Tearing Down Public Housing
All over St. Louis we are seeing the demolition of 1940-60s public housing projects. The picture here, however, is the demotition of similar public housing in Toronto.
While I was in Toronto back in July I made it a point to seek out such areas. All in all they don’t look much different although the population is more racially diverse. Physically, Toronoto seems to have followed that of many other cities by creating mid & high-rise public housing that had little to do with the street, having a greater relationship to the parking lots.
Like St. Louis and so many other cities, Toronto is razing these structures and replacing them with more urban low-rise housing. It is funny though, back when the middle class were seeking out single family detached houses we built public housing (which was originally targeted for the middle class, btw) as high rises. Now that high rises are increasing in cities such as St. Louis and Toronto for the upper classes we are building low-rise public housing.
No matter the form, the public housing areas seldom get complete neighborhoods — walkable with a retail center. The planners of these developments still assume a very suburban separation of uses philosophy. Where is the new urbanism town center to create real viable neighborhoods with our public dollars?