Because as it turns out, the way public housing was being built concentrated all the poverty in the city into a tiny area, which drew the predators out of the woodwork, drove away investment, and made the housing development nigh-unlivable. Additionally, the architecture has often been hostile to the residents, and the city neglected maintenance.
The best way to build public housing would be to make it a part of the gentrification process. Build where the revenue from property taxes is increasing, and in proportion to the development for more affluent housing.
Some municipalities get a lame approximation to this by requiring that developers build housing for poor people in exchange for regulatory variances, but it just isn't the same.
But the short explanation is that the US is overwhelmingly run by rich people, and the rich people in the US hate to see poor people get something at or below cost without them sweating on it first, because they believe that welfare dollars are overwhelmingly coming out of their pockets, and they earned them by their hard work. They may be delusional, but they still get elected to fill the public offices.
Rich property owners (or those looking to become rich from high-value property) would counter with concerns about their property value being destroyed, but personally I am satisfied with this as it is an indirect means of progressive taxation.
Wrenching the general populace above bottom-barrel poverty was done on the back of twentieth-century prosperity (ie: progressive taxation) but there is no such progressive taxation scheme for property tax (ie: property taxes are exceedingly complicated and many deductions are available). It is only prudent that other (new and exotic) means of wealth redistribution are attempted.
I understand that it's difficult to do correctly, but it has been done correctly in the past, on a few occasions (e.g. the scattered-site developments in Yonkers, NY).
It just seems like we've completely given up, and I'm not sure if that's something that has been politically ordained or if we just aren't interested in trying again.
The best way to build public housing would be to make it a part of the gentrification process. Build where the revenue from property taxes is increasing, and in proportion to the development for more affluent housing.
Some municipalities get a lame approximation to this by requiring that developers build housing for poor people in exchange for regulatory variances, but it just isn't the same.
But the short explanation is that the US is overwhelmingly run by rich people, and the rich people in the US hate to see poor people get something at or below cost without them sweating on it first, because they believe that welfare dollars are overwhelmingly coming out of their pockets, and they earned them by their hard work. They may be delusional, but they still get elected to fill the public offices.