The Cabrini-Green Projects: Chicago's Public Housing Nightmare

The Cabrini-Green Projects: Chicago's Public Housing Nightmare

Located on Chicago's Near North Side, the Cabrini-Green public housing development became the poster child for everything that is problematic with public housing in the United States (Wikipedia). "Cabrini-Green is but one of the most notorious housing projects known for its drab and sterile concrete towers of festering poverty, rampant crime, trash-strewn stairwells and unmitigated squalor" ("Greenbridge"). "These crumbling vertical ghettos house 20,000 people, all of them black; another 5,000-7,000 live as illicit stowaways. It is down there, in that wasteland of smashed windows and stale urine, that America's most pathological social ills are concentrated. The statistics speak plainly of how 50 years of public housing has failed those it was meant to help" ("Poverty's Foundation"). Before Cabrini-Green was amputated from the sky-line of Chicago in 2011, it stood as a towering reminder of Chicago's public housing failure.

So, what led to the failure of one of America's first public housing experiments? There is no one answer to that question. A combination of factors such as lack of funding, segregation of lower class minorities, neglect, mismanagement on the Chicago Housing Authority's (CHA) part, politics, rampant crime, and the loss of economic stability within the neighborhood all played a role in the demise of Cabrini-Green.

The Cabrini-Green public housing development started being built in 1941, not long after The Housing Act of 1937 was signed ("Greenbridge"). The Housing Act of 1937 was put into place

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due to the growing number of impoverished families in need of housing created by the Depression; this was the first time the Federal Government had taken on such a task ("Greenbridge"). The first buildings were row houses containing just 586 units; possible tenants were prescreened for substance abuse and criminal records before being allowed to gain residence (Fuerst, Wikipedia). During this period, the public housing experiment was seen as a success with most of its residents of the predominately white, working lower class (Fuerst).

During World War II, African Americans migrated from the South to such cities as Chicago looking for work in this war time industrial boom (Chung). "In Chicago, the 1940s and 1950s coincided with a large immigration, much of it black--from 1940 to 1960, the number of the city's black residents grew from 278,000 to more than 800,000" (Rybczynski). As the African American population increased substantially, racial tensions increased. Predominately white neighborhoods started to suffer from NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard) Syndrome which created a hostel living environment for the growing African American population. "White Chicagoans refused to allow blacks to settle in their neighborhoods" ("Poverty's Foundation"). Chicago's Mayor Richard J. Daley's response was containment; he tore down many "Black Belt" neighborhoods on the Southside of Chicago, which were predominately African American and built high rise public housing throughout the inner city in their place (Chung). The city government herded blacks together, reinforcing residential segregation ("Poverty's Foundation").

From 1958 to 1962 the Cabrini-Green public housing added a total of 23 high-rise buildings, some 19 stories high, with 3021 units to its original section of row houses, covering 66 acres (Wikipedia). At its height, Cabrini-Green housed 20,000 residents within just 3,607 units (Fuerst,

Wikipedia). These buildings were built with little regard to its future residents. Standardized, stripped-down, and undecorated tall buildings could be erected quickly, inexpensively, and took up little space (Rybczynski).

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A combination of politics and racial segregation played a role in the demise of Cabrini-Green. Such racially motivated strategies as was seen by Mayor Daley to "contain" the African American community within these "human warehouses" were confirmed by the federal courts in

the case of Gautreaux vs. the Chicago Public Housing Authority in 1969 (Chung). But Mayor Daley was not the only one to segregate the African American community. The federal government reinforced this strategy by changing the admission policy; criminal background checks ceased and income requirements were lower. Strict tenant policies were also abandoned, and as the less desirables moved in, the more stable residents moved out (Fuerst). "Racial segregation left black Chicagoans with few housing options and filled the public high-rises with impoverished black families" (Garb).

Politics and racial segregation did not cause Cabrini-Green to succumb alone; the loss of economic stability within the neighborhood and the lack of funding contributed as well. The industrial boom seen during World War II had collapsed by the 1950's (Chung). Payton Chung writes about how this affected such housing projects as Cabrini-Green:

The rapid decline of industry and general flight from the city led to widespread abandonment throughout the city, but particularly in its poorer quarters. The blocks immediately surrounding housing projects like Cabrini-Green went