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8/4/2009 3:34 AM

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When Techwood Homes opened in Atlanta in 1936, President Franklin Roosevelt was on hand and declared that the public housing project was "a tribute to useful work under government supervision."

It was the first public housing community ever constructed, but before it was bulldozed in the 1990s in a wave of pre-Olympics renovation, it was a historic landmark that attracted precious few sightseers. As a glittering city and bustling university campus grew up around it, Techwood Homes became a nest of crime and decrepitude. Despite the good intentions that accompanied its birth, by the end of its life it was a horror show.

Sadly, all too many of the hundreds of public housing projects that sprouted in the decades after Techwood Homes tumbled into the same trap, including St. Clair Village and Bedford Dwellings in Pittsburgh. But just as Atlanta led the way in the inception of public housing, it's also offering a new approach that could prove useful in other cities.

Atlanta is now tearing down the last of its sprawling, blighted public housing projects, the final chapter in a long-running effort to move the urban poor into better homes in better neighborhoods.

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Instead of replacing the run-down units with a new generation of large-scale public housing, the city is giving vouchers to residents to move to private housing in mixed-income communities. Renee Glover of the Atlanta Housing Authority told The New York Times in June, "We've realized that concentrating families in poverty is very destructive. It's destructive to the families, the neighborhoods and the city."

An effort on this scale has not been without controversy or, apparently, glitches. Some families have struggled to find affordable alternative housing, and critics have argued that tearing down public housing projects is a way to gentrify neighborhoods so the well-to-do can move in. Also, few, if any, of the public housing residents who have used vouchers have ended up in the most affluent parts of Atlanta.

On the other hand, there's evidence that families that have moved out of Atlanta's public housing projects have benefited from the change. A study by Georgia Tech economics professor Danny Boston published in the Journal of the American Planning Association in 2005 found that residents who left public housing were more likely to find jobs and earn more money.

Clearly, there will be a need for public housing as long as low-income families struggle to pay the rent. But there's nothing wrong with exploring new ways of making it better, and it's hard to see how maintaining the status quo will improve the lives of people who depend on it.

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2 comments

The reason : 8/13/2009
that this was tried was to spread around and hide the dysfunction that public housing causes.

Patriot

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Here's a novel idea..... : 8/14/2009
If you live in public housing, you lose your vote. The problem is today, that those that are not contributing to society can vote for 'leaders' that will take from the productive members of society and give it to them. This may sound harsh, but I prefer to think of it as tough love.

Patriot

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