418 Learning From New York

America’s Alternative High-Rise Public Housing Model

Nicholas Dagen Bloom

Problem, research strategy, and ew York City’s comparative success of maintaining a large working- fi ndings: High-rise public housing has been entirely discredited in the United class high-rise public housing system over a 75-year period States as a legitimate affordable housing N(1934–present) could point the way to a more equitable and sustain- planning strategy because of notorious able urban future. In spite of the fact that the Housing Author- failures in large cities such as St. Louis and ity (NYCHA) is the country’s largest public housing authority (accounting for Chicago. Missing from the planning more than 10% of all American public housing), its unconventional history literature is the long-term achievement and unusual urban context has sidelined its story in major public and afford- record of America’s largest operator of high-rise public housing, the New York City able housing policy debates. The absence of New York from these debates is Housing Authority (NYCHA), which still one of the factors leading to the oversimplifi cation of public housing history operates 2,600 buildings primarily in and policy. modernist tower-in-the-park superblocks for Contextual factors, often used to exclude New York from the national 403,995 authorized tenants. This article story, complicate the comparability of New York City’s public housing condi- assembles and analyzes historical and tions. New York City, in spite of fl irting with bankruptcy in the 1970s, main- contemporary materials to create a portrait of functioning American tower-block public tained its fi nancial and residential base much better than cities, such as Balti- housing. The article discusses both contex- more, who were battered from a toxic combination of deindustrialization and tual factors (New York’s transit network, White fl ight. This comparative economic and demographic health enabled density, and diversity) and successful New York City public housing administrators, for instance, to maintain long-term management in three areas (daily greater tenant selectivity and even pay for extra project security in public operations, tenant selection, and lobbying) as key to the NYCHA’s preservation of housing. New York, as the nation’s leading immigrant destination, also main- public housing. tained more ethnic diversity that, in turn, infl ected public housing with Takeaway for practice: In operations, greater social diversity and potential tenants. New York City’s extensive, low- NYCHA has maintained large front-line cost subway system (boasting 660 miles of track and 468 stations) further staffi ng on project grounds that play a reduced the isolation of housing projects, connected residents to decent jobs, critical role both in maintenance and social and kept many housing projects desirable even as social disorder grew. Finally, order. In tenant selection, administrators for New York City’s urban landscape includes many subsidized high-rise housing decades have maintained greater social mixture and better fi nances by recruiting projects for a range of income levels. There may be less stigma living in a and retaining working families and, at the public high-rise project in New York City than other cities because New York same time, enforcing social control through heavy policing. In politics, NYCHA has successfully lobbied for additional federal Keywords: City of New York, public author of Public Housing That Worked: New and city support. Long-term challenges to housing, affordable housing, high-rise towers, York in the Twentieth Century (University of project preservation and current challenges housing management, tenant selection Pennsylvania, 2008). in New York are also discussed. The fi ndings raise the possibility of high-density urban Research support: None. Journal of the American Planning Association, towers for low-income residents in strong About the author: Vol. 78, No. 4, Autumn 2012 market cities, provided that suffi cient Nicholas Dagen Bloom (nbloom@nyit. DOI 10.1080/01944363.2012.737981 attention is paid to design, tenancy, fi nanc- edu) is associate professor of social science at © American Planning Association, Chicago, IL. ing, and social control. the New York Institute of Technology and

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City public housing projects are similar in appearance to American counterparts (never dipping below 7,000,000 many middle-income housing projects. residents in the postwar period), but that does not mean In spite of these advantages and differences, it was the city as a whole could not, over different points in the entirely possible to envision a different outcome for public past 75 years, count millions of people in severe poverty housing in New York. Between 1934 and 1965, NYCHA and long-term unemployment. Nor does it mean that the built 69 projects (of 154 total constructed during the period city did not experience a staggering welfare caseload, of greatest growth) with at least 1,000 apartments each, in extensive arson and housing abandonment (often adjacent high-rise modernist tower-in-the-park formations that have to housing projects), municipal fi nancial crisis, and desta- proved so problematic elsewhere (Figure 1). Even smaller bilizing street crime and drug dealing. Nor has New York NYCHA projects from this time included high-rise super- been entirely immune from federal rules and declining blocks with hundreds of units per project (Figure 2). These subsidies that has cut its staff and hobbled management in red brick monoliths, while scattered across every borough, many cities. were concentrated in some of the city’s poorest, low-income Yet, New York in 2012, unique among American neighborhoods such as Brownsville and East , which cities, maintains its 2,600 public housing buildings with experienced major social disorder as a result of deindustriali- over 400,000 mostly poor residents (average family income zation, White fl ight, and disinvestment. The concentration is approximately $23,000) in 178,882 apartments that rent of poverty in NYCHA projects beginning in the 1970s gave for an average of $434 per month. These residents defy rise to many familiar public housing social problems such as expectation with only 11% on welfare, 47% working crime and vandalism (NYCHA, 1965). families (at least one member employed), and the remain- This massive system could have collapsed in a similar der (41.4%) subsisting on social security, disability, vet- fashion to failed projects in Chicago or St. Louis. New eran’s benefi ts, or pensions. NYCHA apartments constitute York as a whole has been a healthier city than many of its about 8.5% of the city’s rental apartments and are over- seen, even after years of cuts, by 11,686 employees. The vacancy rate is only 0.6% and the waiting lists for conven- tional public housing encompasses over 160,000 families. Crime in public housing remains signifi cantly higher than the city as a whole, but NYHCA projects have experienced crime reduction since the 1990s and are part of neighborhoods that have experienced even more dramatic drops in crime, even with thousands of traditional public housing apartments and big projects still in place (NYCHA, 2012). This success, when discussed at all, has been chalked up to either entirely external or contextual causes having no connection to, or even in spite of, actions taken by NYCHA, or as a kind of fl uke that does not merit further study because NYCHA appears to be as exceptional as New York’s subway system. Finally, some don’t see success at all, and count every news report of crime, poverty, or mainte- nance problems in the vast, complex, and aging public housing system as further proof of public housing’s essen- tial impracticality. In this article, drawn from my book, Public Housing that Worked: New York in the Twentieth Century (Bloom, 2008), recent scholarship, and recent data, I will summa- rize the most important internal operational factors that have allowed NYCHA to prosper. These internal factors, such as tenant selectivity and vigorous daily management, parallel many of today’s best practices in affordable housing Figure 1. Citywide Map of Developments. development and management. New York, however, Source: Department of City Planning Newsletter, February 1961, Box applied these best practices as early as the 1930s and 89A5, Folder 5, La Guardia Wagner Archive.

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Figure 2. Wise Towers (1965), on the Upper , includes 399 units originally funded by the State of New York. Source: Nicholas Dagen Bloom. (Color fi gure available online.)

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maintained them for decades on a systematic basis. It is my housing projects, such as Harlem River Houses (1937, fi nding, based upon review of detailed NYCHA records with 577 units), and the more barracks-like projects (and related work by sociologists, journalists, external brought forth by the Housing Act of 1937, such as auditors, and others) that management decisions, often Queensbridge Houses (1940, with 3,149 apartments). By unpopular at the time, combined well with contextual the late 1930s, NYCHA had begun experiments in stack- advantages to realize New York’s comparative success. ing tenants higher, in 8- and 11-story elevator towers at What can planners learn from New York? Best-practice East River Houses (1941, with 1,170 units; see Figure 3), thinking in affordable housing today favors not only tight in order to maximize subsidies. The experiment was eco- management and income mixture of the type New York nomically successful and set the model for the postwar maintained, but a strong bias in favor of lower-density, boom (Plunz, 1990; Radford, 1997). low-rise, affordable housing. Urbanists such as Harvard’s New York used its power not only to lobby for federal Edward Glaeser (2011), and housing scholars in Asia such programs but also for a separate New York State and City- as Belinda Yuen and Anthony Yeh (2008), have called for a funded public housing program that allowed for wider reevaluation of high-density, high-rise housing (good income ranges. By the 1960s, these two programs ac- density) to solve the housing crunch in crowded cities and counted for 59% of projects in the NYCHA system, with as a long-term green alternative. The New York example of 37% state funded and 22% city funded (Bloom, 2008). high-rise living, not restricted to public housing, gives hope This profi le made New York unique from the start because for the future development of high-density subsidized New York public housing could be better dispersed across housing in many of America’s densely populated cities the city, attract a wider range of income and ethnic groups, (Yuen & Yeh, 2008). and could be designed to a slightly higher standard. From the 1940s to the 1950s, Robert Moses used public housing as a key component in the redevelopment Public Housing History in New York process. He viewed public housing not only as an opportu- City nity to clear slums but also as a justifi cation for urban renewal that would displace thousands of site tenants. Public housing in New York emerged as the leading During Moses’s tenure, NYCHA internally maintained solution to the high-density tenement slums that domi- strict tenant selection methods and built thousands of nated large sections of the city, only after decades of solidly constructed, if unattractive, red brick modernist housing legislation had proved unequal to the task. The towers in the park, fundamentally transforming neighbor- public housing program was designed to bring forth a hoods such as East New York, , and the Lower modern city that would provide the working class with a into Corbusian dreamscapes. New York’s public higher standard of living including central heating, light housing projects featured a mix of moderate-height hous- and air in every room, indoor plumbing, elevators, and ing projects (6–8 stories), frequently in the outer boroughs green open spaces, qualities lacking from the aging tene- on vacant land, to very tall projects such as Grant Houses ments in areas such as the and Harlem. By (1957) with its 1,940 apartments spread across a mix of the time public housing was introduced in the 1930s, 13- and 21-story buildings. Project towers in this era many older tenement districts had begun to experience frequently covered as little as 15–20% of sites, yet still declining populations as the working class rode the sub- achieved high population density because of their great ways to the outer boroughs. However, this decentralization height. NYCHA made small but important improvements still left in place many older and still-crowded apartments in design, including more durable materials, variety in that lacked modern sanitary standards and fi re safety. New brick color, and more comfortable and spacious apart- York reformers drew inspiration from modernist European ments, but otherwise continued into the 1960s to build public housing projects of the time as well as their own repetitive tower-in-the-park systems (Figure 4). city’s home-grown experiments in philanthropic and lim- In the 1960s, major construction slowed, and in the ited-dividend housing (Bloom, 2008). 1970s largely ended, from a combination of factors. De- During the New Deal, NYCHA pioneered the use of clining federal subsidies made it hard to fund new public eminent domain, making slum clearance for public hous- housing clearance and construction in the expensive New ing possible not only in New York, but also in the country York area. Growing resistance from neighborhoods in the as a whole. New York also provided much of the national inner city (displeased with the visual and social effects of leadership in the public housing program, leading to both superblocks) and White residents of the outer boroughs the carefully designed Public Works Administration public (fearful of minority tenants and higher-density

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Figure 3. East River Houses (1941), in East Harlem, includes 1,170 units originally funded by the federal government. Source: Nicholas Dagen Bloom. (Color fi gure available online.)

development) put the brakes on further construction Political pressure in the late 1960s forced NYCHA to locally. The city program also wound down, and eight of relax its strict standards of tenant selection, and welfare the large city-funded projects (7,282 apartments) were sold tenants in public housing in New York rose from 11.7% in the early 1960s to tenants under a cooperative plan; this citywide in 1962 (NYCHA, 1962) to 34% in 1973. In selling of projects was a reaction to criticism from develop- 1972 alone, NYCHA rented 50% of its vacancies to wel- ers that NYCHA projects unfairly competed with their fare families. Although new tenants dramatically increased market. Nor were media critics kind to the projects from a the welfare percentages, even some old tenants could be social or design perspective (Bloom, 2008). counted in the growing welfare population as expanding NYCHA had initially been successful at integrating benefi ts dovetailed citywide with de-industrialization and public housing projects in the postwar period, but rapid the city’s wider fi nancial problems (NYCHA, 1974b). The White fl ight from projects by the late 1950s transformed the rate of welfare recipients may have been roughly half the system from a White working-class system to a minority- rate of Chicago at this time (welfare rates in Chicago dominated working-class system, with a mix of White, skyrocketed in the 1970s to above 70% of all tenant fami- Puerto Rican, and Black tenants. In 1962, Whites were still lies; Hunt, 2009), but some individual NYCHA projects 42.7% of all tenants. By 1969, however, the White popula- suffered from rates of welfare concentration above 40%. tion was only 27.9%, while Blacks composed 46.2%, and Social issues mounted in projects including drug traffi ck- Puerto Ricans 25.9%. These new minority tenants, however, ing, robbery, and violent crime. The remaining White were judged by similarly strict standards as the White tenants tenants mostly left the projects, including city-funded they replaced, at least until the late 1960s (Bloom, 2008). ones, for private housing in the city or the suburbs.

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Figure 4. Taft Houses (1962) in East Harlem includes 1,470 units originally funded by the federal government. Source: La Guardia Wagner Archive.

NYCHA in the 1970s largely shifted away from high-rise mix of price, location, and amenities (air, light, and open construction (except for senior housing projects) to mid- space) kept it desirable even with growing social disorder rise projects of seven stories or less. NYCHA also assumed related to the drug trade. Much of the housing in New an expanded role in renovation of abandoned or otherwise York City’s private market in low-income neighborhoods troubled apartment buildings. Because of this approach, was of a signifi cantly lower quality than NYCHA units, as and a general decline in affordable housing subsidies, the testifi ed by surveys of new public housing tenants at the total numbers of units added by NYCHA since 1976 has time. Public housing in New York City was also located been comparatively modest (14,149 units total). alongside public transportation; projects in Manhattan In spite of growing social issues in traditional tower were particularly desirable for access to employment as blocks, NYCHA continued to maintain its public housing neighborhoods around them begin to gentrify in the stock through the 1990s including enhanced maintenance 1980s. NYCHA aggressively recruited working families in and new methods of tenant selection that favored families the 1990s in order to maintain some degree of social with working members. NYCHA could restart more mixture and fi scal health (Bloom, 2008). aggressive tenant selection because the city’s population loss New York, in the 1990s, at fi rst did not stand to in the postwar period was moderated by new immigration benefi t from the HOPE VI program because of its high- and surprisingly robust economic development in the occupancy and decently maintained towers. The NYCHA 1980s and 1990s. Demand for all rental housing, includ- suffered from poverty concentration in many neighbor- ing public housing, thus remained stronger in New York hoods such as the Rockaways and East New York, but this City than many other American cities. Public housing’s had not led to abandonment of public housing units. New

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York would have been in the situation of turning out per apartment. If one divides the total number of apart- thousands of tenants, many who were vocal and well ments (178,882) by approximately $6 billion dollars, then organized, from solidly maintained apartment towers into the per apartment capital allocation is only approximately a tight housing market. The only comprehensive tower $33,000 per apartment. For this reason, billions in deferred redevelopment project from the HOPE VI era, Prospect maintenance remains unaddressed, and nonemergency Plaza, focused on a small project in East New York, took apartment repairs can be delayed for years because of years to empty out, and is still not fully redeveloped. declining federal capital subsidies. Older tenants are not NYCHA was, however, permitted to use HOPE VI funds pleased with this direction and, in response, the NYCHA to relocate some tenants in Rockaways public housing for has reorganized procurement, encouraged privatization of apartment renovations and creation of new community some maintenance functions, and initiated a task force to facilities. Demolition of aging towers is still not an option deal with a backlog in apartment repairs on a total project in New York today because of, among many reasons, the renovation basis (see below). high-occupancy rate that includes working tenants, the elderly, and the disabled; the superiority of most NYCHA apartments, even dilapidated ones, in size, amenities, and Daily Operations location to equivalently priced apartments (if they even exist) in the private sector; and political and activist resist- Unique to the United States, administrators in New ance to public housing redevelopment and privatization in York viewed public housing from the beginning as a daily New York. human system rather than just a set of buildings. NYCHA New York City, thus, has limited experience with the decided to staff and control projects at a level more com- large-scale redevelopment and relocation of the type that mensurate with middle-class buildings than tenements. took place in cities such as Chicago and New Orleans. Administrators put 36 permanent staff members in the Redevelopment, and its much-debated impact on tenants Kingsborough Houses (1941, with 1,100 units), for in- and neighborhoods, has fundamentally changed the public stance, and have maintained signifi cant project staffi ng at housing situation and discussion in those cities by giving NYCHA’s 334 projects ever since, even cutting offi ce staff former tenants vouchers for private apartments and then to maintain frontline forces in roles such as porters and turning former public housing sites into a mix of: a) Low maintenance men (NYCHA, 1941). Civil service require- Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) fi nanced affordable ments for NYCHA employees, initiated in the 1930s, housing (inhabited by carefully selected tenants meeting played a major role in reducing patronage that could have certain designated percentages of AMI); b) a small number corrupted these staff members and thus made the most of of designated public housing units; and c) higher-cost federal operating subsidies. By 1941, 84% of NYCHA’s market-rate apartments, townhouses, and single-family 719 employees had been selected through civil service homes. Public housing projects have, thus, been recom- exams, and this requirement persists today (Swope, 1942). moditized and no longer serve as major working low- It is this large frontline staff that, for over 75 years, income urban assets as they still do in New York (Cisneros have constantly picked up after tenants, repaired windows, & Engdhal, 2009). In New York, LIHTC projects, many compacted trash, cleared snow, mowed lawns, mopped of them high density, serve as additions to poor neighbor- hallways, and repaired apartments. The challenges of hoods rather than as a substitute for public housing. maintenance are as serious in New York as they have been Even though New York was unable to benefi t from in other urban public housing projects. Vandalism is HOPE VI in any signifi cant way, major maintenance issues extensive and has been for decades: Tenants and their need to be addressed as a result of aging structures. In guests throw garbage out of windows; people and pets 2011, for instance, 255 developments were 30 years or frequently urinate and deal drugs in elevators and hallways; older and 84 developments were 40–49 years old. Most and tenants and visitors break windows on a regular basis. NYCHA projects, however, were designed with a projected In 1972, for instance, NYCHA reported that, system-wide, 50-year lifespan and, thus, need updating. Federal capital over 188,000 panes of glass were replaced at a cost of more funds have, in fact, addressed some deferred maintenance. than $1.2 million. At one project that year, Wagner Houses Since the 1990s, over $6 billion has been spent on federally (1958), staff replaced 2,280 lights (panes) of glass. On an funded capital renovation including brick repointing, annual basis NYCHA was spending $3 million annually elevator replacement and overhaul, window replacement, just to remove graffi ti (NYCHA, 1973, 1974a). new heating systems, new roofs, and new appliances. This NYCHA successfully practiced the broken windows investment sounds more impressive in the aggregate than philosophy (the notion that even small-scale tolerance of

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social disorder sends the wrong message to urban popula- apartment complexes. Most community centers have been tions) long before it became a mainstay of urban policing renovated in the last two decades and many new centers (Kelling & Coles, 1998). Even the most problematic were built by leading architects to bring color and life to housing projects, such as those in East New York, have project grounds (Bloom, 2008). been given more janitorial and skilled-trade task forces The red-brick uniformity of NYCHA design has rather than being written off as unworkable. Full-time staff generated decades of justifi ed journalistic criticism, and on this scale also provides an important security addition does much to undermine a sense that NYCHA superblocks with extra eyes on the project; staff members in NYCHA are pleasant buildings to inhabit, but uniformity across uniforms have been a prominent landscape feature on thousands of buildings has yielded dividends in terms of NYCHA projects for decades. A signifi cant percentage of renovation. For instance, uniformity across thousands of employees have lived in NYCHA projects and 22% of buildings enables cost-effective contracting and renovation employees still call NYCHA home, providing extra eyes on of brickwork, roofs, elevators, and windows. NYCHA has, the street for many housing projects. thus, benefi tted from waves of renovation. At the same Management has also demanded redesign of public time, protocols for repairs have shifted many times. Skilled spaces and apartments. With growing vandalism in the trade repairs have, at one time or another, been centralized, 1950s and 1960s, materials for interior lobbies and hallways decentralized, and now include a central call center that became more durable including more glazed brick, steel, and dispatches skilled trades and project-based repairmen. tempered glass. Apartments initially constructed without NYCHA repair teams in fi scal year 2011 on average took closet doors or showers, or buildings with skip-stop elevators, 29 days to resolve a nonemergency request and 18.3 hours have been upgraded to meet modern standards. Historian to resolve an emergency service request (Mayor’s Offi ce of Sam Zipp (2010) also makes the case that redesign of apart- Operations, 2012). Skilled trades, in an innovative pro- ments in the 1950s and 1960s allowed for greater family gram now being expanded (2011–2012), currently com- privacy and played an important role in keeping NYCHA plete thousands of repairs, including all outstanding work apartments competitive in the New York market. tickets, in a single project in a matter of weeks. Elevator systems have received signifi cant Private subcontracting has always been an aspect of management attention over the decades as a result of NYCHA operations, but privatization of some mainte- vandalism and heavy use. NYCHA has maintained a staff nance functions has become more common as a means to of approximately 400 repairmen for its 3,324 elevators control long-term employee benefi t costs and speed repairs. since the 1970s, a ratio better than most privately run Among other factors, a backlog in nonemergency apart- buildings in the city. Over two-thirds of all elevators have ment repairs (collected through the central call center) has been replaced in the last decade and remote sensing of bolstered the case by the current administration for the elevators now enables more effi cient monitoring (Bloom, privatization of more repair services. Current administra- 2008). In the fi scal year 2011, an NYCHA repair team tors justify this growing (and to some observers, controver- took 5.2 hours to resolve an elevator outage; the average sial) emphasis on private-sector management by comparing outage per elevator per month was 1.08 (i.e., on average, a NYCHA to other large PHAs that have gained greater NYCHA elevator goes out about once a month); and the effi ciency by reducing their traditional public housing number of alleged elevator injuries system-wide was only stock and fully adopting private-sector management tech- 24. These are impressive numbers for a self-service elevator niques. New York City’s emphasis on heavily staffed and system used by 400,000 residents (guests, etc.) on a daily unionized project staffi ng continues to set NYCHA apart basis (Mayor’s Offi ce of Operations, 2012) and refl ects a from other housing authorities (Bloom, 2008; Boston major push recently to upgrade elevator service after some Consulting Group, 2012). embarrassing revelations about service in 2009. NYCHA, in partnership with private and public As a result of growing youth populations and social agencies, has also started building a few small, colorful, issues, administrators in the 1950s began to change passive high-density affordable housing projects on housing green spaces to a mix of passive and active recreation zones project parking lots and open spaces. Additions include a that included playgrounds, spray fountains, community school for the Harlem Children’s Zone and senior housing. centers with gyms, and outside basketball courts. Some The new developments include participation from New housing projects have had their landscapes reorganized York’s Department of Housing, Preservation and Develop- multiple times (Figures 5 and 6). Most NYCHA develop- ment, New York Enterprise, nonprofi ts such as Nos Que- ments boast play equipment and other landscape furnish- damos, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban ing that are equal or superior to those found in private Development (HUD). The aim is not simply to add units,

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Figure 5. Astoria Houses (1951) in Queens includes 1,104 units originally funded by the State of New York. Source: Nicholas Dagen Bloom. (Color fi gure available online.)

but to use them to restore the traditional street grid to complete gift” (Marcuse, 1989, p. 49). The design of reintegrate projects into the fabric of the city. NYCHA has public housing projects to emphasize private apartment the odd distinction, and has entered unknown territory, of living refl ects, in part, the notion that the family is the building new towers on existing superblocks as a form of most important building block of community rather than public housing redevelopment. institutional controls. Not everyone in New York agreed with their approach. Critics at the time felt that NYCHA should focus on the lowest income groups and criticized Social Management both the complex standards and the relatively low number of site tenants who were housed in early projects (Bloom, One of the most important and also controversial 2008). lessons from New York’s history is that liberal policy initia- New York, like other authorities in the 1930s, thus, tives sometimes need a conservative hand in practice. sought to attract and keep working-class tenants who could Public housing was, in fact, designed to be partly self-sup- pay a decent rent and would conduct themselves decently. porting and self-managed rather than an institutional Early NYCHA administrators in the 1930s were outspoken environment. Early tenant families were required to be in their belief that “we think it is harmful to the whole married, employed, and were selected on an unblemished movement of housing if we collect such low rents that the record of decorum. Rents needed to be paid and tenants taxpayer will be called upon to make further contributions” needed to manage much of their own affairs. As Senator (Rheinstein, 1939). They were also worried that favoring Robert Wagner (D-NY), the father of public housing, put low-income tenants would “put a premium on sheer low- it in 1937, “This, after all, is a renting proposition, not a ness of income. It acts as a positive deterrent to all attempts

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to increase the family income” (NYCHA, 1939). Adminis- evicted effectively for misconduct, and had near-perfect trators were also concerned that concentrating and isolat- rent collection up until the late 1960s. These socially ing poor families would deprive them of “benefi cial effect conservative standards remained even as the housing au- of contact with families who are self-supporting” thority switched from a primarily White to an entirely (NYCHA, 1939). NYCHA was forced in the 1930s by minority tenancy of Blacks, Puerto Ricans, and other federal offi cials to accept more welfare tenants than it had ethnic newcomers in all of its projects (Bloom, 2008). intended, but it did gain some leeway from the federal Historian Bradford Hunt (2009) has also identifi ed the government in establishing its income limits. NYCHA higher percentage of smaller apartments created in developed and expanded its city- and state-fi nanced hous- NYCHA buildings as an important factor in reducing the ing system of public housing in part to establish higher large, multiproblem family from dominating the towers in income levels that administrators felt would better support New York compared other cities. the maintenance of public housing. Only under local activist pressure in the late 1960s did More notably, NYCHA put in place a series of behav- tenant selection and eviction partly break down as tools of ioral and other standards (known as the 21 Factors after social control. The relaxed standards for all projects, in- 1953) that kept welfare tenancy much lower than other cluding those created under city and state programs, con- cities. What distinguished New York from other cities was tributed to increased welfare tenancy after 1968. As the the length of time the standards persisted. In spite of reality set in that the changes had dangerously shifted pressure to focus public housing on the most needy, fi nances and behavior, NYCHA administrators in the particularly in the urban renewal era, NYCHA continued 1970s raised income limits, turned a blind eye to higher- to use traditional moral judgments to select tenants, income tenants generally, and created the Tier Income

Figure 6. Bronx River Houses (1951) includes 1,246 units originally funded by the State of New York. Source: Nicholas Dagen Bloom. (Color fi gure available online.)

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Integration System (Tier) that favored higher-income ing (CCTV; 6,680 cameras now in place), even as vertical tenants for open apartments as a way to restrain poverty patrols continued (Umbach, 2011). These techniques are concentration in many projects. In the 1990s, because of a under fi re, but remain staunchly defended by NYCHA and continuing but slow uptick in welfare concentration both many older tenants who are rarely the subject of these stops. in the system as a whole and certain projects, administra- Crime in public housing has dropped signifi cantly from tors created the Working Family Preference. While the Tier its highest points in the 1990s, but remains an irritant and system may have favored working families, it did not set a danger to many tenants. In fi scal year 2011, there were quota on their number every year; emergency cases (fi re, 4,406 felony crimes in NYCHA’s 334 public housing devel- homelessness, etc.), for instance, limited the space for these opments, and the larger projects in areas of concentrated working families. The Working Family Preference, on the poverty have a greater share of these felonies (Mayor’s Offi ce other hand, allocated 50% of vacant units to working fami- of Operations, 2012). Drug crime, in particular, is a con- lies every year. Eviction processes were also reinstated that tinuing feature of public housing projects in New York, as it did not ultimately force many people out, but sent a strong is in many cities where public housing grounds function as message that nonpayment of rent and antisocial behavior the leading public spaces for low-income communities. That would meet a strong institutional response. Rent collection said, precinct-level crime has declined dramatically for has often been a matter of going door-to-door to collect almost two decades, even in public housing-concentrated late payments, and annual apartment inspections remain a areas such as East New York and Brownsville. Gentrifi cation management tool today. and other affordable housing redevelopment has also Through these means, NYCHA maintained and even clustered around public housing in places such as East rebuilt working family tenancy (average family income at Harlem, Williamsburg, and East New York, proving that NYCHA today is $23,000), and strong rent collection public housing towers, and the working-class people who (98.7% in fi scal year 2011), even under growing social live in these towers, need not be removed for there to be a stress. This experience contrasts strongly with the persist- continuing drop in crime in poor neighborhoods. ently high rates of welfare tenancy in public housing in a city such as Chicago, a factor that contributed to both fi nancial problems and aggressive redevelopment schemes Politics Matter under HOPE VI (Mayor’s Offi ce of Operations, 2012; NYCHA, 2012). NYCHA has in recent years raised rents NYCHA’s history also indicates the importance of on its higher-income tenants in order to help close defi cits political maneuvering. New York City’s powerful created by declining federal subsidies, thus, staving off more congressional delegation, outspoken tenants, and tremen- draconian service cuts that even larger defi cits would have dous infl uence in many Democratic administrations, has created. The fact that NYCHA tenants have some income proven benefi cial to NYCHA legislative efforts. Partly by should not lead one to mistake the system as barring poor accident, NYCHA’s construction of projects in the fi ve bor- residents. Not only are about 11% of tenant families receiv- oughs meant that even though administrators concentrated ing public assistance, the average family income of $23,000 projects in poor, minority neighborhoods, large projects is well below the adjusted (for cost of living) New York City could also be found in many primarily White, middle-class poverty line of $26,138 for a family of four in 2006 (New neighborhoods. NYCHA’s health thus remains an impor- York City Center for Economic Opportunity, 2008). tant factor to New York’s delegation as a whole. NYCHA also maintained the largest public housing The NYCHA, over the long course of its history, has police force in the nation (1,500 offi cers at its largest in the used any number of techniques to negotiate a better deal late 1960s) that for many years focused on quality of life with federal offi cials including outright resistance, nego- issues and conducted vertical patrols of tower blocks. The tiation, special legislation, tenant protests, and constant role of the housing police became even more important as lobbying. In the 1930s, for instance, NYCHA resisted the multiproblem tenancy increased. There was some low federal income guidelines that would have meant debate as to how effectively the housing police controlled poverty concentration at a level that would damage the crime at the time, but New York’s commitment to project- social and fi scal health of their housing projects. Admin- based policing set off New York from other cities and was istrators directly took on federal offi cials who threatened possible because of extra city funding. The merging of the to cut off New York’s future public housing. Because of housing police into the New York Police Department in the the city’s political clout in the New Deal era, local admin- 1990s led to far harsher enforcement of the law including istrators gained a better deal for New York that allowed extensive frisking, drug sweeps, and closed circuit monitor- for slightly higher income levels, and, thus, lower welfare

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percentages, in public housing as early as the 1930s little or nothing to protect low-income tenants from high (Bloom, 2008). rents or homelessness. Without NYCHA developments, New York’s administrators, in partnership with power- many gentrifying New York neighborhoods would have by ful allies such as Robert Moses, also won state legislation this point become entirely segregated racially and socially. that allowed for state- and city-sponsored projects that New Yorkers as a whole also benefi t from lower-wage labor could house higher income levels and proved more that NYCHA residents provide (Freeman, 2005; Haugh- acceptable to outer borough communities. Over the dec- ney, 2010). ades, NYCHA sought and gained approval from HUD for Despite the utility of this type of housing for a city higher income levels, the Tier system, and the Working such as New York, best practice in affordable housing Family Preference, in order to encourage social diversity of development today emphasizes housing vouchers and tenants. New York also benefi ted in the 1970s from the small-scale, context-sensitive projects using a complex performance-oriented prototype funding formula that blend of funding sources. New York’s affordable housing rewarded high-performing public housing authorities with industry, for instance, has been a leader in the creation of strong rent collection (Bloom, 2008). attractive housing using LIHTC; many of these new hous- NYCHA has also successfully sought and gained ing projects are, in fact, found near NYCHA projects in transfer and federalization of projects built by the city and areas such as East Harlem and the Bronx. These new state (and no longer subsidized by them) in the Carter and approaches have a great deal to recommend in terms of Obama administrations. These transfers from local to social control and design quality, and often achieve high federal have collectively netted billions of dollars in addi- densities, but have not yet proved suffi cient to address tional annual subsidies and capital improvements. New long-term housing capacity or affordability in strong York also received one of the largest of the recent stimulus market cities such as New York. HOPE VI may have grants for $440 million of capital funds for elevator re- encouraged some housing authorities to become nimble placement, roof repair, and brick repointing. With its housing developers, blending fi nance sources, income decent reputation for public housing, and an activist core levels, rentals and home ownership, and architectural styles, of tenants willing to travel and protest in Albany (NY) and but most have been constrained by fi nancing to rebuilding Washington, DC, New York has been able to make the case former public housing sites (Cisneros & Engdahl, 2009). that subsidies will not be wasted. Activism has not, how- Most new housing constructed in American city centers, ever, shielded NYCHA entirely from declining subsidies even though it is often subsidized in one way or another by generally and a new subsidy formula favoring the South the government, focuses on higher-income renters or and West. Until the Obama administration, subsidy owners because of the high cost of land and construction, shortfalls created annual defi cits that forced staff cutbacks, demands for profi ts, and the public policy bias toward delayed apartment repairs, and forced more frequent rent bringing upper-income individuals into the central city. increases. On the whole, however, NYCHA has played NYCHA’s history reminds planners of the path not politics well (Bloom, 2008). taken for most public housing authorities in the United States. NYCHA at its most productive acted as a mass- housing corporation that generated durable, spacious, and Conclusion and Future Prospects light-fi lled tower blocks for the city’s working and middle class while still preserving urban density. This powerful NYHCA’s public housing communities may not be social democratic role in urban reconstruction ran contrary utopia, and suffer from many of the same social problems to American political ideology, and was either avoided or as the working-class neighborhoods that surround them, abandoned outside New York. Such a broad vision, it is but they still provide decent housing for mostly poor (and worth noting, aligned more with the ambitious urban increasingly elderly) tenants in America’s most expensive reconstruction goals of early public housing advocates such city. The conversion and loss of many other subsidized as Catherine Bauer than the actual, and much restricted, units in New York City has led to a further squeeze on federal public housing program as it developed (Radford, renters in the city as a whole; NYHCA units have become 1997). The United Housing Foundation’s massive, tower- more valuable in preserving a diverse city. Many privately block co-op housing projects from the 1950s and 1960s developed affordable and middle-income housing projects (such as Penn South, with 2,820 units and Co-Op City, from the 1950s and 1960s are now converting to private- with 15,372 units) were also built for the working and market rents. At the same time, rent control covers only middle classes as a result of a futuristic social democratic 40,000 units and the larger rent stabilization program does vision. These massive projects also remain fully occupied,

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diverse, and affordable (Ballon & Jackson, 2008; higher social groups often criticize this institutional Eisenstadt, 2010). style, but many potential tenants on waiting lists New York’s tower-block public housing and co-op would gladly exchange their current housing situa- projects have taken a critical beating since Jane Jacobs’s tion for sanitary and more commodious housing. (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities and Provisions for long-term residency should still offer new urbanism, and have had their share of fi nancial and opportunities to personalize and upgrade their social issues, but are fi nally being reappraised as important, interior apartment spaces where most families spend long-term sources of modern, bright, and comfortable their time. affordable housing in an increasingly globalized and ever 2. Planners and architects, if they do not already, need more expensive New York. The spaciousness of these to devote signifi cant effort to both active and passive apartments, and the permanent light, open space, and air security. Such provisions would include passive tenants enjoy, make most of these apartment complexes observation (orientation of high-density housing and more attractive to live in than to look at. The popularity of windows to the street grid as encouraged by the these complexes is indicated by the fact that both public defensible space theory), active security monitoring housing and these big co-op residences maintain long (vertical patrols, stop-and-frisk systems), and elec- waiting lists. With the right investments, they could pro- tronic monitoring (CCTV, electronic entry systems). vide decent, low-cost housing for decades more (Kimmel- Future technologies that automatically check iden- man, 2012). There are also opportunities for cost-effective tity on entry (cards, bracelets, etc.) need further greening of these complexes, some of which is now under- development. Most tenants will accept these systems way, by integrating white roofs and more energy-effi cient if it can be demonstrated that they will improve lighting and heating systems. security. Planning for large-scale housing developments for the 3. Systems of short- and long-term maintenance need working and middle class may one day again become the to be considered either with provisions for in-house tasks of planners and architects as cities recover from supers, regular staffi ng on the grounds, or private population loss and exhaust the supply of low-cost build- contractors. Planners and architects also need to able land. The American population continues to cluster consider long-term capital and maintenance costs in around major urban centers in spite of decades of sprawl. the initial fi nancial projections to avoid the problems For example, many popular cities, such as Los Angeles, that many cooperatives and public housing systems have both sprawled and increased density in older neigh- have encountered. The desire to build housing on a borhoods (Bruegmann, 2006; Florida, 2008). As rents mass scale must be balanced by a realistic assessment continue to rise and overcrowded conditions worsen in of the long-term costs. As in New York, a coopera- strong market cities such as New York, urban leaders will tive model for tenant ownership of publicly con- one day have to reckon again with both housing quality structed housing, as took place in the 1960s in the and quantity. High-density tower blocks may once again be city-funded projects, may be a realistic way to pro- constructed in both New York and other expensive, built- vide long-term affordable housing that is valued by up urban centers, in a similar fashion to Asian cities such as tenants and the public alike. Such a path might not Hong Kong and Singapore. City-funded programs could be what activists and critics today have in mind for benefi t from signifi cant benefi ts in municipally guided land public housing, but a program like this does align acquisition or creation (along waterfronts, for instance) with the ambitious goals of the early years of public and long-term municipal fi nancing. Housing created under housing. such a model could then be disposed as rentals (for families or seniors) or low-cost cooperatives (Kwak, 2006; Yuen & Yeh, 2008). References Should there be another era of mass housing construc- Ballon, H., & Jackson, K. (2008). Robert Moses and the modern city: The tion, new large-scale projects under such a program should transformation of New York. New York, NY: Norton. integrate the following features derived from the New York Bloom, N. B. (2008). Public housing that worked: New York in the experience of high-density, tower-block housing: twentieth century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania. Boston Consulting Group. (2012). Reshaping NYHCA support func- 1. Common spaces and apartment interiors would tions. Boston, MA: Boston Consulting Group. Retrieved November 14, 2012, from http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycha/downloads/pdf/BCG- need to be built for hard use and durability (glazed report-NYCHA-Key-Findings-and-Recommendations-8-15-12vFinal. brick, shatterproof glass, steel, etc.). Visitors from pdf

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