U.S. Public–Housing Transformations and the Housing Publics Lost in Transition

Abstract

For several decades now an era of dismantling traditional, place–based public housing developments has emerged. Our essay draws upon sociological and geographical thought to argue for a more critical understanding of this process which welcomed in the expansion of government policies to build public–private mixed–income housing developments as a way to improve the lives of impoverished public housing households. Yet, only a modest portion of the original residents forced to relocate have actually benefited from these redevelopments. We document how public housing in the United States has always been approached by the State and private market interests with apprehension. The primary purpose is to provide a diagnostic perspective focusing on the promise of mixed–income policies to provide its stated opportunities and what got lost in transition. Urban scholars have critiqued the transformation of public housing developments as being constitutive of neoliberal urbanism and the privatization of the commons. However, equally important is a broader understanding of how the neoliberal project has been underwritten by mainstream social norms and assumptions about poverty and income mix, as well as the edict that the private market could adequately “fix” the social problems associated with traditional public housing.