[epistasis]

We didn't really try it, we tried to kill it. It was segregated, not funded enough to maintain the housing, and policy was designed in a way to make it fail.

All other advanced nations besides the US do (or did) public housing quite effectively. Even very conservative places like Singapore have amazing public housing.

[thsksbd]

We did try it. Mistakes were made, perhaps. But we did try it and it devastated the African American community.

Somehow people don't want to live in concrete jungle. The ugliness of grey cement destroys our own sense of self worth.

You want public housing? I'm not going to argue for it; there's worse things to spend t tax dollars on. But not mass produced cement blocks.

[epistasis]

Many many people want to live in a concrete jungle, which is why NYC is so popular.

Public housing in the US did not fail because it was in large concrete towers. It failed because it was isolated from the economic community, it was not maintained, and it was sabotaged on the funding side.

Mass produced cement blocks are a fantastic way to live, and much of the rest of the world uses to great effect, some for public housing, but also for middle class and upper class housing.

It's so weird that so many in the US have this odd fixation that because they personally don't want that concert box, that so many others would kit absolutely looooove to live there. Check out Asia some time, or basically anywhere else in the world.

The small mindedness of "I don't like it therefore nobody ever could and you should never be allowed to live differently than the way I like" is a very destructive force in the US. We have apparently lost the ability to "let live" in "live and let live. "

[thsksbd]

NYC is popular for the people who make a rich community with diverse things to see, do, talk, eat, etc.

Aside from some Art Deco here and there (looking at you Chrysler building, you sexy you!), the actual city is hideous.

[s1gnp0st]

You can build beautiful structures out of concrete. I was just going for a cheap building material. I'm not married to the particulars.

[303uru]

You're right, we need truly integrated housing. It does work. My ~$2.5M home is an 1/8 mile from subsidized housing. Outside of boomers on nextdoor who think every package delivery person is casing their home, it works completely fine.

[ryan93]

Are you saying its not possible to have black people in close proximity to each other without problems?

[SoftTalker]

It's more that you cannot warehouse massive numbers of chronically impoverished people in concrete silos without problems.

[epistasis]

The "silo" isn't the problem, it's the lack of opportunities for employment, lack of access to basic amenities, etc.

People in wealthy silos, in downtowns, do fantastically. The problem was the systemic racism in the US, that enabled such a state of disinvestment and segregation, not the particular form of architecture.

[epistasis]

That is an incredibly offensive and racist thing to even concieve, much less try to put into somebody else's mouth.

The problem of public housing's inaccessibility, being cut off from jobs and basic necessities, is well documented. Segregation has been a huge problem in the US because it has been used to deny basic opportunity to Black people, not because a lot of Black people are living together.

[ryan93]

a lot of these housing blocks are in the MIDDLE of some of the world's richest cities.