The Projects: A New History of Public Housing

As the US struggles to provide affordable housing, millions of Americans live in deteriorating public housing projects, enduring the mistakes of past housing policy. In his new book The Projects, Howard A. Husock explains how we got here, detailing the tragic rise and fall of public housing and the pitfalls of other subsidy programs. He takes us inside a progressive movement led by a group of New York City philanthropists, politicians, and business magnates who first championed public housing as a solution to urban blight.

Yet despite the movement’s lofty ideals, the creation of the Projects led to the destruction of low-income communities across the country. Husock connects the history of public housing with contemporary debates on the government’s role in the housing market. Through interviews with residents, he reveals how public housing transformed the lives of Americans and the physical faces of cities and towns. Mapping out a better path for policy-makers, he lays a new foundation for upward mobility in America.

After his talk, Howard Husock engaged in dialogue with Nicholas Dagen Bloom, Professor of Urban Policy and Planning at Hunter College and author of several histories of housing.

HOWARD A. HUSOCK
Howard A. Husock is Senior Fellow in Domestic Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of many books, including America’s Trillion-Dollar Housing Policy Mistake: The Failure of American Housing Policy, The Poor Side of Town: And Why We Need It, Who Killed Civil Society? The Rise of Big Government and Decline of Bourgeois Norms, and Philanthropy Under Fire. Husock has received many awards for his work as a documentary film producer, including the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, a National News and Documentary Emmy Award, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting award. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Wall Street Journal, and many other leading publications.

NICHOLAS DAGEN BLOOM
Nicholas Dagen Bloom is a Professor of Urban Policy and Planning at Hunter College. Bloom's research analyzes long-term planning outcomes in essential urban systems. Among his books are Public Housing That Worked, How States Shaped Postwar America, and and The Great American Transit Disaster: Austerity, Autocentric Planning, and White Flight. He is co-editor of four edited collections, including the prize-winning Public Housing Myths and Affordable Housing in New York.