Public housing in the United States recently had its 50th anniversary, but there were no celebrations. It has been en experiment that few people have been hoppy with, including the residents. The basic flaw with public housing in this country was the decision to isolate low-income families in developments containing only other poor families. The great irony is that the social reformers who were the most dedicated early supporters of public housing, failed to foresee the social consequences of what they were creating Of almost equal importance for the failure of public housing was the physical design of the projects, and much of the blame for that must be laid et the feet of the architects who designed them. A brief review of the history of public housing may be helpful when thinking about the forces that influenced the architects in their designs.

Chicago makes an ideal site for a case study of public housing. Incorporated in 1633, it is one of the youngest of the major cities, its entire development having occurred during the post-Industrial Revolution period. It has long been an innovator in the technology of building, and is unexcelled in the overall quality of its architectural design. It has the second largest public housing system in the country, and the largest public housing project, Robert Taylor Homes, a two mile long string of twenty eight identical 16 story buildings containing 4,300 apartments and about 25,000 residents.

The early developments built in Chicago were relatively well designed and to this day remain the most popular among the residents, as shown by the fact they have waiting fists of five years or more for admis sion whereas later high-rise projects have empty units going begging. The first of the PWA projects, with 1,027 unite, wee the Jane Addams Houses constructed in 1937 on a 24 acre site two miles west of Chicago's Loop It consists of 32 structures, mostly three- end four-story apartment buildings, with same two-story row houses.

The Jane Addams buildings ere constructed of brick and although bereft of architectural detail, they are built to a human scale, in keeping with the low-rise character of the neighborhood. As with other PWA projects in Chicago, the design wee by a large temporary association of architects, in this case ten in number, brought together to fulfill the obligation of providing maximum employment. Three similar projects were constructed in other parts of the city prior to World War II, end then an extensive aeries of temporary and permanent developments for war workers and later returning veteran. Moat took the form of clusters of rental row houses.

The high-rise phase of public housing in Chicago alerted in 1950 with the construction of Dearborn Homes on the Near South Side, adjacent to the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology. Although its buildings ere only six and nine stories tall they set the precedent for the tidal wave of projects that followed. The reason given for going to elevator buildings was that land coverage could be reduced 10 per cent or less at a time of scarcity of vacant property in the inner-city.

The rationale dose not withstand analysis, however, when it is remembered that the earlier low-rise developments had 75 to 80 per cent open lend, and none of the problems of elevator living for messes of children. The more likely explanation of the use by the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) of elevator buildings is that the staff, commissioners end architects got caught up in the high-rise apartment fascination of the period, and failed to recognize that housing which might be quite acceptable for single people or childless couples, may not be at all desirable for poor families with several small children.

The concept of Dearborn Homes and the larger developments that followed, clearly reflects the influence of LeCorbusier, the Swiss-born architect who published a number of plane in the 1920's end 1930'e, especially Villa Radieuse (1935), showing high-rise apartment buildings in perk-like settings. The International School of Architecture from Europe maintained a tremendous influence, of course, on American architects and the universities that educated them from that period all the way to the 1970'x. By 1955 the "bold" land planning then in vogue was employed by CHA at Grace Abbott Homes, constructed on a "super block" comprising 10 standard city blocks, but without streets running through it. Later came the massive Green project, where former Mayor Jane Byrne ved for two weeks to observe public housing first hand, and Robert Taylor Homes.

The design of public housing in Chicago, as elsewhere, is blend end unimaginative. It generally consists of dreary rows of barrack-like dwellings, physically better than the tenements they replaced but not very attractive competed to the majority of private housing. When considering the forces that created such results it must be remembered that economic factors played a major part. There was concern to keep the housing comparatively modest in cost, and physically very durable. That objective wee basically met in Chicago, except in regard to the matter of elevator maintenance.

Economic considerations were by no means the entire picture in regard to the design choices that were made. Although the reasons for those decisions are now somewhat a matter of conjecture, it is possible to isolate certain factors. 1] In the understandable concern for quickly replacing some of the terrible slums that existed, too little attention was paid to the aesthetic and social implications of this new type of hoaxing. The major emphasis wee placed merely on "safe end sanitary" housing. 2) The federal and CHA officials responsible for the projects knew little about architecture. 3) A conscious effort to make the buildings modest in many respects, to blunt public criticism that poor people were getting something for nothing from the government, also assured that public housing would not compete with the private housing market. 4) The overly detailed specifications formulated by the governmental bureaucracies inhibited creativity. 5) There was a lack of public pressure on CI-IA to produce well-penned and designed housing.

The question remains; was there any meaningful resident input into the designs of public housing? The answer is simply no. The clients of the architects designing such housing were, of course, the local public housing authority and the federal agency which put up the funds, not the tenants. One of the problems inherent in public housing is that its philosophy is paternalistic. Although the social reformers who were the leaders in the early public housing movement were genuinely concerned about the living conditions of the poor, they evidently felt that they (the reformers) knew what wee beat for them (the poor). The residents have been treated like children, end the tragedy has been that for some it has been e self-fulfilling prophecy; they have come to act like children and be satisfied to have public housing and welfare policies control their lives.

Another important factor that tended to isolate public housing residents from architects who designed such housing wax the absence of market forces that are present in the private market. In that market if a design is unacceptable to too many people the building will have a large vacancy rate and not be repeated. The thing that keeps public housing occupied is the acute shortage of affordable housing for poor people and its low rent structure. The average rent of CHA family unite, many of which have three bedrooms, is still below $100 per month.

It is impossible to know what would have happened if public housing tenants had been consulted about the design of new projects. It would be naive to assume they would have had the answers that everyone else lacked, but it ix likely that the outcome would have been somewhat different. The strong and continued preference that the tenants have shown for row houses and walk-up apartments, if it had been paid attention to by the decision makers and architects, at least would have avoided the debacle of high-rise family public housing. That would have been no mean accomplishment.