Public Housing in Chicago: Cabrini-Green

Introduction and methodology

Public housing projects have been built, learnt from, demolished, and rebuilt in cities all around the world These projects have shown how complex designing, building, and living in a city is, understanding that countless factors and variables come together to influence, affect, and define it (Caramellino & Zanfi, 2012). To begin to analyze public housing specifically, one must transcend the architectural and spatial issues and should consider social, historical and political contexts, as to name just some of the factors involved The Chicago public housing projects of the 1940s and 1950s, are a case worth studying and will be the focus of this paper, understanding that “homes, residential buildings and neighborhoods designed for the middle classes” - or as in the Chicago case, the marginalized black community - “mirrored the complexity of the urban and political changes taking place at the time" (Caramellino & Zanfi, 2012, p. 19).

Aiming to grasp a complete perspective of the development of the Chicago public housing projects, sources from different perspectives and with different emphasis were analyzed The starting point and main reference is the book ‘High Rise Stories: Voices from Chicago Public Housing’, written by Audrey Petty, which tells the story of the Chicago public housing buildings through the voices of its former inhabitants; the testimonies present in the book, implicitly narrate the complexity of factors and variables involved in defining the project’s situations, and thus, their lives. Petty’s work gives us a very humane and personal perspective from the projects For this paper, some additional sources have been selected to understand the projects from different perspectives Amongst others, “High-Risers: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing” by Ben Austen from 2019, “Purging the Poorest: Public Housing and the Design Politics of Twice-Cleared Communities” by Laurence Vale from 2013 and “Blueprint for disaster: The Unraveling of Chicago Public Housing” by D Bradford Hunt from 2009 give an insight into the political context of the time and the circumstances in which decisions were taken. The book “The Hidden War. Crime and the Tragedy of Public Housing in Chicago” by Susan Popkin et al from 2000 focuses more on programs to deal with the existing problems in the projects

Although Audrey Petty´s book ‘High Rise Stories: Voices from Chicago Public Housing’ delivers many highly interesting and descriptive insights into the life of inhabitants in the projects and all the challenges that came with living in that specific surrounding, some contextualizing elements are missing to fully understand the historical developments. Some of the identified ‘blind spots’ are both the political and administrative context and the architectural and spatial design of the public housing projects In this paper, the goal is to understand the missing context, through the study of social and spatial policies that led up to the described development of mass public housing in Chicago. The analysis will serve to get a better understanding of the deeply rooted structural problems seen throughout the testimonies

The paper focuses on one specific ‘blind spot’ of the: the history of policies and political programs related to public housing in Chicago This is outstandingly relevant to get a better understanding and to contextualize the described life realities in the testimonies Furthermore, this paper puts the focus on one of the big public housing projects: Cabrini-Green This focus allows to deepen the understanding and go in detail in all of the testimonies from this specific project Cabrini-Green is one of the biggest and most famous

projects in Chicago, widely considered as “America's most iconic public housing project” , but also known as a synonym for crime and the failure of government when it comes to public housing (Austen, 2019). The five testimonies in Petty´s book that took place in Cabrini-Green and will be addressed in this paper are the stories from: Dolores Wilson, Yusufu Mosley, Sabrina Nixon, Paula Hawkins and Chandra Bell

The consideration of those five testimonies and the analysis of related policy frameworks will be aimed at answering the research question: How have policies and programs influenced the lives of the inhabitants of the Cabrini Green public housing projects in Chicago? To begin, there will be a contextualization of how the projects were conceived and developed; followed by an introduction to our case study: Cabrini Green and the stories of the five former inhabitants chosen as reference; an analysis of some of the policies that defined the course of the projects and thus, influenced the inhabitant’s lives, and a conclusion to our research question

Cabrini-Green and the related testimonies

The Chicago public housing projects were a collection of housing projects developed at the end of the 20th century by the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) in the city. The CHA aimed to offer affordable housing for less privileged social and economic groups in the city Chicago, as many other cities in the center-north of the United States, had faced a massive domestic migration: a black migration from the country's south in the begging of the 20th century, known as “The Great Migration” (Austen, 2019), and an urban migration from white, rural communities in the mid-20th century (Hunt, 2009) CHA´s efforts to transform the city began with slum clearing projects in the 1940’s (Hunt, 2019), mainly clearings of black ghettos, habilitating sites to construct massive public housing towers afterwards. Different projects were gradually built, but always shared very similar characteristics, including the “Robert Taylor Homes, Stateway Gardens, Rockwell Gardens, Grace Abbott Homes, Cabrini-Green, Lakefront Properties” (Petty, 2013). This housing gave relief to many in the beginning, but a few years after their construction they started going downhill and by the 1980’s were described as “dysfunctional” (Hunt, 2009, p 5) Finally, in the late 1990’s they

Figure 01: Kids playing in Cabrini-Green. Source: Sarabia (2018)

started to be demolished Around 200,000 people lived in the Chicago public housing projects and the situation within them was described as very lively and active, but with horrible living conditions and significant violence (Petty, 2013). Many different factors lead to the downfall of the projects but some argue the policies implemented, and the lack of change in these, were the biggest detonator: “the need for [ ] change was actually recognized early on, but they were never seriously pursued. The crime was therefore not the effort to better house the poor but the failure by those in power to alter course and to fix evident mistakes ” (Hunt, 2009, p 13)

Cabrini Green, inaugurated in 1942 (Dunn, 2020) and later on expanded in 1958 (Luebering, n d ), it was considered “America's most iconic public housing project” (Austen, 2019) It was divided in two phases, the first phase of the project consisted in 55 buildings of two or three floors, whilst the second phase, the expansion of the project, consisted in 15 buildings of seven, ten or 19 floors each (Luebering, n d ) The project was set in one of the initial “slums clearing” sites: a part Italian-immigrant and part black slum, reason why a policy of mixture and integration, having at least 20% of African American population scattered throughout the project, was proposed for Cabrini Green. Nonetheless, many white people refused to live in the neighborhood (Hunt, 2009) After this, the CHA dedicated itself to clearing only black slums (Hunt, 2009)

The Cabrini Green project fit a larger community than what the site originally held up, it densified the area in height adding 3,606 new units to the site (Hunt, 2009) Even with the conglomeration, the project was thought of as an “oasis of order and modernity” (Austen, 2019, p. 11) in the beginning, providing the inhabitants with “gas stove, an electric refrigerator, a private baths and its own heat controls” (Austen, 2019, p 12) The project became an example to follow, described by Edward Kelly, Chicago’s mayor of 1942, as “the Chicago that is to be we cannot continue as a nation, half slum and half palace” (Austen, 2019, p. 11). Nonetheless, as the years passed, the project faced a dramatic downfall, facing uncontrollable violence, drug abuse problems, gang conflicts, just to name some issues The five testimonies from Petty’s ‘High Rise Stories: Voices from Chicago Public Housing’ depict in different ways the situation lived in the projects, giving proof of both, the conflict and violence as well as the community built and sense of belonging.

Dolores Wilson worked for Chicago’s water administration and lived in Cabrini Green for 53 years. In her story, one can understand the love and affection she had for her home and the project in general She describes a vibrant neighborhood life and the way she and her husband were active members of the community; still, she recognizes and explains how the arrival of violence and gangs affected the projects, having her own son killed within it She says after the riots of 1968 experienced throughout the entire country, after the death of Martin Luther King Jr, it “all changed” (Petty, 2013, p 13) People affected by the riots were allocated in the project, all from different places and different gangs, explaining partly how the internal conflict was introduced in the buildings. Wilson says the gangs became an unavoidable problem in the 1980’s, it became part of their everyday life, and they had no escape from this violence; especially the youth was trapped into a conflict zone within their home: “the older kids the boys didn't join gangs because they wanted to, but in the eighties, with other gangs moving into the neighborhood, this made them form gangs in response, for self-protection” (Petty, 2013, p 32) Still, Wilson was one of the last inhabitants

to leave the building, and still remembers with nostalgia her first apartment and the years the project used to work.

Sabrina Nixon lived in Cabrini Green for 20 years, is currently a college student and a freelance writer She remembers being heavily affected by the situation of the projects and always tried to have her life outside and away from them. She recalls how in the 1980’s “the neighborhood became more crime-ridden there was a lot of gang activity a lot of shootings” (Petty, 2013, p 93) After she finished high school, she realized she couldn`t resist the environment of violence and conflict within the project and moved out After seeing Cabrini Green demolished, she said: “Part of me felt it was heartbreaking, because it was like the end of an era for some people a good era, for some people a bad era” (Petty, 2013, p 97)

Paula Hawkins is a student and cab dispatcher and lived in Cabrini Green during her childhood She remembers a strong sense of community, love and support experienced within the project, “all the ladies helped each other out Living there was like a family reunion all the time, and all the kids would play on the balcony” (Petty, 2013, p. 101). Still, the violence and abuse faced inside the project was what eventually motivated her family and her to leave: “I was going on twelve when we moved, and I was raped around that time That’s really what finally prompted us leaving” (Petty, 2013, p 104) Hawkins struggled with drug addiction problems, prostitution and was even incarcerated for some years but worked to turn her life around Although Cabrini Green is where it all started, she talks about the project with nostalgia and went to visit the buildings before they were demolished, “I wanted to capture the building I was in, and the tree I used to love to climb up in, and the curb where my stepfather always parked his car And then I went back again not too long ago after the demolitions happened” (Petty, 2013, p 109)

Chandra Bell lived for 23 years in Cabrini Green and was forced to leave when the demolition of the project started Bell, like many others, recalls love, support and a sense of belonging within the building, “all your kids play together That’s when you become a big family That’s how it went, and it was real nice Friends and family living there” (Petty, 2013, p. 130). She talks about basic sanitary problems, which she argues was part of the downfall of Cabrini Green; there was “water leaking from the ceiling; the hallways weren’t kept up Some of the residents was trifling There was garbage chutes but some people used to just throw trash everywhere, all in the hallways…” (Petty, 2013, p. 131). She also remembers the conflict within gangs and how her family used to walk her to school to make sure she was safe She managed to keep away from the conflict and make her living elsewhere, far from all of this negativity She repeatedly emphasizes on the fact that there were good times and good people in the project and that reality there was not always as depicted in the news, “I want people to know that it’s different looking at Cabrini-Green on the History Channel and actually living in it it’s a big difference The difference is there was some beautiful people in there. The difference is now the building will be missed. It ain’t ’cause of the bad things; we had good times in there too” (Petty, 2013, p. 135).

Yusufu Mosley grew up in Cabrini-Green and he spent 22 years of his life in a prison in Southern Illinois after he was convicted of murder and attempted murder in 1974. He is now involved in restorative justice and works as a prison reform activist and social worker He said he was politicized by the striking racism against black people in Chicago: “I remember

the confusion a lot of the whites had toward my father and grandfather Both of them refused to be called “boy.” They wouldn’t respond. Which is where I probably got my sense of resistance. I remember white men’s pursuit of black women. They hated everything that wasn’t white, except black women, black horses, black cars“ (Petty, 2013, p 67) All in all, he emphasizes the everyday racism inside the neighbourhood and beyond, and he underlines that it is very difficult to grow up in the projects without having contact to violence, gang structures or broken families: “I’ve seen the distress in our communities I’ve seen it when I was working in juvenile courts and the Community Justice for Youth Institute Too much instability I worked with a lot of kids whose moms were doing time in prison and whose dads were wherever“ (Petty, 2013, p. 75).

Figure 02: Map of Chicago including spatiality public housing projects Source: Own Elaboration

Policies and Programs in Chicago Public Housing History

The following section in the paper is a general overview about the different policies and programs related to Public Housing in Chicago, starting with the National Housing Act of 1937 until the HOPE VI-program and the organized demolition of the public housing projects in the 2000s. This analysis aims to provide a better understanding of the political and historical developments of the housing projects in Chicago, give context to the testimonies of the book byAudrey Petty and thereby fill parts of the identified ‘blind spots’from the book

As part of the federal New Deal Program by the Roosevelt administration following the Great Depression in the early 1930s, there were discussions about the future of housing policies and the problem of slums in the big American cities As a result, the Housing Act of 1937 was passed by the national Congress (Petty, 2013; Hunt, 2009; Austen, 2019). The general idea was that the state enters directly into housing production and management, acknowledging “the welfare of its citizens as a state responsibility” (Hunt, 2009, p 15) Federal funds should support local authorities to create public housing solutions for those poorly served by the private market, allowing a decentralized approach to housing policies (Hunt, 2009) The New Deal Programs aimed to kickstart the economy again The massive federal investments in the public housing sector was part of the strategy, by creating economic activity - 810,000 additional units of public housing should be built across the country, 40,000 only in Chicago (Austen, 2019). As a result, in the same year, there was the foundation of the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), responsible for the greater area of Chicago (Petty, 2013; Hunt, 2009;Austen, 2019)

Before the Housing Act was passed and the CHA was founded, and in the first years of its implementation, there was an expert discussion about the general strategy to approach public housing Many planners argued that new projects should have been developed on vacant spaces in the city, while promoters of the slum clearances were in favour of demolishing the devastated slum areas and developing public housing there (Hunt, 2009) The living conditions in the slums were very bad: there was a situation of overcrowding; 50% of households were without bath or shower, many without toilets; nearly everyone was heating with coal stoves; infant mortality, pneumonia, tuberculosis occured at much higher rates than in the rest of the city (Austen, 2019) The CHA saw themselves on a “rescue mission” by constructing new high-rise buildings instead of the slums (Austen, 2019, p 11) The new projects were supposed to be an “oasis of order and modernity” (Austen, 2019, p. 12)

The strategy of clearing the slums was implemented and there was a difficult process to select the sites for the projects. One of the first projects was the case of Cabrini-Green. The site was a predominantly Italian neighborhood on the Near North Side known as “Little Hell” with a black population of about 20% of its inhabitants (Hunt, 2009) Due to the high rates of home ownership and problems with the local Italian residents, there were expensive and frustrating delays On the contrary, the process in the “Robert Taylor Homes” in a former black neighbourhood was much easier (Hunt, 2009) Generally, there was a lot of resistance in predominantly white neighbourhoods against public housing and the fact that black people would live there. Additionally, the city council pressed to serve “a containment agenda intended to keep African Americans out of white neighborhoods” (Hunt, 2009, p 68) Slum clearance attempts close to white neighbourhoods were a disaster, also seen in the

so-called Airport Homes - where riots took place in 1946 protesting against the slum’s demolition. This situation was a turning point in the history of the CHA and its attempts for integrated public housing neighbourhoods. The CHA lost its political support for progressive, integrated policies (Hunt, 2009) This break between the CHA and the city administration was also one of the reasons for the serious defunding of the authority in later decades (Hunt, 2009). From now on, the vast majority of new public housing projects were constructed in poor, black communities This decision had far-reaching ramifications for both Chicago and the CHA (Popkin et al , 2000; Ruiz-Tagle Venero, 2016) The public housing estates were thus characterized by a high share of Afro-American population and the goals of socially and racially integrated communities were far away from being reached. For decades, the practice of “redlining” had pushed black people to certain neighbourhoods - and those were the places where the public housing estates were erected now, implemented following top-down-decisions (Austen, 2019; Hunt, 2009).

The public housing estates were an improvement for many slum dwellers when it comes to facilities and comfort But still, the quality of housing was not very high from the beginning Federal laws ruled that Public Housing was supposed to be built inside minimum standards, “using materials and designs unmistakably inferior to those found in market-rate housing” (Austen, 2019, p 12) Due to strict financial limitations, the neighbourhoods had a very high density of mid-rise and high-rise structures with thirty to forty units per acre to offset the considerable fixed costs of clearance. “Modernist principles were trimmed to minimalist designs under the pressures of density and cost considerations, resulting in a readily identifiable “government housing” aesthetic” (Hunt, 2009, p 46) The “bare-bone structures arrayed in rigid patterns” such as in the case of Cabrini-Green separated the estates from the surrounding urban space (Hunt, 2009, p 47) This urban layout of course did not help to integrate the projects into the city’s landscape Moreover, there was also a lack of social structures, and schools or kindergartens were seriously underfinanced (Popkin et al , 2000)

The CHA developed an elaborate system of different criteria to prove the eligibility for public housing There was a scoring system that favored those who lived in substandard conditions, where investigators went out for home visits to look at people's living conditions and assigned scores. The system was supposed to make sure that tenants had “the lowest possible incomes which would still permit them to pay rent” (Hunt, 2009, p 49) Thus, the concentration of extremely poor people was supported The system of income-based rents implemented in 1942 caused a series of additional challenges. People tried to hide parts of their income or did not carry out small jobs because this would also increase the rent of their apartments (Hunt, 2009)

By the 1960s, the CHA was facing serious problems to finance the continued investments in maintenance and management of their estates Due to decreasing federal funds, mismanagement and cases of local corruption, the estates were left in a situation of decay and deterioration (Perry-Brown, 2020; Hunt, 2009; Vale, 2013). Additionally, in 1973 there was a nationwide 18-month-moratorium for any development projects and new production of subsidized housing enforced by President Richard Nixon (Perry-Brown, 2020) The CHA was in a serious financial situation - by 1982 they claimed a $33 5-million deficit So, repairs went undone and investments into new constructions were completely stopped. By the 1970s, the high-rise developments were, in many ways, in a worse state than the slum

housing they had replaced (Popkin et al , 2000) Also the vacancy rates were rising because units became uninhabitable and no one had the means to renovate them (Hunt, 2009).

In 1966, the Gautreaux Case had another significant impact on the providence of public housing in Chicago The case was led by Dorothy Gautreaux, CHA-resident and involved in civil rights movements, providing a civil rights lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the CHA This led to the decision by the court that the CHA had to realize small and scattered housing in Chicago, mainly in white-dominated areas This resulted in the stop of public housing construction in the poor, black neighbourhoods exclusively, including the public housing projects, in the first phase and in the entire city until the end of the 1980s (Popkin et al , 2000)

The further deterioration of the CHA housing situation in the 1970s and 1980s was supported by the ‘Brooke Amendments’ and the ‘one-for-one replacement rule’ The Brooke Amendments was a policy which gave priority to very low-income families in accessing affordable housing As a result, while working families’ rents increased and left the public housing projects, the CHA housing projects in Chicago were left to be populated by the very poor only The ‘one-for-one replacement rule’-policy was implemented to avoid demolition and replacement of CHA public housing The federal policy obliged the CHA to replace every demolished unit for a new one. However, with this policy, even demolition was unaffordable, especially without enough funding (Popkin et al., 2000). Deterioration of the CHA housing projects was therefore inevitable, tenants were placed in deteriorating buildings or buildings were simply left vacant (Popkin et al , 2000) By the 1980s, the projects were characterized by dysfunctionality. Interiors deteriorated, people of the same economic and social category (mostly Afro-American single-mother families) were concentrated, and criminal gangs controlled the projects (Hunt, 2009) In addition to the policies that had major impacts on creating these deteriorated situations, social occurrences intensified these An example are the riots initiated after Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination in 1968 or two white policemen being murdered in 1970 (Vale, 2012) Vice, crime and violence became particularly evident in the 1970s and 1980s (Petty, 2013; Hunt, 2009), largely as a result of policies and horrific events. Public services like police protection, firemen and ambulance crew stopped being provided, and even the mail was not delivered, for fear of the CHA projects (Popkin et al., 2000) The combination of “inadequate funding, poor maintenance, and media sensationalization” created a “narrative of substandard slum living, and the system set up to help so many hardly stood a chance” (Perry-Brown, 2020).

Because of the political and financial infeasibility of the demolition of the developments, the CHA tried to improve management and security Therefore, housing developer Vincent Lane became the CHA board’s executive director and chairman in 1988. In this period of overwhelming decay of the projects, Lane focused on improving the security, “he declared war on the gangs” (Popkin et al , 2000, p 16) He started ‘Operation Clean Sweep’ to search inside the public housing units for drugs and illegal weapons, with the aim of determining both the legality of residents and housing maintenance needs The program was controversial because of accusations concerning residents’ civil rights violations However, Lane considered the first phases of the program a success (Popkin et al , 2000)

A year later, ‘Operation Clean Sweep’ was expanded with “the Anti-Drug Initiative”, a community-based crime-prevention program This program consisted of law-enforcement

and community crime-prevention interventions (e g tenant patrols), drug prevention and treatment centers. After implementation, the pressure on resources of the CHA increased. The already expensive ‘Operation Clean Sweep’ was expanded into an even more expensive program, resulting in the inability of other problems to be addressed During the mid-1990s, Lane lost his position, partly because of financial scandals experienced by the CHA (Popkin et al., 2000). In that same period, the HUD took over CHA after management problems and controversies The main focus of HUD was cutting the costs of CHA’s management, including the dismantling of the ‘Anti-Drug Initiative’ implemented by Lane and diminishing the in-house security force (Popkin et al , 2000)

Halfway through the 1990s, federal housing policy experienced changes in order to tackle the crisis of public housing in Chicago and elsewhere in the country Firstly, the Federal ‘Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere’ (HOPE VI) program was created for public housing revitalization purposes The program gave 160 million dollars to the CHA in order to revitalize several public housing developments in Chicago, including Cabrini-Green “But a new federal law meant that the agency faced increasing pressures to close its worst properties” (Popkin et al., 2000, p. 21). In 1997, a viability assessment for qualified houses was required to be conducted by the housing authorities The new law determined that developments which did not require viability conditions, had to be demolished Occupied units had to be “vouchered out”. It was to be expected that the CHA, with highly deteriorated housing projects, would be hit very hard by this (Popkin et al., 2000). It became a project worth 1 6 billion dollars (Petty, 2013) This new policy and law resulted in the emergence of mixed income housing next to the Cabrini-Green development This created a “surreal juxtaposition of luxury, emergent gentrification, and stubborn poverty” (Vale, 2013, p. 160). The main driver of this development in Cabrini-Green was the proximity of the Gold CoastCabrini-Green being a cheaper alternative for middle-class Chicago Although residents relocated inside the HOPE VI program had support and rights during the process, force has driven them away, and the lack of new lower income housing did not give them a chance to come back (Vale, 2013) Finally, “striking parallels” can be found between the slum clearances in the 1930s-1940s and the new public housing demolitions under the HOPE VI-program (Vale, 2012).

Policies in relation to the testimonies of Cabrini-Green

It is evident that different policies and programs had a major influence on the development of the CHA public housing projects in Chicago The testimonies from Cabrini-Green serve to get a better understanding of how the given policies and programs influenced the actual lives of the inhabitants in the neighbourhood.

As described previously, most public housing projects were developed on the sites of old slums, predominantly black and poor neighborhoods Although Cabrini-Green was developed on a site called “Little Hell” dominated by Italians, in 1962 after completion of Cabrini’s high-rise buildings, this project was resided entirely by poor African-American families (Vale, 2013) This resulted in a huge social and racial segregation with the neighbourhood socially isolated and spatially unconnected to the city landscape The CHA’s eligibility system, of allocating public housing units only to the poorest people in the city supported this sense of segregation This conglomeration of less economically favored people clustered in the projects was further strengthened by the Brooke Amendments which resulted in the disregard of working families that ended up moving away from the project. The situation of segregation is described by Yusufu Mosley in a visit to his grandmother’s on the West Side of the city: “You had to walk a little over a mile If I remember correctly, one Polish, one Italian, and one Irish community This one day as I was walking, I heard the fabulous words that some people used to like to speak in those days: ‘Nigger, what you doing over here?’”(Petty, 2013, p 70) Also Dolores Wilson describes Cabrini-Green as an outlying place inside the city where people did not want to enter, “so folks wouldn’t want to come up in there” (Petty, 2013, p 33)

The violence and the gang activity intensified sharply following the riots after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr in 1968 Again, Dolores Wilson describes this in her testimony: “But then it at all changed after the ’68 riots. More people moved in from other

Figure 03: Cabrini-Green in the newspaper Source: Landon Bone BakerArchitects (2019)

places that had been affected by the riots We started seeing gang writings on the wall Sniping at different buildings” (Petty, 2013, p. 30), and explains how they no longer had the possibility of performing everyday activities outside the buildings or across the street. Crime and violence became a central part of life in the neighbourhoods, and Sabrina Nixon describes how the situation became worse in the 1980’s: “the neighborhood became more crime-ridden. There was a lot of gang activity. A lot of shootings” (Petty, 2013, p. 93).

The violence within the project led to the very strict policies implemented under executive director Vincent Lane who started his ‘Operation Clean Sweep’ and the ‘Anti-drug-Initiative’ at the end of the 1980’s. One hardship case is described by Chandra Bell. She was living in Cabrini-Green and her youngest son, eighteen years of age, was arrested for selling drugs Because of that, he was no longer allowed to visit his mother inside the projects She expressed her ambivalent view on the situation: “I understand the rules they have, but kids make mistakes You don’t give them a second chance?” (Petty, 2013, p 134) Paula Hawkins also describes how difficult it was for her to find a place to live with a criminal background, as she went to jail for prostitution: “When you go look for an apartment, they check your criminal background. That’s what happened when I got my place here. The landlord said, ‘You got to pay more money to move in’” (Petty, 2013, p 108)

Another big factor that affected the development of the public housing projects was the bad maintenance and the lack of continued investments into refurbishments.There were some exceptions from this, as Dolores Wilson describes the renovation of her block that was part of the resident management surveillance in the middle of the 1980s: “All of the blinds, all of the kitchen, the refrigeration, double-pane windows, everything was brand new” (Petty, 2013, p 31) But in most of the buildings, the situation was worse, as Chandra Bell describes: “There were problems in the building, like water leaking from the ceiling; the hallways weren’t kept up Some of the residents was trifling There was garbage chutes but some people used to just throw trash everywhere, all in the hallways, and that’s what made Cabrini go down Also, the maintenance was weak ” (Petty, 2013, p 131) This general decay is observed in the descriptions of other stories about Cabrini-Green as well The deterioration of the housing projects was strengthened by the lack of financial resources due to the high expenses for ‘Operation Clean Sweep’ and the ‘Anti-drug-Initiative’ developed by Lane, where most of the resources were allocated

Another challenge for the life inside Cabrini-Green was the bad image of the neighbourhood, connected to a striking media sensationalization Crimes and violence did occur within the projects, like the case of Dantrell Davis shows, a seven year old resident of Cabrini-Green who was shot inside the project This sniper murder araised high media attention and was largely disclosed by the media. As a result, the CHA was stretching the limits of their sweeping policy (Operation Clean Sweep) to the point of policy violation, which raised the security costs as well (Popkin et al , 2000) Residents comment on how badly worse they felt they were portrayed by the media and how badly this stigmatized them This circumstance of generalized fear towards Cabrini-Green is evidenced by Dolores Wilson: “Cabrini is a big neighborhood, from Halsted down to Sedgwick. But the news would just say, “It happened at Cabrini,” and a lot of times, things would happen outside of Cabrini or nearby and they still pinned it on Cabrini” (Petty, 2013, p 33) Chandra Bell also points out how this issue affected her: “I want people to know that it’s different looking at Cabrini-Green on the History Channel and actually living in it it’s a big difference” (Petty, 2013, p. 135). The

specific role and impression of Cabrini-Green is supported by the fact that social services such as the police or the firemen did not always provide service to Cabrini-Green or different public housing projects. This is described in the testimony of Sabrina Nixon: “The thing about ambulance and police at Cabrini is that when there were reports of shooting, they’d come eventually, but they didn’t come right away It wasn’t a hurry” (Petty, 2013, p 95)

In the course of the 1990s, the political will evolved to demolish the public housing projects, including Cabrini-Green The HOPE VI program provided federal funds to the CHA and they developed the ‘Plan for Transformation’ This provoked mixed feelings and reactions across the local residents. Cabrini-Green became an epicenter of resistance, and residents mobilized to a large extent to fight the planned demolition Sabrina Nixon talks about the demolition with a certain sense of nostalgia, “I had to drive by Cabrini on my way somewhere. It was meant for me to see it. Part of me felt it was heartbreaking, because it was like the end of an era for some people a good era, for some people a bad era Just seeing anything torn down is heartbreaking” (Petty, 2013, p 97) Chandra Bell,in relation to the end of the projects, says, “The difference is now the building will be missed It ain’t ’cause of the bad things; we had good times in there too” (Petty, 2013, p. 135).

Figure 04: Cabrini-Green out of a window Source:Austen (2018)

Conclusions

As displayed in this paper, from the 1940s, Chicago’s public housing went into a downward spiral The Cabrini-Green public housing project was subject to deterioration, crime and violence, with gangs taking the lead in a new local culture dominated by weapons and drugs The poor, African-American and largely female-headed community was socially and spatially segregated from the rest of Chicago and, starting from the 1970s and 1980s, many inhabitants were literally stuck in their own building to prevent facing crime, violence and vice in their streets During the approximately six decades of Cabrini-Green’s existence, policies and programs were implemented aiming to give positive directions to its development, so: how have policies and programs influenced the lives of the inhabitants of the Cabrini-Green public housing projects in Chicago?

It can be concluded that the various implemented policies and programs had a major impact on the development of the project and the life inside Cabrini-Green, reflected in the testimonies of Petty´s book The positive aspects of community life evidenced in the testimonies, were too often overshadowed by the frightening and crime-ridden aspects inside the neighbourhood Deterioration, crime, violence and vice became the characterizing features of Cabrini-Green This is primarily rooted in the social composition of the population, the lack of social infrastructures and services, the lack of effective and continued maintenance and the inevitable decay, the stigmatization of the area due to racism and media sensationalization and the failure of politicians over decades to find any effective means to tackle this situation Probably, the basic general political decisions about the location of the projects - primarily black-dominated, already very poor neighbourhoods - and the target population - only the very poor, largely unemployed, discriminated working class people - had the most influential consequences and placed the projects on a dangerous track from the beginning Various policies and programs were implemented to try and improve the situation, the most radical approach taken under the leadership of Vincent Lane with the ‘Operation Clean Sweep’ and the ‘the Anti-Drug Initiative’, but the social impact, positive and negative, these could have had on the residents are unmeasurable In the testimonies about Cabrini-Green, these programs trying to fight the existing dismal conditions are very present because the inhabitants were directly affected by them. After the implementation of solely more destructive policies and programs, Chicago acknowledged the projects as incurable and had only one solution left: the demolition of Cabrini-Green and all other high-rise public housing projects.

When the analysis of policies and programs is put side to side with the lives and voices of the inhabitants, a clear rupture can be witnessed It is evident how the top-down approach in relation to planning and decision making, constitutes a gap between the aim of the policies and the actual result In the Chicago public housing projects, the misunderstanding or refusal to improve decisions taken lead the projects to a fatal ending From this case analysis one should reverse the question to interrogate and suggest how the gap between top-down policies and the actual consequences affecting the lives of inhabitants in social housing projects, or any other projects, can be closed

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Figures:

Image on the cover page: Chicago History Museum (2019) TIME http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2034317 2215123,00.html

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