Full Citation
Title: Race, Bricks, and Mortar: A Historical Cartography of the Chicago Housing Authority
Citation Type: Dissertation/Thesis
Publication Year: 2008
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Abstract: There is a widespread popular conception that public housing and racial segregation are firmly linked, and there are few better places for exploring this idea than Chicago. From its start with the Housing Act of 1937, American housing policy has purportedly endeavored to improve living conditions for low income populations through the provision of federal funds to local housing authorities that were to provide "decent and safe housing" for those who could not afford it (USHA 1937). Yet in practice, the literature shows that due to prevailing ideologies of poverty and race as well as policy that was only partly focused on actually providing housing, subsidized housing has a history of ineffectiveness and has even "periodically renewed and strengthened" racial segregation patterns (Hirsch 1998:9). After a reasonably effective start in the 1930s, insufficient operational budgets, deficient maintenance, poor management, and an increasingly stigmatized tenancy brought on a steady decline to the public housing in Chicago through the rest of the 20th century (Bauman et al 2000; Bennet et al 2006; CHA 2000; Hackworth 2007; Hirsch 1998; Hunt 2009; Kotlowitz 1991; Venkatesh 2000). While race was never a focus or concern of public housing policy textually, "whether one liked it or not," race would be inextricably entwined with where public housing was built (Meyerson and Banfield 1955:34-35). However, the existing literature fails to look comprehensively at the intersections of the construction of family public housing by the Chicago Housing Authority—including preceding federal programs—and the racial makeup of Chicago. This paper will spatially demonstrate the correlation of patterns of race and public housing construction in Chicago from 1935 to 2009 through the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and statistical analysis.
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Authors: Miller, Jamison, R
Institution: Northeastern Illinois University
Department: Honors Program
Advisor: Erick Howenstine
Degree: Honors
Publisher Location: Chicago, Illinois
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Data Collections: IPUMS NHGIS
Topics: Housing and Segregation, Other, Race and Ethnicity
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