[blockwriter]

I've been doing research into the high-rise housing projects in Chicago. One of the things I'm curious about when it comes to advocacy for more housing and to have that housing be accessible regardless of mental health or substance abuse issues is, does that not pretty much look like high-rise housing projects? If you want more diffuse housing that is accessible and also available regardless of other contributing factors, then it seems to me you would have to build this well outside of urban centers, as the land is too expensive, but then I doubt urban homeless would find satellite housing desirable.

[tptacek]

I do a fair bit of local politics work on this issue in Chicagoland (specifically, Oak Park) and no, advocacy for building more housing mostly takes the form of replacing SFH lot zoning with 2- and 3- flat zoning; "big" projects here (and by "big" I mean "6-month long yard sign campaigns to try to halt them) are 5-story buildings here.

The term of art is "missing middle housing".

The concentrated high-rise public housing model was an obvious failure and I don't think anybody is ever going to try to reproduce it. Ironically, where you see high-density high rise construction proposed (and resisted) most often now are luxury condo buildings.

[kasey_junk]

The concentrated high rise public housing model was panned in its own time. The housing advocates at the time encouraged diffuse public housing.

Instead the existing (white) political machine used high rise public housing to explicitly punish and break up an ascendant black political block. They used highways and a university campus to the same effect.

In fill housing, at least in Chicago, is not a problem as we have both empty lots and tons of single family homes that can become 2 and 3 flats. Along with that you can add small specialized housing for various populations that need it.

[blockwriter]

Can you recommend any books on this subject specifically?

[kasey_junk]

American Pharoah by Adam Cohen covers these subjects in the form of a biography of Richard Daley

Blueprint for disaster by hunt covers more specific policy and history of the Chicago Housing Authority