18 Years:

How the 1949 Housing Act Destroyed Pruitt Igoe

Joe Calodich
POLS 487
Professor Thorpe
Introduction

Housing has been an issue plaguing American cities for over a century. As the 20th century

progressed and America changed, so did the government’s use of housing policy. One of the

defining housing polices of the 1900’s was public housing. Public housing was introduced as

part of the New Deal to create jobs and reduce the presence of urban slums. Later as GI’s

returned from the Second World War, the government took on a set of policies that subsidized

suburban single-family housing and reshaped the American city. One of the most significant

policies created to implement these changes was the 1949 Housing Act. Following its passage, a

series of massive high-rise housing projects were built around the country. One of the most

famous examples of high-rise public housing was the Pruitt Igoe complex in St. Louis, Missouri.

This set of 11 story apartment complexes in northern St. Louis was built in the early 1950’s and

went on to house thousands of residents, almost all African American. However, the project

quickly fell into disrepair and crime, it struggled to attract new residents and 18 years after it was

built, the complex was destroyed. The demolition of the buildings was nationally broadcast and

went on to symbolize the failure of American public housing policy. The question remains, why

did this massive social infrastructure project fail so miserably that it was quickly demolished? In

this paper I will argue that the answer to this puzzle lies in the institutional failure of the 1949

Housing Act. The act promised to clear the slums, segregated neighborhoods, and substandard

housing in America and replace it with a, “decent home and a suitable living environment for

every American family,” (Housing Act of 1949, 413). To do this, the federal government would

provide funds primarily to acquire land and clear slums, while the rest of the policy

implementation was left to local housing authorities. This power allowed local governments to

control the placement, structure, and maintenance of the housing projects. This resulted in the St.

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Louis government reinforcing segregation through the placement of the housing projects.

Additionally, the federal funds gave local governments and their mayors vast resources which

they used to pursue their own local interests. In the case of St. Louis this was Mayor Joseph

Darst, a man with ties to the real estate industry and a belief that tall buildings would draw

suburban residents back to the city. As Pruitt Igoe was built, private contractors overcharged the

city government and built poor quality units that were falling apart from the day the first resident

moved in. Finally, the 1949 Housing Act increased the subsidies to single family suburban

homes. For Pruitt Igoe this meant that wealthier white residents could flee the complex to the

suburbs, depleting the resources Pruitt Igoe had for maintenance. Furthermore, the white suburbs

organized and passed zoning laws that prevented African Americans from moving in and

escaping the inner city. In essence, the 1949 Housing Act was a funding source for local

governments to reinforce segregation and recreate urban slums, this ultimately led to the

downfall of Pruitt Igoe.

Background

The 1949 Housing Act was passed with the goal of clearing the nation’s urban slums. It had

support from a variety of local interests, including planners, bankers, builders, and mayors (Von

Hoffman 2000, 144). It states that it is an act, “to provide Federal aid to assist slum-clearance

projects and low-rent public housing projects initiated by local agencies,” (Housing Act of 1949,

413). To achieve this goal, the act is divided into three Titles. Title I and Title III both related to

the urban high-rise projects, while Title II was concerned with suburban development. Title I

provided funds to local governments through urban redevelopment. Federal money was then

used to lower the cost of slum clearance (Heathcott 2015, 36). Grants would cover up to two-

thirds of the losses that a city incurred. This allowed for slum clearance by compensating cities

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for the high capital costs required to destroy a slum (Forest 1985, 729). To get access to these

funds, a locality simply needed a development plan that had been approved by a local

government and was consistent with other community plans (732). Title III also committed to the

creation of 810,000 new public housing units (Heathcott 2015, 36). It set aside $1.5 billion for

construction of the units (Von Hoffman 2000, 184). These two policies would work together to

drive the construction of public housing across the US. Title II can be thought of as an escape

route. It increased the FHA mortgage insurance program to support the rapid growth of suburban

single-family homes.

Title II had a much higher investment of $500 million than the other titles in the act.

“Between 1945 and 1965, the FHA-backed home building industry constructed twenty-six

million new homes. Public housing, meanwhile, constituted only 3 percent of new home

construction in the same period.” (Heathcott 2015, 36). This process of subsidized suburban

housing would go on to reshape the American city. In the case of St. Louis, it allowed white

residents to flee the inner city to the suburbs that were closer to economic opportunity. This had

grave implications for Pruitt Igoe, as I will discuss in later in more detail. The emphasis on FHA

subsidized housing and the relationship with local authority are the key components of the law

that contribute to its failure. It is also important to note that the 1949 Housing Act became law

before the Brown v. Board case mandated racial integration.

St. Louis

As the 1949 Housing Act was signed into law, St. Louis and its political leadership was going

through a tumultuous time. St. Louis was one of only four US cities that declined in population

(Von Hoffman 2000, 185). The city leaders nationwide noticed that many residents were fleeing

to the suburbs and placed much of the blame on urban slums for driving away residents. To fix

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the city, they wanted to redevelop the central business district and replace the unsightly slums

with modern clean housing (183). There was widespread fear that slums would take over St.

Louis as economic reports showed they were growing, and local newspapers ran articles

highlighting the cities decay (185). In 1949 The Missouri Urban Redevelopment Corporation Act

was passed into law which gave tax breaks to local authorities who participated in

redevelopment, this came just as a new mayor, Joseph Darst was elected (189). Mayor Darst was

part of a wave of mayors that were elected across the country trying to revive the city by using

massive infrastructure projects. He also had a background in the real estate business (Von

Hoffman 2000, 188). In his inaugural address he illustrated his belief in slum clearance as

method to revive St. Louis saying, “if we can clear away slums and blighted areas of this city,

and replace them with modern, cheerful living accommodations, people will stop moving out of

the city,” (188). Not only was Darst enamored with public housing, but he also wanted the new

St. Louis to resemble New York City aesthetically. Throughout the 1940s, Darst toured New

York and saw the massive modernist structures that made up the city’s public housing program,

often more than 10 stories tall, the buildings were the pinnacle of the modernist architectural

movement. Built with the principles of Le Corbusier, who wanted to reduce congestion by

spreading people out and housing them in large towers surrounded by motorways or parks, the

New York public housing program made an important impression on Darst (190). When he

returned to St. Louis in 1949, he made sure to overhaul the design of the city’s low-rise public

housing projects, by hiring an architecture firm that design larger high-rise projects. This resulted

in the upscaling of other St. Louis public housing projects like Cochran Gardens and Clinton-

Peabody (191).

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 When it came to Pruitt Igoe, Darst had his opportunity to fully implement his modernist

vision. The project was to be built in the Desoto-Carr neighborhood, which had earlier been

designated as the worst neighborhood in St. Louis (186). Desoto-Carr was historically the home

to German and Irish immigrants, later it housed Poles, Jews, Russians, and other Eastern

Europeans. During the depression and World War II it became home to a very large African

American population (St. Louis, n.d.). During the 1930s, Desoto-Carr was an integrated

neighborhood with a nearly even split between black and white inhabitants (Rothstein 2017, 22).

As city began destroying Desoto-Carr and building public housing, the process became known as

“Negro Removal” for the massive amounts of African Americans it displaced (St. Louis, n.d.).

To rehouse the displaced residents St, Louis built a project for African Americans on the cleared

slum land, and a separate projects for whites on top of another destroyed integrated

neighborhood in St. Louis (Rothstein 2017, 22). This process continued with the construction of

Pruitt Igoe. The city initially planned to destroy the neighborhood and replace it with a mix of

public and private housing that would ensure stability and maintain the racial mix. However, this

plan was cancelled after pressure form the white community to segregate the area (Von Hoffman

2000, 194). Darst also pushed for the plan to be segregated, along with his efforts to increase the

size of the buildings (195). After a series of redesigns by the architects Darst had hired, the Pruitt

Igoe project began to take the form of the New York projects Darst admired, with 33 high rise

buildings, elevators, and large grass patches in between the complexes (Von Hoffman 2000,

196). The placement of the Pruitt Igoe project along with other St. Louis public housing was

carried out by the local government and was almost always used to destroy the integrated slums

that city officials had blamed for the population decline in St. Louis and replace them with

segregated public housing. The funds for the clearance we underwritten by the 1949 Housing Act

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which covered two-thirds of the cost of slum clearance as well as paid for the newly built public

housing. Not only did this local power result in the destruction of integrated neighborhoods and

the subsequent segregation of the city, but the power over the physical design of the projects

would go on to harm Pruitt Igoe. Mayor Darst’s obsession with high rise buildings would

eventually cause the projects to fall into disrepair.

Ultra-Economy

The ultra-economy is a concept created by Eugene Meehan to describe the financial conditions,

created by the 1949 Housing Act, under which Pruitt Igoe and other St. Louis housing projects

were built. The ultra-economy was caused by the flow of federal investment into local

governments, the eagerness of local authorities to gain access to this new revenue source resulted

in a focus on profit, rather than the livability of the housing units. For Pruitt Igoe this meant

dangerous spaces for children, uninsulated pipes, crumbling walls, and a long list of other

structural failures that were the result of poor construction. Meehan explains that Pruitt Igoe was

the first project built under the ultra-economy conditions (Meehan 1975, 35). The ultra-economy

not only drove up the costs of building Pruitt Igoe, but it also led to the physical flaws that made

life for the tenants so miserable. Along with the ultra-economy, the 1949 Housing Act failed to

provide any adequate funding for the maintenance of the public housing, to compensate, the local

housing authority would fund maintenance using the tenant’s rent payments. However, the sheer

scale of Pruitt Igoe made maintenance costs higher than the funds the housing authority could

raise from the tenants. This was all compounded by the fact that middle class whites were

leaving the project, eroding the funding base for maintenance.

Meehan described the period after the passage of the 1949 Housing Act as the, “Gold

Rush of ’49,” because of the frenzied pace of building that occurred (Meehan 1975, 30). Title I

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of the act made millions of dollars available to local authorities who eagerly made use of the

loose requirements to get funding. Many mayors and housing authorities flocked to get federal

dollars, using the economic data that showed the prevalence of slums and dilapidation in cities

(30). Meehan explained, “there was no detailed survey of needs, no pause to examine long-run

implications, in the reckless rush to build. At times it seemed the local governments were

prepared to build anything the federal government was prepared to fund,” (30). The political

situation in St. Louis as well as Mayor Darst’s obsession with high rise buildings made the 1949

Housing Act an ideal piece of legislation to fulfill their local goal of attracting people to the city.

Specifically, developers and other local interests were attracted to the combination of eminent

domain, Missouri State law that created tax incentives for slum clearance, and the federal

subsidies that cheapened the cost of slum clearance (31).

Once slums were cleared for building, another fiscal issue emerged. In the gold rush to

build, the housing authority vastly overpaid for the construction of the projects. Title III of the

1949 Housing Act provides funding for the public housing unites themselves. The act specified

that the construction costs for public housing projects could not exceed $1,750 per room (1949

Housing Act, 424). Meehan explains that the local authorities in St. Louis were forced to cut

costs in many important areas to keep within the federal limits. In Pruitt Igoe this resulted in the

amenities most important to a tenant’s comfort being built with poorer quality materials. Items

like doors, windows, sinks, and walls were poorly built and dangerous heating elements were left

exposed. Despite the terrible construction, Meehan found that Pruitt Igoe had construction costs

60% above the national average. Costs per square foot were similar to single family homes or

luxury apartments (65). The poor construction also meant that maintenance became even more

costly.

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 Darst’s obsession with increasing the size of Pruitt Igoe would come back to haunt the

project. The massive size of both the buildings and land the meant that it required an enormous

expenditure to maintain. Meehan found that the ratio between development costs and income for

Pruitt Igoe meant that its was likely to collapse simply with low occupancy or an unusual repair

need. Conversely, smaller projects built before the ultra-economy like Carr Square and Clinton

Peabody were able to preform very well (Meehan 1975, 60). The linkage of maintenance costs to

tenant’s rent payments made Pruitt Igoe a failure form the start due to its enormous maintenance

costs that were exacerbated by the poor construction that left units in a state of disrepair from the

beginning. This was again exacerbated as wealthier white residents fled Pruitt Igoe for the

suburbs, slashing the projects resources for upkeep (Freidrichs 2011).

The ultra-economy created by the 1949 Housing Act and the related fiscal policies in the

construction and upkeep of Pruitt Igoe worked together to turn the project into a concentrated

version of the slums it was meant to replace. Meehan decried the affect that this had on the

people, as the ultra-economy subjected public housing to the interests of profit instead of the

people’s livelihoods. He said, “when decisions are made in another context from the original

authorizing source, there is no way to be sure that either the same results are valued or the same

outcomes are sought,” (Meehan 1975, 38). This shows how the authority given to local

governments harmed the ultimate goals of the 1949 Housing Act to provide people with a good

quality home. The residents of Pruitt Igoe were the ones who had to deal with the consequences,

as their dream of a decent home quickly devolved into another form of urban slums. The African

American’s watched on as wealthy white urban residents fled the city, leaving Pruitt Igoe

without enough tenants to support the maintenance (Freidrichs 2011). While local governments

could do very little to change these global economic shifts towards deindustrialization, the very

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act that allowed Pruitt Igoe to be built also provided an escape route for wealthy whites and

allowed local governments to prevent African Americans from fleeing the declining inner city.

Racism

The 1949 Housing Act states that its goal is to help local agencies encourage and assist the,

“development of well-planned, integrated residential neighborhoods, the development and

redevelopment of communities, and the production, at lower costs, of housing of sound standards

of design, construction, livability, and size for adequate family life,” (1949 Housing Act, 413).

While this promise would come true for white Americans, local governments denied African

Americans of this privilege continually. Mayor Darst would use urban redevelopment as a way

to destroy black and integrated neighborhoods for the purposes of grand infrastructure projects,

including Pruitt Igoe. The Desoto Carr neighborhood that was historically home to recent

immigrants to St. Louis had become an integrated neighborhood until it was destroyed to build

Pruitt Igoe and similar projects. Beyond the actual construction of Pruitt Igoe, the project was

also used as a tool for segregation during its lifetime. As other infrastructure was built, displaced

African Americans would be sent to live in Pruitt Igoe. Whites were able to avoid this policy

failure because Title II of the act increased the FHA loan program and facilitated the growth of

suburban single-family homes. Both local and federal laws ensured that these new

neighborhoods were reserved for whites. Racism is crucial to understanding how the 1949

Housing Act and Pruitt Igoe failed to deliver on their stated goals.

Public Housing in St. Louis was always used as a tool for segregation and racial

inequality. Since the 1949 Housing Act left site selection up to the local housing authority, it is

clear that this allowed the local government to pursue its desires to segregate the city. In Desoto

Carr, slum clearance in the name of public housing was used to destroy an integrated

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neighborhood and use, “public housing to deepen racial segregation and to prevent what city

planner Harland Bartholomew described as ‘Negro deconcentration’ from inner core

neighborhoods,”(Heathcott 2015, 34). St. Loius maintained a policy of segregation in public

housing as Pruitt Igoe opened, it was originally planned to have black residents live in the Pruitt

towers, and whites in Igoe, a large change to the former integrated Desoto Carr neighborhood.

However, this policy was banned in 1954 after the Brown v. Board of Education case which

resulted in white residents leaving Pruitt Igoe rather than live in an integrated project (37). The

segregation continued beyond Pruitt Igoe, as redevelopment continued throughout the city

highways, airports, and other infrastructure projects displaced African Americans, many of

whom were sent to live in Pruitt Igoe (Cooperman 2014). After 1954 Pruitt Igoe was legally an

integrated project, but in reality, it was almost entirely home to African Americans. This de facto

segregation had many negative ramifications, best described by Richard Rothstein, “with

segregated projects, African Americans became more removed from mainstream society than

ever, packed into high-rise ghettos where community life was impossible, where access to jobs

and social service was more difficult, and where supervision of adolescents and even a

semblance of community policing was impractical,” (Rothstein 2017, 31). The segregation and

concentration of African Americans in impoverished areas was only part of the failure. Title II

facilitated the growth of suburbs which allowed whites to escape the concentrated poverty that

was plaguing the inner city.

Title II provided more funding than either of the other parts of the 1949 Housing Act.

The $500 million expansion to the FHA home loan program allowed for the rapid growth of

suburban single-family homes. This had the effect of allowing whites to move to the suburbs.

African Americans were denied this opportunity through redlining, and in the 1930’s the Desoto

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Carr neighborhood was redlined, meaning the residents were too risky to be insured by the

government (Mapping Inequality 2020). Along with the many other government policies

supporting suburbanization, the suburbs grew rapidly, the decline of middle-class whites in the

city worsened the problems for Pruitt Igoe. As the wealthier whites left, the financial base of the

project eroded leaving even less money for an already low maintenance budget (Freidrichs

2011). The whites who left were able to prevent integration by using discriminatory zoning to

prevent African Americans form moving into suburban neighborhoods. The zoning ordinances

were race neutral, but were targeted at African Americans by mandating large single family

homes that most African Americans could not afford, banning public housing construction in the

suburbs, and preventing any form of multifamily housing that could attract African Americans

(Oliveri 2015). In St. Louis specifically, residents in the new northern suburb of Blackjack

created a zoning law that prohibited the construction of any apartment buildings because African

American’s were more likely to live in them (Freidrichs 2011).

Due to the authority given to local governments in the 1949 Housing Act, the goals of the

act were undermined by racist local actors. Through segregation, St. Louis was able to radically

change the racial makeup of the integrated Desoto Carr neighborhood by segregating Pruitt Igoe.

Additionally, with the power of site selection, St. Louis was able to destroy integrated and black

neighborhoods for a variety of infrastructure projects, then rehouse the displaced residents in

Pruitt Igoe. This had the effect of isolating African Americans in a dilapidated project, isolated

from economic opportunity and the rest of society. Effectively, the local government was able to

further segregate and rebuild urban slums. To prevent whites from being caught in the

redevelopment and destruction of urban America the 1949 Housing Act created an escape route

by expanding the FHA loans program to build more suburban homes. This prevented urban

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blacks in redlined areas like DeSoto Carr from escaping the city. Furthermore, once whites had

moved to the suburbs, they prevented African Americans from leaving the city through

discriminatory zoning polices. These factors combined to mean that the act’s promise never

came true. Pruitt Igoe was poorly planned because it insulated residents from economic

opportunity, it was built poorly and did not have adequate living standards, and it increased

segregation. It is the ultimate irony that the very structure made possible by the 1949 Housing

Act was not able to meet its own goals due to suburbanization and local governments

empowered by the 1949 Housing Act.

Conclusion

Through its short lifetime, Pruitt Igoe exemplified the failures of the 1949 Housing Act.

Throughout the planning, construction, and lifetime of Pruitt Igoe, the power the local

government was able undermine the goals of the act. By allowing the local government to

control the design, the act created an opportunity for Mayor Darst to pursue his personal passion

and build a massive high-rise development. The nature of funding in the 1949 Housing Act

allowed local governments to have access to millions of dollars to clear slums and rebuild their

inner cities. This resulted in the construction of Pruitt Igoe on top of the formerly integrated

neighborhood of Desoto-Carr. Within the building process, the influx of federal funds

encouraged local governments to build and attracted many private contractors who wanted to

profit off of public housing. This resulted in poor design and quality of infrastructure that

reduced the quality of life for the people living in the project. Finally, Title II of the 1949

Housing Act increased the subsidies for home loans. This resulted in a construction boom of

suburban single-family homes and created a system of subsidized housing that was only

accessible to whites. Along with this, various other local actors made sure that public housing

13
was used to further segregation and rebuild urban slums. These factors show how the 1949

Housing Act failed. The three titles within the act worked against each other to make the goal of

decent housing only a reality for whites. When the act was not working against itself, it was

allowing local interests to take over crucial decisions in planning and construction. This created

as series of poor decisions that combined to cause the downfall of Pruitt Igoe. There were

numerous cases of other public housing projects built before the 1949 Housing Act surviving

deindustrialization and providing affordable housing long after Pruitt Igoe was demolished.

Ultimately, Pruitt Igoe illustrates the breakdown in implementing public policy. The structure of

the 1949 Housing Act gave mayors like Darst, private companies, and racists the resources to

carry out their own goals, separate from the goals stated in the law. The act had lofty promises to

integrate and improve the lives of many Americans, but without any oversight the act devolved

authority and money to local governments that were unable to carry out the policy. This caused

the downfall of Pruitt Igoe and would natively impact thousands of people in St. Louis who fell

victim to the failed public housing policy.

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