| Blueprint for Disaster: The Unraveling of Chicago Public Housing Contributor(s): Hunt, D. Bradford (Author) |
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ISBN: 0226360865 ISBN-13: 9780226360867 Publisher: University of Chicago Press OUR PRICE: $31.68 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: October 2010 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Sociology - Urban - History | United States - 20th Century - Architecture | Urban & Land Use Planning |
| Dewey: 363.585 |
| Series: Historical Studies of Urban America |
| Physical Information: 1" H x 5.9" W x 8.9" (1.19 lbs) 392 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 20th Century - Chronological Period - 21st Century - Demographic Orientation - Urban - Geographic Orientation - Illinois - Cultural Region - Midwest - Cultural Region - Upper Midwest - Locality - Chicago, Illinois |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Blueprint for Disaster traces public housing's history in Chicago from its New Deal roots through current mayor Richard M. Daley's Plan for Transformation. In the process, D. Bradford Hunt chronicles the Chicago Housing Authority's own transformation from the city's most progressive government agency to its largest slumlord. Challenging explanations that attribute the projects' decline primarily to racial discrimination and real estate interests, Hunt argues that well-intentioned but misguided policy decisions--ranging from design choices to maintenance contracts--also paved the road to failure. Moreover, administrators who fully understood the potential drawbacks did not try to halt such deeply flawed projects as Cabrini-Green and the Robert Taylor Homes. The resulting combination of fiscal crisis, managerial incompetence, and social unrest plunged the CHA into a quagmire from which it is still struggling to emerge. Blueprint for Disaster, then, is an urgent reminder of the havoc poorly conceived policy can wreak on our most vulnerable citizens. |