NYCHA Slumlord

It is said, “money is the great enabler.” But despite ample funding, NYCHA (New York City Housing Authority) is the biggest slumlord in the country. It’s no accident.

Pruitt-Igoe, in St Louis, was a smashing success until it was forced to integrate. White flight, accommodated by the government, was swift. Soon after, the all-black complex was evacuated and demolished as a failed experiment. There are many more such examples. (e.g. Cabrini-Green)

Architecture schools taught that black Americans were a stoop culture and the Corbusian model was tantamount to “casting pearls to swine”. It was block busting, plain and simple. Amazingly, Charles Jencks neglected to mention that maintenance and local businesses left with white flight. Without ongoing maintenance, any housing, regardless of quality, is doomed to failure.

The folks at NYCHA are graduates of this racist pedagogy but instead of new salubrious initiatives, they automatically double down and with schadenfreude to boot. If not for spite, why is NYCHA withholding the maintenance money? SROs are not the answer. NYCHA must release the funds and move at once to up-grade tenants to shareholders.

Ownership is good, people take care of things they own. Instead, NYCHA takes care of themselves and their cronies at the expense of the residents they are pledged to serve.