Jonathan Shuster

URBDP 300
April 24, 2017
Pruitt-Igoe

When the Pruitt-Igoe Housing Project started to be built in 1952,

it was hailed as the salvation for many thousands of low-income slum
residents. It was built to revitalize the inner city while providing
housing for the people it displaced, reduce systematic segregation that
plagued St. Louis at the time, and help bring the poor out of poverty.
Fast forward twenty years and the buildings that housed nearly all
black families are being knocked down, destroying the physical
evidence of a monumental failure. The decline of the Pruitt-Igoe
housing project began with the provision that no public money would
be used to maintain the buildings. Federal funds were used to
construct and move people into the units, but after that, money for
maintenance and services was to be provided by the residents. Of
course, since most of the residents were low income, there wasnt
enough money to fix things and problems started to arise; elevators
stuck, toilets clogged, garbage incinerators broke. The project went
down a slippery slope from there into vandalism, violence, drugs, and
guns. People dropped bottles and trash on policemen and ambulance
workers, who were unable to enter the compound to successfully quell
any problems. Everything in the project was made vandalism proof
and unbreakable, giving it the aura of a prison or some type of
compound. This and other actions led to the stigmatization of Pruitt-
Igoe as nothing but a place of violence and crime, when in reality the
units were still peoples homes despite was what happening at Pruitt-
Igoe. This thought led to the idea that at a certain point Pruitt-Igoe
was beyond help, that the low income black residents had taken this
wonderful new space and ruined it, while it was really larger economic
forces and systematic fear that brought down Pruitt-Igoe.
At this time in American History, white flight to the suburbs was
defining cities and the people in them. St. Louis cleared swaths of land
in the center of the city, anticipating a large number of people and a
large amount of development to enter the area. However, both the
people and the money went to suburbs, which St. Louis was unable to
annex because of existing laws. With a lower tax base and money
flowing out of the city, St. Louis didnt have to money to maintain
Pruitt-Igoe even if it had wanted to. The other part of the collapse of
Pruitt-Igoe is the social structure that was imposed upon the residents.
The government built the homes, so they got to make the rules. This
kind of oppression lead to constant fear, which was the real
perpertrator of violence and crime in Pruitt-Igoe. The documentary
The Myth of Pruitt-Igoe mentions that children were forced to stand up
for themselves in violent ways, and residents recount living in fear and
how that affected their actions in Pruitt-Igoe and once they had left the
project. The demise and demolition of Pruitt-Igoe symbolized the
Jonathan Shuster
URBDP 300
April 24, 2017
broader decline of the American city, but its destruction was rough on
former and remaining residents, who not only lost a place to live, but a
home as well.
The first key lesson I see in regards to promoting public housing
as a solution so increasing housing affordability is that there has to be
a viable provision to maintain the housing space. There were other
outside factors that played a role in the demise of Pruitt Igoe, but the
big problem that spawned a lot of other things was the fact that there
was no money to maintain the units and so things started to go
downhill. It is potentially possible to use residents incomes to
maintain the facilities but it has to be done in a complex that is mixed-
income, not solely low-income residents. Money can also come from
federal grants, and potentially additional or rerouted property taxes.
While many blamed the residents of Pruitt-Igoe for its collapse, it is
clear that the system was set up to fail by not providing funding for the
up keep of the buildings. Having a practical way to maintain the
quality of the facility is a major key to a successful housing project.
The other major thing to learn from Pruitt-Igoe (and this may
sound silly) is to treat people in public housing like human beings. The
restrictions that were put on Pruitt-Igoe renters and the systematic
ways in which the project was allowed to fail were unreasonable and
caused much hardship in the complex. For example, families were
broken up when no men were allowed at Pruitt-Igoe. This forced the
children and young men at Pruitt-Igoe to be the man of the family and
be grown men, which led to contention and violence. This destruction
of families takes a toll on residents whether it is obvious or not. Other
restrictions such as no TV or telephones cut people off from the outside
world and dehumanized residents. The way the buildings were vandal
proofed, the way the public and police viewed the compound, and the
lack of attention or care from government officials are all other
examples of the dehumanization of the people that lived in Pruitt-Igoe.
Treating low-income residents as normal people instead of things to be
put together and managed is a major lesson to be learned from Pruitt-
Igoe and applied in all aspects of life.