When Cabrini Green came down, I remember seeing a bunch of articles about public housing, which portrayed these high-rise projects as an outgrowth of the optimistic attitude of the time. There's a strong cognitive dissonance there, because the projects were just as much an outgrowth of the powerful segregationist attitude that also characterized the era.
I'm quite excited to see the move to what will hopefully be more integrationist attempts at public housing. I really like the idea of Section 8 (we had Section 8 buildings in Streeterville where I lived in Chicago) and would love to see it extended to wealthy suburban neighborhoods.
Those stories were largely revisionist history. At the time the large Chicago high rise public housing were built (Cabrini and the Robert Taylor Homes) it was pretty common knowledge that it was a bad idea to build large segregated high rises for this purpose. There was lots of opposition to the plans by urban planners and housing experts.
These large homes, the Chicago interstate system, and the placement of UIC were all outgrowths of the segregationist and the cynical political climate of the time, much more so than any optimistic belief in the future.
[edit] Blueprint for Disaster was a pretty good book that covered this topic.
The interstate system in many cities had those harmful effects. Certainly, down the road in St. Louis, the placement of I-44 and I-70 destroyed neighborhoods and business districts in a fashion that was both completely avoidable and motivated by racism.
I'm quite excited to see the move to what will hopefully be more integrationist attempts at public housing. I really like the idea of Section 8 (we had Section 8 buildings in Streeterville where I lived in Chicago) and would love to see it extended to wealthy suburban neighborhoods.