Article information
Yonah Freemark (2015). “Myth #5: Public Housing Ended in Failure during the 1970s.” In Public Housing Myths: Perception, Reality, and Social Policy, edited by Nicholas Dagen Bloom, Fritz Umbach, and Lawrence J. Vale. 121-138. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
DOI: 10.7591/9780801456268-006
Book website: http://cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?gcoi=80140100302690
Abstract
One of the abiding myths of public housing history is that public housing came to an end in direct response to its problems. According to this myth, public housing was so inflexible that it could never be made to work; realizing this, politicians rightly ended the program in the 1970s. Yonah Freemark’s chapter… disputes this myth and uncovers a more complex picture… While opposition to “conventional” public housing founded on the program’s perceived failures did exist in the early 1970s, these criticisms did not play the determining role in the administration’s policy decisions.