

    • @FindecanorNotGmail
      @FindecanorNotGmail Před 6 lety +28

      I live in a 9-story house in a Western-European mixed-income suburb. 15 minutes by subway to the city centre. And that is pretty average over here.
      It is not about the high-rise but about city planning and politics.

  • @EmperorBeef
    @EmperorBeef Před 3 lety +67

    I don't think the problem with projects was necessarily form (height/density), but rather context (location/land-use). High-rise public housing can work if it's spread out across various neighbourhoods and integrated with mixed uses (retail, employment, recreation)

  • @cashtronaut2006
    @cashtronaut2006 Před 4 lety +357

    Looks like Soviet apartment blocs

    • @guilhermecavalcantevieira5730
      @guilhermecavalcantevieira5730 Před 3 lety +24

      Yeah. They're one and the same.

    • @Larkinchance
      @Larkinchance Před 3 lety +48

      There was always a shortage but once you got one the rent was very. When the Soviet Union collapse people inherited their apartments and no one was evicted.. In the US today a Tsunami of eviction is approaching....

    • @dkoda840
      @dkoda840 Před 3 lety +2

      Is kinda the point many of it

    • @emanuellopes8773
      @emanuellopes8773 Před 3 lety +2

      minus one thing

    • @ethakis
      @ethakis Před 3 lety +5

      That's exactly what they are. And given the time period I wouldn't be surprised if the people designing them were socialists.

  • @MondoBeno
    @MondoBeno Před 6 lety +173

    Public housing buildings are usually built with shitty materials that fall apart:
    1. The bricks aren't fired long enough, so they crack in the winter.
    2. The walls are cinderblock, and the builders don't bother to drywall.
    3. The windows are made of cheap metal, so they get stuck.
    4. The building is placed far from the sidewalk, so it's isolated.

    • @whackamolechamp
      @whackamolechamp Před 5 lety +10

      Good list, I would add to number 3. - Window Glass is the thickness of 2 dimes stacked one on top of each other.

    • @tannwich5350
      @tannwich5350 Před 5 lety +43

      1. There is no supervision, though hundreds / thousands of children live there.
      2. No removal of tenants who attack others.
      3. No stores or needed services on premises.
      4. No labor contribution required of tenants, as in co-ops, such as elevator monitoring.
      5. No locked entry, as in other high rises / multi-tenant buildings.

    • @pinktoes3875
      @pinktoes3875 Před 5 lety +1

      @WHATEVER'S CLEVER u want to so bad.... just say the R-word...

    • @marcolas1982
      @marcolas1982 Před 5 lety +3

      When have we ever seen people shoved into warehouses like that? You speak as if you know how you would act if you were shoved into that environment.

    • @sanjaymatsuda4504
      @sanjaymatsuda4504 Před 5 lety +12

      If the buildings were placed near the sidewalk, you would complain that they take valuable sunlight away from sidewalks and streets.

  • @moosefactory133
    @moosefactory133 Před 5 lety +61

    Not exactly a"deluxe apartment in the sky"

    • @davidfreeman3083
      @davidfreeman3083 Před 2 lety

      Well definitely not public housing of course. But in the case of private housing that's a different story. Such things are very common now.

  • @ianhomerpura8937
    @ianhomerpura8937 Před 3 lety +86

    Singapore was successful in their high rise housing.
    Seems the US and the UK merely failed to implement what to do next: integrate these housing projects to mass transit and build amenities and accompanying facilities nearby.

    • @ianhomerpura8937
      @ianhomerpura8937 Před 2 lety +3

      @@Tolpuddle581 Thamesmead was not connected to transit networks and now jurisdiction is given to the private sector because, well, Thatcher. Of course it will fail.

    • @anomalaic
      @anomalaic Před 2 lety +2

      Vienna has also done well with public housing, some of it high-rise

    • @Dave01611
      @Dave01611 Před 2 lety +1

      thing is though a lot of residents of council towers in the UK would actually quite like to live there if councils were actually given money to maintain them

    • @flyingpiggie979
      @flyingpiggie979 Před 2 lety +2

      There are estates in London that had their own facilities, shops, public spaces, close to public transport and they still failed. Whole place fallen into disrepair and squalor. Councils kept concentrating problem tenants in certain towers and estates, worsening the problem.

    • @ianhomerpura8937
      @ianhomerpura8937 Před 2 lety

      @@flyingpiggie979 just curious what do you mean by "problem tenants".

  • @WizardTrixx
    @WizardTrixx Před 5 lety +2172

    American city planning seems to mesh with racism frequently

    • @chrispacheco8590
      @chrispacheco8590 Před 5 lety +178

      It's up to individuals to keep there living situations clean, and crime free

    • @Upgraderednight
      @Upgraderednight Před 5 lety +209

      Chris Pacheco true but what happens when they don’t have the means to do just that?

    • @wclifton968gameplaystutorials
      @wclifton968gameplaystutorials Před 5 lety +99

      blame the racist democrats who destroyed communities that once housed ethnic minorities which also tried to become wealthy...

    • @wes3591
      @wes3591 Před 5 lety +42

      Mr Upgrade they will have to work more or strive for more than partying and sex

    • @PBelle-ok8pl
      @PBelle-ok8pl Před 5 lety +84

      @@iamcleaver6854 - yes deporting people stolen from their land would have make a lot of sense 😬

  • @Pickk
    @Pickk Před 6 lety +109

    You glossed over the part of why they failed. There was stigma by non public housing recipients, causing the building to be occupied by only low income residents. This increased disrepair and crime. High rises were not the problem. The lack of integration to the community was the problem. Subsidized high rise buildings with minimum % of section 8 distributed throughout would be a much better solution. Furthermore, residents that escaped the need for public housing would need to leave their existing community to find new housing. Upward mobility in the same neighborhood is an important part of building a strong community.

    • @CityBeautiful
      @CityBeautiful  Před 6 lety +12

      Thanks for adding to the conversation. Good info!

    • @AmbientMorality
      @AmbientMorality Před 5 lety +3

      Rent control would also help

    • @KevinBalch-dt8ot
      @KevinBalch-dt8ot Před 4 lety +1

      Section 8 simply spreads out crime. Several years ago, there was a good article showing this happening around Memphis in the liberal magazine “The Atlantic”.

    • @davidfreeman3083
      @davidfreeman3083 Před 2 lety +3

      @@AmbientMorality Actually no. If u control the rent too much landlords would just stop putting their units onto the market, and buy/develop far less units for rental, causing a severe shortage.

    • @krunkle5136
      @krunkle5136 Před 2 lety +3

      @@davidfreeman3083 sounds like an argument for public housing. A competent local government can develop more housing regardless.

  • @mburk8329
    @mburk8329 Před 6 lety +219

    The removal of Dad’s by the system helped destroy many of these project communities.Pruitt Igoe in St. Louis initially admitted needy women and children only.

    • @brianjackson3885
      @brianjackson3885 Před 6 lety +15

      M Burk what they know about that?youre absolutely right though

    • @andreanacalhoun9454
      @andreanacalhoun9454 Před 6 lety +4

      democrats know free money no matter how small the amount is like crack.

    • @Unlitedsoul
      @Unlitedsoul Před 6 lety +31

      kyuketsukitomodachi No, they didn't do any of that. These families were only told that if there was no male figure in the household above the age of 17, they would be eligible for double the handouts. If you did a little bit of research, you can find that many of the governmental agencies actually had requirements of their bureaucrats to express these points to each and every applicant. There were even flyers and mail notices which brought up these points.
      Oh, and let's not forget that you can actually hear LBJ mention all of this as part of his strategy in the recordings he had of the oval office and have long since been released to the American public. His entire "war on poverty" was designed to enslave impoverished black voters to the Democratic Party by gradually worsening their living situation and increasing their reliance upon governmental welfare assistance.

    • @texasyankee3512
      @texasyankee3512 Před 6 lety +24

      No that is exactly what the government did -- destroyed poor families across the country.

    • @TheManWhoTypes
      @TheManWhoTypes Před 6 lety +3

      Unlitedsoul but how does that force anyone to do anything? I agree the democrats have turned inner cities into voter plantations. However the responsibility ultimately falls on the people who choose to give up freedom for financial security.

  • @froztbytesyoutubealt3201
    @froztbytesyoutubealt3201 Před 4 lety +83

    I was listening the whole way through and I still didn't get a straight answer.

    • @KevinBalch-dt8ot
      @KevinBalch-dt8ot Před 4 lety +12

      The straight answer is RACIST!

    • @RunaurufuOfficial
      @RunaurufuOfficial Před 3 lety +9

      @@KevinBalch-dt8ot well actually no... answer is that it is cheaper and faster to make one high rise instead of many med or low rise ones...

    • @cable30
      @cable30 Před 3 lety

      Also i see it easier since it one solid building they dont gotta do different size places and ea apartment is same size and have same details give or take not all bathrooms are on same side or gotta have stairs and elevator to go down anytime or up anytime. so variety details to have in one big like building. compared to any med or small places so gotta make sure all the places are right size and all.

    • @Sir.VicsMasher
      @Sir.VicsMasher Před 3 lety +3

      He says it at 1:31, 1:43, 1:49, 2:34, 5:33 that it is white people's fault.

    • @dailysmiles
      @dailysmiles Před 3 lety

      Still hasn’t been answered

  • @artemiszero2153
    @artemiszero2153 Před 5 lety +2

    Fantastic video. They are all simple to understand, plus educational, and I'm very interested in learning about all these topics that you talk about. Great job

  • @halincandenza7640
    @halincandenza7640 Před 6 lety +407

    You didn't really make clear what's supposedly bad about high rise buildings.

    • @halincandenza7640
      @halincandenza7640 Před 6 lety +69

      The video also talks about the shift away from high rise public housing and makes it seem as if the type of building had something to do with the crime ridden neighborhoods.

    • @CityBeautiful
      @CityBeautiful  Před 6 lety +80

      Thanks for the critique -- yes I should have been more explicit about why they were bad.

    • @chongjunxiang3002
      @chongjunxiang3002 Před 6 lety +49

      City Beautiful More like why they are suck in America, while the Asians can live in better quality in their high-rise.

    • @MarloSoBalJr
      @MarloSoBalJr Před 6 lety +36

      Insert : *crack epidemic of 1970s*

    • @jamespatrick6939
      @jamespatrick6939 Před 6 lety +51

      a highrise without maintenance and security breeds crime, creates a sense of loneliness and when a disaster such as a fire or gas leak occurs the number of likely casualties grows exponentially, plus no one wants them in their neighborhood, all this is of course talking about public housing not luxury or upper middle class apartment towers

  • @isaacng123456789
    @isaacng123456789 Před 6 lety +320

    While US gave up on high rise resident buildings, Hong Kong embraces it.

    • @nicolasvenegas9808
      @nicolasvenegas9808 Před 6 lety +116

      there is a lot of space in the US, not so much in Hong Kong

    • @giovannichao4154
      @giovannichao4154 Před 6 lety +23

      And so has tokyo seoul singapore etc etc

    • @chongjunxiang3002
      @chongjunxiang3002 Před 6 lety +25

      Lit.: While the rest of the world promote public housing, US is demolish them. Is that means the end of public housing is inevitable and future trend? Or is just the America is going backward?

    • @CJCS1111
      @CJCS1111 Před 6 lety +29

      I'm not sure the US gave up on high-rise living at all. There are many going up all over the place- all the time. However, obviously, like this video pointed out, public housing is a different story.

    • @juch3
      @juch3 Před 6 lety +2

      Owen Major yet they don't have the same problem with American public housing.

  • @Bobrogers99
    @Bobrogers99 Před 4 lety +9

    Mixed housing and mixed use can create a community that works.

    • @holger_p
      @holger_p Před 3 lety +5

      But you cannot force people to mix. You have to make it as attractive, that they see an advantage before they move in.

  • @SeanBennett
    @SeanBennett Před 4 lety +3

    The video explained why they were built, but made it sound like hi-rise public housing is somehow inevitably doomed to failure, which is absolutely not the case...

  • @donegan50
    @donegan50 Před 6 lety +146

    I'm currently reading a book called "The Color of Law" which covers a lot about housing and segregation during this period. Recommend to anyone who's wants to get into more detail.

    • @VMohdude-
      @VMohdude- Před 3 lety +1

      I really gotta get to reading that book

    • @elizabethshearin8127
      @elizabethshearin8127 Před 2 lety

      Who is the Author name ?

    • @richardperez6945
      @richardperez6945 Před 2 lety

      Also the fact that you have to be “referred” in order to buy or rent, when they really just mean “you have to know or be white”.

  • @Patchuchan
    @Patchuchan Před 6 lety +17

    One thing the execution of the housing towers project towers was poor.
    The high rise complexes that were built lacked a lot of the features of Le Corbusier's original concept.
    Instead boring buildings that were pretty much warehouses for people were built and they were poorly policed and maintained.

  • @RodrigoColimodio
    @RodrigoColimodio Před 4 lety +10

    Well, to be fair. Le Corbusier was a little out of place with his plan of Paris. Basically he wanted to demolish all the city center...

  • @KingMK31
    @KingMK31 Před 5 lety +19

    I love this type of housing structure, in places like Spain for example its beautiful. Its all about keeping the peace in this type of environment for it to work well.

  • @TheEwing69
    @TheEwing69 Před 5 lety +40

    The housing projects that Good Times was set in, was also torn down, many years ago.

  • @marellamofo
    @marellamofo Před 2 lety +3

    I lived in the Robert Taylor projects. My family moved in a year after they were built, I think 1962. I have wonderful memories. Both my parents lived in those slummed neighborhoods as kids prior to the buildings being built. We did move out long before the demolition. The building that I lived in was the very first building torn down.

  • @ralph1628
    @ralph1628 Před 5 lety +1

    Excellent vid, saw this in my feed and clicked. Subbed.

  • @regular_max9190
    @regular_max9190 Před 6 lety +16

    High-rise Housing is a good idea that was poorly implemented

    • @uploadvidz4490
      @uploadvidz4490 Před 4 lety +2

      That can be said about a few other social institutions of the 20th Century

  • @ChrisBournea
    @ChrisBournea Před 6 lety +4

    Great insights, very informative video. Thank you!

  • @joseluiz7017
    @joseluiz7017 Před 5 lety +2

    Great vid! I want to see what else you got on this channel. I see this vid sparked a lot of convo and debate. You have a new sub

  • @lowyieldforeffort6996
    @lowyieldforeffort6996 Před 4 lety +12

    Great video! I grew up West of the Chicago suburbs in the '90s, so I've always heard about what a terrible idea high rise public housing was and what a lasting, damaging effect it had on society. My dad (who went to architecture school at one point) had no shortage of ideas about how to improve public housing. I don't live in public housing, but my current housing situation is quite similar to the ideas he described. It's a small complex of low-rise buildings in a decent neighborhood, not far from the center of town. The buildings are well-constructed, but they're obviously old, so rent is super low. We're a mixed tenant population (both ethnically and demographically) and we all hold jobs. It's not a perfect arrangement by any means, but we make it work. I hope the current public housing model provides individuals and families with a similar quality of life.

  • @TheModernInvestor
    @TheModernInvestor Před 6 lety +543

    I LOVE videos like this, it gives a glimpse into history, even if some parts of it aren't as comfortable as we would like it to be. Thank you very much for making these.

    • @ThinkerHaistTV
      @ThinkerHaistTV Před 6 lety

      The Modern Investor Do you invest in cryptocurrency?

    • @leobukalov3568
      @leobukalov3568 Před 6 lety +4

      The Modern Investor fuck u bro u can't tear down the projects in NYC where ppl supposed live at shits expensive boi stfu and check yah privilege

    • @CyberFenix000
      @CyberFenix000 Před 6 lety

      Leo Bukalov is a bluepilled /pol/ack

    • @domanisera318
      @domanisera318 Před 6 lety

      The Modern Investor As a lover of History Indeed this is a gift for me.

    • @urbaneyes2535
      @urbaneyes2535 Před 6 lety +1

      You don't have to live in NYC, one of the most expensive places in the world lol.

  • @funny-video-YouTube-channel
    @funny-video-YouTube-channel Před 6 lety +331

    High rise buildings are nice, if they are about 10 to 20 levels, and very *well spaced from other buildings.*
    4 large trees between the buildings is nice to have too !

    • @Quast
      @Quast Před 6 lety +19

      I would still say anyone would favor high-rise building that never exceed 7 levels at max, and such that avoid long corridors.
      And yeah they have to be spaced in some sort of context. If they are spaced individually, just one after another there is something very off putting about them.

    • @tourritaylor918
      @tourritaylor918 Před 6 lety +3

      Yes they are but oh boy if there's a fire.. May God be with you

    • @ProducerJakeyJam
      @ProducerJakeyJam Před 6 lety +7

      It seems stupid to me to build higher than you can walk. An elevator might be nice, but there will be one day when it is broken or they will be a fire. So more then 5 to 7 stories are too much in my view. Personally I don't even like 5 stories because I think thats too gigantic for humans (depending also on the architecture, as Gründerzeit buildings can handle this really good)

    • @Matp345
      @Matp345 Před 6 lety +15

      a bit off subject. Im a firm believer in "to each his own" but apartment buildings are terrible. In my late teens my family got stuck in one for 8 months, wasn't even a cheap place and We felt robbed of 8 months of our life's. The fact that the walls, floor and ceiling you rent or buy is attached to someone else sickens me. I love my huge yard, garage, deck, porch, driveway and its all mine. I could sleep on the lawn if I wanted. Some people hate having this much to take care of and cant imagine having to worry about all of it but again.. "to each his own"

    • @kyle857
      @kyle857 Před 6 lety +2

      epSos.de You just described the projects.

  • @gentuxable
    @gentuxable Před 3 lety +8

    I love living in my high rise building in Switzerland. I have a great view, cool and fresh air and because there are many people here, there is good connectivity by road and many shops close by. Although there are a couple other high rise buildings in the vicinity it is not like those blocks but rather with varying heights and shapes. I think that makes a big difference.

    • @gentuxable
      @gentuxable Před 3 lety +1

      @GPAGE actually I am an immigrant with disabilities. That didn’t stop me from being successful. That is Switzerland where anyone can rise if they deliver.

  • @SapioiT
    @SapioiT Před 10 měsíci +2

    Honestly, having 4 stories or 5 floors (ground level + 4 levels above that, optionally another level below to make it 6 floors/levels, with 1m tall windows on the top of the wall, for the building's utilities to get some natural light, for when maintenance and repairs are needed) is the best, because you don't need an elevator. Sure, an elevator helps, but even without it you can still get from the top level to the bottom level. Also, they should have a thick metal roof (which should be either aluminium or weathering steel, with the weathering steel much cheaper than the aluminium and they're both rust-resistant). A few buildings should be allowed to have 10 or 15 stories (levels above the ground)
    The roof doesn't even need to be big enough to fit underneath it, but you can make it as the 4th level if you want, and sell less units due to reduced space, but instead give those at least one of those units a view of the whole city and the rest of the units a view of two halves of the city with the side parts not visible. Ideally have the balcony with windows from half the height of the wall to the top of the wall near where the wall meets the roof, and have them open and have clothes lines so you can dry your clothes in the sun, have the balconies larger so people can sunbath there or stay under direct sunlight while still staying inside your house, and so people can grow food there with room to move between layers of crops on both sides.
    Oh, and use reflective-metal pipes going from the side walls to the inside of the rooms with frosty plastic and a slider which can cover the frosty plastic, to have "sun tunnels" or use natural sun to light up the interior when its sunny outside, to save up on lighting inner rooms like the toilet or the hall, and for the stairway used by the whole building you can have a large plastic lens and a large pipe going from the roof top to the underground, with the same system of frosty windows on each level illuminating from the top of the stairway and from right underneath the stairway for the other stairway. At most, you might need 2 such sun tunnel pipes for the stairway, one for each side, to make sure both sides get enough sunlight to not need other lights during the day, and you can have a tiny solar panel which to keep the electric lights turned off at night and which to turn them back on when it gets dark.
    And you can also zone the ground level as a commercial area, or at least zone an area right around the building as commercial area while still allowing the commercial area to be technically part of the same building or using the same wall even if you need to have a thicker wall to have both the thickness of the residential area and the thickness of the commercial area added together, so you can have shops on the ground floor so people can buy their groceries from there, so they don't need a car to get the daily necessities. Oh, and all commercial structures which require heating or baking things would require to have two heat pipes going to the top floor, one outside the city block for use in the summer, or when hot-enough, and another one inside the city block for use in the winter to also heat up some rooms passively. And the air going inside the building should be filtered, including using a water filter (using a pump to send the gas through a pipe spiraling inside a bucket and with tiny holes angled slightly clockwise and towards the outside, to get the gas bubbling, and having it at an angle helps with mixing the gas and water together, to make a sludge which can be harvested and turned into tar or something else, as a byproduct of keeping the inside pipes and the air around the building clean.
    And use cement formed in molds to make the facade (outer shell) of the building look fancy and welcoming, as opposed to a flat wall of the concrete jungle. And the facade doesn't even need to be thick, it can be at most 5 cm or 2 inch in thickness, if using plastic fibers to keep it together (i.e. a plastic-wire mesh acting like an armature), for the bigger pieces (i.e. the whole level or more), or half of that (2.5 cm or 1 inch) for smaller pieces (i.e. strips around 2x4 yards or 2x4 meters or smaller). Each building can have a different set of facades, even if the only difference between two nearby buildings is one of the molds for the facades having a different model, or part of a mold being different (if the molds are modular, i.e. screwing them together before the waxing/oiling/vaselineing/lubing before the pour).
    This is how city blocks could be made to feel welcoming again. And they could still be made to look unique, by varying the colors of some parts, without altering the structure by much. i.e. one building could have the accents made with cement which looks like granite, another one with cement which looks like marble (including the marbling in both), yet another one made to look like dolomite, another one made to look and add a bit of cement pigments to the mixture, and you get even more possible variety. And if you use different cement mixtures for different depths of the mold, and let them cure (at least partially) before adding more cement, you can get even more color variety, especially if you also angle the molds to get some other parts colored, like adding highlights and shading to the pieces (i.e. a brighter color towards the sky and a darker color towards the ground).
    And being able to customize the outside of the building could help give the residents a sense of belonging, a sense of being part of a community, and maybe encourage them to help make or maintain the outside of the building. Getting the whole building re-painted every decade or so wouldn't cost that much, and repairing the broken parts would help spot problems before they become too big.

  • @madst1905
    @madst1905 Před 6 lety +177

    Thank you for :
    1. Not putting terrible dubstep/music over everything.
    2. Being clear in speech
    That is all. Video is great! I live in Denmark, so why should I give a F' about this topic? I don't know! You made it interresting and I feel wiser after seeing this video - so thanks :)

    • @inbankwetrustshakur3523
      @inbankwetrustshakur3523 Před 5 lety +2

      Are there no projects in Denmark?

    • @TheQwertyNinja
      @TheQwertyNinja Před 5 lety

      Beka Shakur Yes there is. I too live in Denmark and the area called Brøndby Strand (Brøndby Beach) is a great example of these high rise projects

    • @tannwich5350
      @tannwich5350 Před 5 lety

      @@TheQwertyNinja What are the conditions like? Anything like those in the US?

    • @ABC-ABC1234
      @ABC-ABC1234 Před 5 lety

      @@tannwich5350 Nothing is like US!!! I have seen cities in Iraq that look better than some parts of the US (and not even exagerating here!) The difference with Europe, is that racism isn't as visible as in USA where the whole system is build on segregating communities and discriminating people just by their skin tone! In most European nations, you can actually even go to college even if you're from a low income family. I would say come to Europe in the summer and travel different countries since everything is nearby with a train. It broadens the way you see the world. And not just Europe for that matter.

    • @tannwich5350
      @tannwich5350 Před 5 lety

      @@ABC-ABC1234 Interesting, and wouldn't I love to visit Europe! Here, lots of low income 1st-gens go to college, and are actively recruited and supported, but I understand it is easier financially, if not academically, in Europe.
      The only race-indifferent place I've ever been to is Toronto. It was so peaceful, and people of every color and country of origin (like the Lincolnwood area in Chicago - 102 languages spoken at my kid's school) - but I have to say I missed the high energy and vibrancy that comes from having the strong, independent black, Latino/a, and other communities here. All the black people blended in, which is nice, but there seemed to be little if any actual black culture. I realize there are horrible parts to the segregation - which is getting so much better, especially during Obama's term, except for the poverty - but I wish we could keep the good parts and that something great emerges from it all.
      Also, from what I can tell, the worst places to live are the Kowloon Walled City in China, the favelas of Brazil and Manila, and the slums of Mumbai. I, a relatively privileged sort, (I haven't had to kill or sell drugs to eat yet) would probably not last a week in any of these, nor in NYCHA.

  • @marksmith8079
    @marksmith8079 Před 6 lety +104

    It wasn't designed to fail- it failed because all the authorities wanted it to fail.

    • @illumiNOTme326
      @illumiNOTme326 Před 6 lety +1

      Marxists Democrats are why

    • @rob0318
      @rob0318 Před 6 lety +1

      That or black people

    • @keldonmcfarland2969
      @keldonmcfarland2969 Před 6 lety +4

      No. The authorities wanted the projects to succeed. President Johnson spent billions to build them.
      The projects failed because the residents knew that they could never purchase a unit, because it was government property. The residents destroyed them.

    • @Unlitedsoul
      @Unlitedsoul Před 6 lety +9

      Keldon McFarland Citing LBJ as evidence of the government wanting anything associated with non-white minorities to succeed is simply stupid. Johnson ranks with the likes of Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson as the most racist presidents in American history. LBJ's own agenda with the "War on Poverty" was to make minorities subjective slaves to the Democratic Party by increasing their reliance upon governmental support. He spent billions knowing that it would worsen the lives of impoverished blacks (primarily), while under the guise of aiding them. The entire program was designed to fail in it's publicly addressed goal, but succeed in LBJ's personal agenda. If you actually research the history of most of these housing projects, you find that somewhere along the line white, "progressive" Democrats forced budget cuts which would have provided the required maintenance and security to keep these places operating in a humane manner. To go along with this, it is often those same white progressives who rezoned the areas around these housing projects specifically to limit economic growth.
      All of this to keep black voters in line with the Democratic Party through heightened reliance of welfare programs of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. The major fallout happened when federal subsidies were reduced or cut because the local and state authorities refused to uphold their end of the deal. The federal government continued to feed billions of dollars into these projects, only to see local and state governments siphon it all away... hundreds of millions of it ending up directly in the pockets of corrupt Democrats, or worse, into the hands of mobsters with maintenance contracts through their construction companies which were rarely lived up to in any form whatsoever.

    • @chrisbrunson948
      @chrisbrunson948 Před 6 lety

      Keldon McFarland billions of other people's money.

  • @m.b.1702
    @m.b.1702 Před 3 lety +2

    Thanks for posting🏢🏢🏢Many folks didn't know the history of the projects!!!

  • @joeyw4356
    @joeyw4356 Před rokem +1

    Thanks for Sharing!

  • @chatnoir1224
    @chatnoir1224 Před 6 lety +57

    Very nice video. Want to share some info: I live in Moscow, Russia. Hi-rise buildings were a standard in USSR like one-family houses was a standard in US. But in our case, soviet hi-res buildings didn't become ghettos and are still most common housing solution. The reason for that is, well, there was no house market in USSR ( people waited for years to get flat from state for free), and inhabitants of one building could be from different social stratas. In one building there could live scientists, military officers, workers, alcoholics and antisocial people, people of different nationalities , and people of different age. There could be better micro district, there could be worse micro districts, but, in general, the quality of life was the same.(1990-1998 was a shit time for Russia, but I remember how i was shocked as a kid, how horrible cities were in American movies and how "Candy" beautiful suburbs were ). But now, the situation is changing. Our house development companies went crazy and started to ignore soviet building standards: thinking about profit, they started to build tall houses very close to each other and they don't care about infrastructure (I live in 8 floor tall house in a micro district build in 1960, and i love the fact that everything i need is in 5-10 walk minute, including subway). People buy those flats, but in time, those micro districts will become ghettos... Check this out: varlamov.ru/ 2225584.html varlamov.ru/ 1845663.html
    I personally believe, that city, as a complex system, should have different housing solution. The majority of resident house should be medium (4-7 floor tall), as they have best personal comfort/city efficiency balance. But there is a place for big and tall apartment complexes and areas for single-family houses.

    • @chatnoir1224
      @chatnoir1224 Před 6 lety +2

      I don't support it:
      1) Government tries to save house development industry. They say it costs will be payed by investors, but i really doubt that. Highly possible it will be paid from the budget, which is fucked up.
      2) There is little details about new houses, new districts and rules, but citizens are forced to make decision now: do they want to join the renovation or not. In Russia we call it "To buy a cat in a bag" - to make a decision without enough information.
      3) New houses will have more floors. Government tells that it will be 7 - 11 floor max, but it is hard to believe. It is possible that there could be 20-30 floor buildings.
      4) More floors means more pressure on infrastructure. There is little room in kindergardens, schools and hospitals already. More cars on road and crowds in subway.
      5) Besides, there already exist government program to demolish old building and construct new houses for families instead. It it a slow program, but it works. They demolish not whole micro district (like new renovation program wants) but house by house.

    • @kefirmsk
      @kefirmsk Před 6 lety +8

      I'm also from Moscow, but currently live in Minsk :)
      There is another economical reason why they're building all these horrible microdistricts: Moscow (and in less degree St. Petersburg) is pretty much the only place in Russia where an average person can have a reasonable salary to sustain a somewhat good quality of life. My speculation is that about 30% of all Russian population is concentrated in Moscow and it's satelites. Demand creates supply. Add here outdated soviet building standartds and people's little knowlage about what is considered a decent housing in the developed world... and we get this. Also I need to add that this housing isn't cheap at all. A two-rooms apartment (it's not the same as two-bedrooms in the US where you also have living room, here you will only have two rooms + kitchen + bathroom/toilet) will cost AT MINIMUM 8,000,000 RUB and an average salary in moscow is about 60,000 RUB a month (if you trust ROSSTAT). As you can see you will need at least 10 years to save all your salary to buy one (a half if you have a working spouse). OR you can get a mortage with 12+% of year interest (as majority of buyers do).

    • @chatnoir1224
      @chatnoir1224 Před 6 lety +4

      Michael Miriti agreed. I was born in Moscow, and must say that Moscow is a parasite on Russian. All major finance and taxes are concentrated here. We need to decentralized country and make regional economy rise, so people would rather stay there.

    • @dearyvettetn4489
      @dearyvettetn4489 Před 6 lety +10

      chatnoir1224, I was born and raised in the projects in New York City in the late 1960s thought the late 1980s. The projects I grew up in, in the South Bronx used to be a nice place to grow up. There was a mix of poor, working and middle-class families and management was very selective about who they rented to. My family was on a long waiting list to get an apartment and because my parents were married and my father was serving in the Navy in Vietnam, we got one. We had nice playgrounds, basketball and handball courts, and the green spaces were regularly kept up. There was even a police department assigned just for the projects that was run by the New York City Housing Authority. We had it a lot better than some of our neighbors outside the projects who still lived in the old five-story tenement buildings that were typical in New York City. Things took a nosedive in the 80s when control of the projects past from the state of New York to the federal government. That's when the budgets for building maintenance, screening perspective tenants and security were slashed. The crack epidemic was the final nail in the coffin for the projects, in my opinion. It was the first time I had ever heard gunshots fired in my neighborhood and since I was old enough to move away to attend college by that time, I did.
      Commenters are correct when they say that the height of the buildings have nothing to do with why the project failed. There are still plenty of high-rise buildings all over New York City to this day that are clean, safe and operating just fine. The differences is that they're provide better (albeit private) security and maintenance. If the state and/or federal government cared about the projects they should have continued to maintain them as was originally intended instead of passing them around like hot potatoes and leaving them to rot.

    • @chatnoir1224
      @chatnoir1224 Před 6 lety +2

      Thanks for sharing your story. I agree: doesn't matter where which side of Atlantic are we, effective maintenance and diverse population (with majority people from working and middle class ) is the key for success Project/Hi-rise.

  • @kingramses8361
    @kingramses8361 Před 6 lety +15

    5:44 Wonder if this was part of the reason Kendrick's dad moved out of Chicago.
    "He came from the streets the Robert Taylor Homes
    Southside Projects, Chiraq, the Terror Dome
    Drove to California with a woman on him and 500 dollars"
    - Kendrick Lamar; Duckworth

  • @marcuscheng2507
    @marcuscheng2507 Před 2 lety

    This is a great video!

  • @gigglysamentz2021
    @gigglysamentz2021 Před 4 lety +2

    Very nice footage!

  • @wannacashmeoutside
    @wannacashmeoutside Před 5 lety +4

    I just discovered this channel and omg love it!! Gah I have so much to watch and learn now lol.

  • @CallieMasters5000
    @CallieMasters5000 Před 6 lety +1077

    But why do high rises fail? Why can't people live there in peace like in Hong Kong or Singapore? What make Americans (of any race) unable to get along in a high rise situation?

    • @gmane6340
      @gmane6340 Před 6 lety +471

      Callie Masters Because theyre low income, some in the housings use illegal ways to get money. The US is different from singapore. Way more crime, guns are easy to get, and gangs are more rampant.

    • @jskwk2424
      @jskwk2424 Před 6 lety +125

      Callie Masters In Finland are build many apartment block building areas near cities all the time, and they are coming increasily popular when people move from countryside low rise houses to urban areas. Its just easy to just rent new apartment than owning low rise suburban house.

    • @MRTOWELRACK
      @MRTOWELRACK Před 6 lety +432

      Because these projects are uninspired prison-like monoliths, designed in eras where racism often took priority over good planning. They're too often improperly serviced and have emergency issues like inadequate fire preparation.

    • @djpioneer937
      @djpioneer937 Před 6 lety +273

      I guess you never heard of the "kowloon walled city" in China. It was the largest housing project in the world, a pure shit hole. New York and San francisco have high rise condos/apt over 20 stories high that "work" because they're occupied by rich and upper middle-class.

    • @tebogo568
      @tebogo568 Před 6 lety +74

      They cant live in peace bcos there is lots of drugs and guns

  • @dshoec
    @dshoec Před 3 lety +4

    It sounded like the biggest issues was funding if they went with the cheapest option. They also didn't have the funding to maintain them so if something broke it was broke for a long time. Also, with so many people in such a tight space, I bet there was a long waiting list to get anything done.

  • @tyler-qm3jc
    @tyler-qm3jc Před 5 lety +6

    Am I the only one that’s gets chills when I think about Cabrini greens

    • @somedude9528
      @somedude9528 Před 5 lety +1

      +classy tingzz Whenever I think of Cabrini Greens, I think of "Good Times."
      That show was great.

    • @noraarmenta1986
      @noraarmenta1986 Před 4 lety

      Ur not the only one I get chills too

    • @pisskelly7161
      @pisskelly7161 Před 3 lety +1

      Candy man 🤡

  • @AndroidsDontDance
    @AndroidsDontDance Před 6 lety +6

    At 6:14 thanks for including the Hawthorne Park area in Philadelphia in this video. It's an excellent example of what the original public housing should have been. There used to be high rise public housing on this site but like all of it's day, it fell to neglect and crime and was demolished in 1999. Planners built new homes to match those of the houses already in existence and mixed both public and private housing to mix up the classes. That neighborhood is beautiful and you'd never know most of those homes were public housing. That is how it should have gone in the early 1900s.

    • @gspice4592
      @gspice4592 Před 6 lety

      i've been to hawthorne park before and i didn't even realize it was public housing until i read your comment! incredible!

  • @anitarichmond8930
    @anitarichmond8930 Před 5 lety +23

    I found this video to be quite informative. I have recently for the first time found it necessary to move into public housing and yes I agree that it is intended for middle class people who are struggling thankfully I qualified because up to that point I and my six-year-old was sleeping on the floor at of my adult children's home until I was able to get back on my feet so I very much appreciate this opportunity for a fresh start... God Bless America 🇺🇸

    • @stephaneouellette7943
      @stephaneouellette7943 Před 5 lety +2

      So glad you have a place for you and your child.God bless you Anita.

    • @Lopyswine
      @Lopyswine Před 5 lety

      So how exactly do you have an adult child and a 6 year old?

    • @paulinbrooklyn
      @paulinbrooklyn Před 3 lety +2

      UCLAJediKnight
      Well, if Anita Richmond is the anonymized screen name for Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, her firstborn child (Prince Charles) was born 14 November 1948 and her youngest (Prince Edward) was born 10 March 1964. Therefore, when Prince Edward turned six in March 1970, Prince Charles would have been 21 if I did the maths correctly (ie, an adult). And it is believed that all four of The Queen’s children have the same baby daddy.
      Any other questions?

  • @nope2dat
    @nope2dat Před 5 lety +40

    As a modernist fan it always frustrates me how Jencks among other postmodernists did such a good job of connecting all the problems of social housing of the time: The crime and state of dilapidation to modernist principles and design rather than real causes like segregation, lack of investment, wide unemployment in the 70s, shoddy craftsmanship etc

  • @grind-n-find214
    @grind-n-find214 Před 5 lety

    Thank you for this!

  • @ernestfox4880
    @ernestfox4880 Před 6 lety +99

    Down with low-income, high rise, public housing projects, and welcome over priced, high-rise condominiums.

    • @daniellereid7576
      @daniellereid7576 Před 6 lety +2

      Ernest Fox ryte

    • @jm036
      @jm036 Před 6 lety

      High rise buildings are being replaced with houses all over the world. They look awful and are bad for your mental health.

    • @Santor-
      @Santor- Před 2 lety +1

      @Please and Thank You Does it make a difference WHERE the poor live? It would seem whatever area they went to would be poor, cause, well, poor people live there now, so if they stay or go away...they cant run away from their poverty. Housing plans doesnt solve poverty. Work and managing education and finances do.

  • @Bnio
    @Bnio Před 6 lety +19

    1:59 It's official, 1949 had the best neckties.

  • @Luboman411
    @Luboman411 Před 3 lety +5

    At 4:01. You can see my apartment in the very far upper-right hand corner of this video! That's pretty cool! :D Also, these high-rise housing projects in Two Bridges in Manhattan are not dangerous--the vast majority of the inhabitants there are harmless elderly people. I cross these green parks all the time when I need to go grocery shopping, so Le Corbusier was correct on that count. Having such large swathes of greenery in the middle of the busy, gray city is nice, especially for the old folks who like to while away the time on benches.

  • @danielarias2182
    @danielarias2182 Před 2 lety

    Good job 👍🏽 this is a good one

  • @cortion730
    @cortion730 Před 6 lety +12

    theres still hundreds of housing projects throughout the 5 boroughs of NYC and I doubt they're going anywhere. It helps keep the homeless rate down

  • @saltera85
    @saltera85 Před 5 lety +10

    Good history lesson, but you make it seem as though the new “mixed income” developments that replaced them solved all the housing
    problems. In essence, developers eyeing the prime real estate the projects were sitting on were able to make huge profits by leasing apartments to upper middle class white families, while only a fraction of the original, poor, black families living there were able to re-integrate into the buildings. Most of them fell through the cracks and had to relocate to other parts of the city.

  • @ProjectHana
    @ProjectHana Před 4 lety +16

    These ugly high rise houses literally are the same as what China built through 1950~2000,
    not as public housing, but as mid-end private residencies.
    Most of them survive today, and quite a sight to behold.
    Do a video on China please~

    • @holger_p
      @holger_p Před 3 lety +3

      But with the high population of china, there would be almost no over options. City would exceed a diameter of 20-30km if the don't grow in height. So travel distances would become longer and longer.

  • @nemerov5
    @nemerov5 Před 3 lety +3

    So the problem is not « Corbu », “modernism” or whatever style. But the lack of funding for public social housing. Thanks for the clear demonstration.

  • @imperatur
    @imperatur Před 6 lety +233

    I love your videos, so much to learn and interesting :)

    • @RA_Bernal
      @RA_Bernal Před 6 lety

      I love your videos, so much to learn and interesting :)

    • @memedoze6661
      @memedoze6661 Před 6 lety +1

      imperatur I love both of you

    • @DirectorBird
      @DirectorBird Před 6 lety

      This has nothing to do with CS but it helps you build a better city.

    • @MarkFolkerts
      @MarkFolkerts Před 6 lety

      imperatur this video doesn't teach you the truth, it just assumes away problems to racism. The real reason none of these projects work is because people don't care about free stuff.

  • @manictiger
    @manictiger Před 6 lety +4

    I've always liked the idea of a super-efficient megaplex that mimics the luxuries you might find on a cruise ship, but it would take a lot of QUALIFIED PEOPLE, such as hospital staff, police, garbage, utilities, engineers, etc. to maintain, plus an ultra-robust monorail system that can transport people, garbage, goods, etc. It'd also need a large solar farm with batteries, as well as parking for all those people, which means it wouldn't be as land or money-efficient as you'd initially think.
    Advantages: Less travel distance to work if you're a specialist, monorail can do the work of hundreds of trucks and hundreds of cars, cars see less use, meaning they break less and chew up less gas, utilities are ultra-efficient, no lost water pressure or electricity due to distance traveled, emergency response times would be SECOND TO NONE, distance to education = phenomenal, parks, etc., all walking distance.
    Projects don't have ANY OF THESE specialists or facilities.
    Imagine a game of Sim City where all you did was zone residential and give it power and water.
    No wonder projects became slums. It's inevitable.

  • @henryheckmann7834
    @henryheckmann7834 Před rokem

    I was in your class for like a week! this is awesome!

  • @cheiseabarrios8205
    @cheiseabarrios8205 Před 4 lety

    Great video!!

  • @kazikian
    @kazikian Před 6 lety +48

    Modernism isn't so bad, but modernist buildings have never been maintained very well. And unlike older buildings, they do not age well.

    • @jjbenz9633
      @jjbenz9633 Před 6 lety +1

      Ahmed Kazikian who hasnt maintained their buildings?

    • @salutic.7544
      @salutic.7544 Před 6 lety +2

      Ahmed Kazikian modernism kinda is bad (Architecturally)

    • @kazikian
      @kazikian Před 6 lety +2

      Common Zenoric I recommend you read up on modernism and learn what it was trying to accomplish. We shouldn’t discount modernism wholesale. (Apologies if you have studied the subject; it’s unclear from your comment alone how versed you are in architectural theory.)

    • @kazikian
      @kazikian Před 6 lety +3

      Jj Benz Most older buildings are poorly maintained. Modernist buildings look best when they are PRISTINE.

  • @princexmilano
    @princexmilano Před 6 lety +13

    High rise public housing still is around in New York

    • @ramirak2777
      @ramirak2777 Před 6 lety

      princexmilano you're right. I live in one

    • @RBzee112
      @RBzee112 Před 5 lety +1

      Several project buildings in Brownsville (Brooklyn) were torn down and replaced with townhouses.

  • @Csilva857
    @Csilva857 Před 3 lety +4

    Instead of public housing apartments for rent, we should build subsidized condos for purchase.

  • @SFVYachtClub
    @SFVYachtClub Před 2 lety +3

    Everything and everyone is to blame, except for the residents themselves.

  • @Jin88866
    @Jin88866 Před 5 lety +201

    There are thousands of high rise apartment buildings in Japan (and in Manhattan too), and there are no problems. I think the real problem is the income of the people living in them. Moving them from the slums to apartments does not change their attitude or improve their economic situation.

    • @Wanderer25
      @Wanderer25 Před 5 lety +140

      @bryce mc Yea blame hip hop. No way could it be a lengthy history of institutionalized racist laws and housing policies. It's the rap lyrics from the 80s that stopped black folks from economic equality, not 400 years of white supremacy.

    • @nuknuknuk111
      @nuknuknuk111 Před 5 lety +19

      Trev Dakine thank you

    • @Ed-iz4wm
      @Ed-iz4wm Před 5 lety +13

      Not true. Giving them no hope is what drove them down. People in Manhattan and Tokyo have hope...

    • @TheSpecialJ11
      @TheSpecialJ11 Před 5 lety +7

      Yeah. The classic treating of the symptom instead of the cause.

    • @budgiecat9039
      @budgiecat9039 Před 5 lety +20

      Japanese dont complain they just either work themselves to death or commit suicide. Their culture puts emphasis on the group not the individual and that has its positives and negatives. Plus, some of those buildings have rooms the size of coffins literally go figure. That cant be psychologically beneficial. Japan isnt exactly an ideal example to use. Go watch some documentaries; they have their own unique problems..

  • @daveharrison84
    @daveharrison84 Před 6 lety +20

    I'm so glad they didn't build that in Paris.

    • @murdelabop
      @murdelabop Před 6 lety

      David Harrison : Hear hear!

    • @peterfireflylund
      @peterfireflylund Před 6 lety +1

      Harrison, do an image search for "banlieue"... You will see depressing brutalistic high-rise after brutalistic high-rise.
      en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banlieue

    • @dmkdm3343
      @dmkdm3343 Před 6 lety +3

      David Harrison France has many minority, low income housing projects, no difference then the usa.

    • @rayrivera943
      @rayrivera943 Před 6 lety

      David Harrison not yet ?

    • @mizzpoetrics
      @mizzpoetrics Před 6 lety

      Obviously, you've been living under a rock! This is usually the case with some humans - oh that affects those ppl over there, not my problem. Or, out of sight, out of mind!

  • @svrichards219
    @svrichards219 Před 3 lety +27

    I always wondered why the projects very rarely have fire escapes? Its almost as if they want them to be unable to get out in emergency situations... smh

    • @Codraroll
      @Codraroll Před 3 lety +5

      Modern tower blocks tend to have two internal staircases precisely for that reason. You don't necessarily have to hang the fire escape on the outside of the building. It's unlikely to be a fire in both staircases at once, and if that is the case, well, external fire escapes probably wouldn't be of much use anyway.

    • @svrichards219
      @svrichards219 Před 3 lety

      @@Codraroll ty, good to know...

  • @saxmanb777
    @saxmanb777 Před 5 lety +5

    New Orleans just finished knocking down the last of the low rises and replaced them with really nice looking townhouses. The old ones looked pretty bad and you tended not to want to walk back there. The new ones appear to be inviting. Hope they stay that way.

  • @NANAbingbangboom
    @NANAbingbangboom Před 6 lety +4

    That was informative and entertaining :)

  • @luis_zuniga
    @luis_zuniga Před 6 lety +9

    Could you make a video about the Haussmann plan on Paris?

  • @MaximumAlx
    @MaximumAlx Před 2 lety +4

    Just saw this video and I would love to see a version of this based on New York/Brooklyn/Queens models. They are one of the few places where projects are still unchanged

  • @Ate.ria04
    @Ate.ria04 Před 3 lety +1

    Reminds me of those buildings in eastern Europe and the big tall apartments in mainland China for some reason . But anyways thank you for making this video ! Very informative and interesting 🤝.

  • @freeze32007
    @freeze32007 Před 6 lety +35

    cool history, but i fail to see how the high rise is responsible for the crime and deplorable conditions of the PJs.
    i stayed down the street from a 2 story low rise PJs in my early 20s and they were just as gang infested and violent. i have been to East St. Louis in some low rise PJs and there were murders there almost daily.
    im curious as to the explanation that the height of the building somehow affects the behavior of the occupants.
    in many cities around the world people live in high rises but they dont turn to sellin dope and bangin. in New York, San Fran, Austin etc people pay top dollar to live in a high rise building.
    if anyone has any input on that feel free to HMU.

    • @seanf5634
      @seanf5634 Před 6 lety +7

      Exactly. The author of the video is blaming "high rises" instead of the criminals in the high rises.

    • @Charmedone9805
      @Charmedone9805 Před 6 lety +8

      i think it depends on how they are maintained. Im from NY and i have friends who live in sevral housing projects in Manhattan and the Bronx some are infested with roaches gangs and are poorly maintained some are clean and spotless and policed better. I think it Depends on the area and how much effort a city puts in them.

    • @heruartist71
      @heruartist71 Před 5 lety +5

      People, like all other animals, behaviors are heavily dependent upon their social conditions. The moving of jobs to the suburbs along with the lack of funding for education and laws preventing home ownership created the conditions where crime festered. One of the most devastating regulations the housing authority imposed on tenants was the requirement that no family with an "able bodied male over 18" could live there. Many Black men left their families in order for them to have shelter, which resulted in a large % of fatherless homes. As young boys now had no male guidance along with a broken education and economic system, the result is an increase in crime.

  • @karencalifano6132
    @karencalifano6132 Před 6 lety +5

    Pruitt-Igoe was an amazing documentary!!

  • @josephb.rivero2442
    @josephb.rivero2442 Před 4 lety +3

    Hi, When you have a chance can you make a video on affordable housing in California and what's the current situation on it. Your videos are always really interesting to me. Thanks for your time.

  • @nicholas8923
    @nicholas8923 Před rokem

    Thanks so much for this concise break down of one feature of public housing: high-rise buildings. This topic is still relevant! I'm studying affordable housing for my M.Arch final project. I can only aspire to be a Catherine Bauer Wurster in this new era.

  • @phlydude
    @phlydude Před 6 lety +47

    What it turned out to be, is that these towers were intended to house the low to middle classes of society but in the end, turned out to house only the poorest people who often were minorities. As they weren't maintained and policed as well as they should have been by the government agencies set-up to support them, they fell into disrepair. Couple that with crime that set-up in the towers (crime that overall is generally higher in areas where people are struggling financially) and you have a situation that turns a "government good idea" (oxymoron) into one that became blight within major metro areas. As middle and middle-upper class (mostly white) residents at the time moved to the suburbs, the tax base shrank and cities found themselves in worse shape financially. Cut the tax revenue and services get cut like funding for schools, libraries, cleaning initiatives and public housing upkeep.
    The low-rise "projects" of the time weren't ideal either through most of this period, consisting of boxed buildings, usually brick construction with little to no streets (because why would poor people that are living in public housing need cars to get to work) and courtyards that became hang-outs for unsavory characters. All the housing units looked the same without townhome character and they tend to look very much like playground/recreation center buildings and often were adjacent to a public park of some type.
    The newer designs in cities like Philadelphia are actually of nice design and fit in much better with the aesthetics of the surrounding neighborhood(s). I joked with my wife that the ones adjacent to I-76 in S/SW Philadelphia were a nicer design than other town homes being built in the region for hundreds of thousands.

    • @jamespatrick6939
      @jamespatrick6939 Před 6 lety +2

      completely agree, Ive been to those housing projects, in fact Maine is considering building something like them, they feel part of the community, not away and lonely in a dense concrete building with views to a wall.

    • @repairdrive
      @repairdrive Před 6 lety +1

      Dennis G Mattinson Great write up my man!

    • @ajamoore6540
      @ajamoore6540 Před 6 lety +1

      Dennis G Mattinson that’s still one of the only high rises left in philly. Doubt they’ll be here in 20-30 years or so. You see they totally remade Richard Allen Projects.

    • @gabrielbizzlebop4702
      @gabrielbizzlebop4702 Před 6 lety

      Dennis G Mattinson stop making excuses of poor minorities.

    • @phlydude
      @phlydude Před 6 lety +8

      The blame is not on the minorities - you need to re--read the comment. The blame is on the government agencies that built these projects and didn't maintain them and, looking back, built them with a purpose of keeping people oppressed and dependent on the public housing system. "White flight" in the post-war US left the poorest of the populace in the urban areas. At the time, minorities suffered the worst due to the prejudice that was common in the US. The blame is the government - they can't manage anything well and as such, should have never even have become involved in these projects because over time, funding wanes and popular opinion changes and "good ideas" get their funding cut or eliminated at the stroke of a pen.

  • @michaeld4192
    @michaeld4192 Před 5 lety +3

    Your a good and honest dude

  • @divinesoundandlighit
    @divinesoundandlighit Před 4 lety

    Awesome segment sir....SALUTE!

  • @SG14ever
    @SG14ever Před 4 lety +7

    How about a video about the (possibly European style?) low-rise apartment blocks with stores on the first floor that seem to be appearing in American cities en masse nowadays?

  • @Harajuku3000
    @Harajuku3000 Před 6 lety +20

    Ah you forgot how government initially got those white families into the suburbs not their money or a want to leave the city and what really kept other races out of the suburbs. If this video is ever revamped or updated a good resource is "The Color of Law" by Richard Rothstein. Other wise it was informative.

    • @CityBeautiful
      @CityBeautiful  Před 6 lety +3

      Yes, I definitely want to revisit this topic from the angle of redlining and other racist housing policies. Had to save something for another video. :)

    • @budgiecat9039
      @budgiecat9039 Před 5 lety +1

      you'd rather be ignorant of history if it'll suit your narrow pov narrative?

  • @ghostlyme
    @ghostlyme Před 6 lety +4

    Thanks for making this. I was volunteering in South Chicago in 2001 and I saw Cabrini Green up close. I thought the giant high rises for low income housing were eye sores. I am glad that they have newer housing now for low income residents.

    • @trublu4147
      @trublu4147 Před 2 lety

      Cabrini Green is in North Chicago not South and what do you mean eye sores

    • @roderickstockdale1678
      @roderickstockdale1678 Před rokem

      @@trublu4147 it was NORTHSIDE?!

    • @trublu4147
      @trublu4147 Před rokem

      @@roderickstockdale1678 Yeah Cabrini Green was on the Northside of Chicago.

    • @roderickstockdale1678
      @roderickstockdale1678 Před rokem

      @@trublu4147 he meant they were too hard to look at

    • @trublu4147
      @trublu4147 Před rokem

      @@roderickstockdale1678 oh alright I get it now and yeah Cabrini was put in a more wealthy part of the city it’s crazy how outside Cabrini Green it was all really nice but inside it was nothing but poverty and gangs.

  • @Matteus2109
    @Matteus2109 Před 4 lety +5

    Holy sh*t! Can you imagine if Le Corbusier's plan for Paris had gone through?

  • @dlwatib
    @dlwatib Před 3 lety +5

    University of Oregon has always (since its founding in 1914) had its School of Architecture and Allied Arts (now the College of Design) "under one roof".