Economy
Transforming Public Housing, Minus the Wrecking Ball
New York's overhaul offers room not only for new, revenue-producing housing but the creation of whole neighborhoods.
From Baltimore to Los Angeles, Chicago to New Orleans, public housing authorities have demolished low-income housing projects and replaced them with privately built mixed-income developments, often based on New Urbanism’s principles of low-rise, high density neighborhoods arranged along traditional streets and parks.
The thinking is this: economically segregated housing built on architecturally modernist superblocks doesn’t work, so it’s better to start from scratch. Give tenants rent vouchers to move to private market off-site locations, demolish the projects and erect new buildings where some project tenants can return to live among middle-class neighbors.