SOCIAL HOUSING
LARA FURTADO | HISTORY AND THEORY OF PLANNING | FALL 2014
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This portfolio was developed in a class of Planning History and Theory from the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. It was oriented by Professor Mark Hamin during the Fall semester of 2014.
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LARA FURTADO | HISTORY AND THEORY OF PLANNING | FALL 2014
SOCIAL HOUSING TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION About this project Context of Research - From Brazil, With Love About Social Housing and its importance
OVERVIEW Framework and Methodology of the project Introduction to class interactive activity
HISTORY Presentation of timelines developed for the 3 countries Image Glossary
RESULTS Conclusion from the timeline - trends, common events, problems Drawings from in class exercise
FUTURE Alternative housing worldwide Design ideas that matter 3
LARA FURTADO | HISTORY AND THEORY OF PLANNING | FALL 2014
SOCIAL HOUSING INTRODUCTION ABOUT THIS PROJECT This project constitutes of a brief analysis of the history and development of Social Housing from a global perspective. More specifically, this portfolio brings research that was conducted in the academic semester of Fall 2014 in order to establish parallels between economic development, governmental structures and the architecture of social housing. This study represents a qualitative study of the housing history in the United States, the United Kingdom and Brazil, with a goal of finding points of friction related to housing and how it started being regarded as a commodity and no longer as a human right. Since history is not linear, this portfolio presents findings in diagrams, graphics and drawings in order to make the complexities of history clearer. That initial historical research was conducted as a mean to provide a basic understanding of the development of housing worldwide in order to determine in which social housing era we are now and what type of housing should governments be developing for the citizens of this century. The chosen topic for this project was Social Housing due to the current problems I have observed in Brazil’s new housing program called My House My Life, which fails to address citizen’s needs and build houses with good constructive quality. The failures of the UK and of the US provided a basis to point how constructions in Brazil are following those countries’ pre-existent wrong path and challenge planners to intervene.
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LARA FURTADO | HISTORY AND THEORY OF PLANNING | FALL 2014
LARA FURTADO | HISTORY AND THEORY OF PLANNING | FALL 2014
SOCIAL HOUSING
CONTEXT - FROM BRAZIL, WITH LOVE Since 2008, Brazil’s government, under the leadership of liberal president Luís Inácio Lula da Silva initiated a national social housing program called Minha Casa Minha Vida (MCMV) – “My House, My Life”. The program injected billions of Reais as subsidies in the Brazilian building industry to construct millions of housing units for those who are part of the poorest social classes. For many scholars the Program is a success: it is seen as a progress since it gives access to homeownership to the underprivileged while fueling the national economy and generating jobs. It has also been attributed to MCMV the calm wave of stability that Brazil experienced during the global economic crisis of 2008. However, the critics to MCMV are extensive, since it generalizes the Brazilian citizens into one stereotypical character and sets architectural basic guidelines easy to manipulate by construction companies -which are now accused of producing bad quality housing (Image 1).
Image 1: Headlines from famous newspaper O Estadão reflects poor constructive quality: “Buildings from Minha Casa will have to be torn. Two buildings from a social housing complex on Rio de Janeiro, that have not been concluded, are presenting serious structural issues and will have to be destroyed for further reconstruction.” 2013.
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The quality of the construction is questionable as well as the design of the complexes and their integration with the so-called formal city. The huge conglomerates on the fringe of the urban centers are contributing for development of a city model that is unsustainable and does not allow space for social integration (Image 2).
LARA FURTADO | HISTORY AND THEORY OF PLANNING | FALL 2014
SOCIAL HOUSING While some of its weaknesses can be presented, the program was ultimately created with the noble goal of diminishing the number of illegal settlements. Therefore, it was important for me as a planner and a future practitioner in Brazil to study how the housing being developed with national funding may better reflect the citizens’ needs and generate sustainable urban systems.
Image 2: Housing complex with 1000 units built in Parauapebas by the local government in 2012. Easy to notice its suburbanization and disconnect with the urban center. Source: http:// espacoabertopebas.blogspot.com/2012/03/prefeitura-de-parauapebas-entrega-1000.html
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LARA FURTADO | HISTORY AND THEORY OF PLANNING | FALL 2014
SOCIAL HOUSING
ABOUT SOCIAL HOUSING This project recognizes the importance of housing not only for the inhabitant but also for a collective community. Considering that the city as a whole is directly affected by the architectural developments constructed within it, one can conclude that a form of controlling urban development is by reflecting initially about the small scale of the housing unit. According to the United Nations, in 2010 about 1.6 billion people worldwide lived in substandard housing and 100 million were homeless. Affordable and decent housing is one of the most basic human needs, yet it is in an alarmingly short supply in nations throughout the world. In The United States for instance, 95 million people, one third of the nation, experience housing problems including payments that are too large as a percentage of their income, overcrowding, poor quality shelter, and homelessness (HABITAT FOR HUMANITY,2010).
“Anywhere in the world, the production of housing is one of the main engines that drive the urbanization of territory. Depending on the conditions in which those units are produced, this urbanization may occur with or without the generation of an habitable city.�( NAKANO, 2009).
In Brazil the case is no different- the housing deficit in that same year was of 6.5 million units, which means that approximately 12% of the country was living in poor housing conditions and 6% of that value constituted of families in slums (IBGE, 2010). Within that context, president Lula in 2008 made the bold promise of building 1 million homes for low-income families by the end of 2010. Recently, the former president Dilma Rousseff has strengthened the housing program by launching its 3rd stage and promising another million homes. Those affirmations constantly being made by politicians, should be followed by studies that view housing not just from a quantitative perspective but that also analyze how the large scale construction of homes can integrate in the existing city and contribute to a more socially equal and sustainable environment.
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OVERVIEW FRAMEWORK AND METHODOLOGY The first stage of this project was to develop a historical study of social housing in Brazil, The United States and The United Kingdom. The focus of the study was about the form and design of housing and how the architecture changed throughout eras and governments.Those results were presented as timelines in an interactive activity developed in the classroom where other students helped organize the historical events (Image 3). Another activity was also developed in which students drew their “ideal home� without using extensive wording. This was accomplished to experiment how the classroom could represent a community trying to communicate with the government and provide input about where they would like to live.
Image 3: Picture showing the board that resulted from the in class activity to organize the historical events regarding each country. Source: picture from author, 2014.
This method was informal but, if further developed, may be useful in engagement strategies with real communities in order to assess their needs regarding housing and other urban issues. Additionally, through the debate that followed the presentation, fellow students gave input on alternative forms of housing that have presented to be successful and that should be considered by architects as housing for the citizens of this century. A few of those examples are presented at the end of this portfolio. Image 4 presented in the next page is a diagram that illustrates the stages of this project and the issues that revolve around social housing.
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LARA FURTADO | HISTORY AND THEORY OF PLANNING | FALL 2014
SOCIAL HOUSING
LARA FURTADO | HISTORY AND THEORY OF PLANNING | FALL 2014
SOCIAL HOUSING ENGAGEMENT SIMULATION
SOCIAL HOW? - What is GOOD housing? -How is it produced? - Is it successful? - Are communities engaged?
HISTORY OF SOCIAL HOUSING
1800s
1900s
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2000s
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FRICTIONS DATES ECONOMY
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WHAT HOUSING? WHAT DO WE WANT?
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IS IT POSSIBLE TO IMPROVE? (based on our mistakes)
Trade unions
drought = slums
“A Land for Heroes”
The New Deal
workers housing
council housing
HOPE IV
Economic Stability
Slum Clearance
Section 8
My house My Life
DIFFERENT ARCHITECTURE GENERATED
2 Right to buy
WHERE ARE WE TODAY?
“Poor door”
Favelas
High rents
Image 4: Diagram illustrating some issues regarding Social Housing and which were addressed in this project. Source: Lara Furtado, 2014.
Suburb
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LARA FURTADO | HISTORY AND THEORY OF PLANNING | FALL 2014
“In addition to the distress it causes families who cannot find a place to live, lack of affordable housing is considered by many urban planners to have negative effects on a community’s overall health.”
Basudeb Bhatta, 2010
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HISTORY BRAZIL TIMELINE The study of housing in Brazil deserves special attention since the abolition of slavery in 1888 when the Áurea Law was approved. The end of slavery, however, did not improve former slaves’ social and economic conditions. Without formal education or a defined profession, for most of them a legal emancipating did not change their subaltern condition nor help promote their social status. From this first moment when slaves are freed, the land becomes imprisoned and so does the mean to achieve wealth accumulation (Rufino,2010). As real estate is regarded as an accumulation of value for the wealthier, former slaves establish the first initial settlements, then called African Neighborhoods. The Great Droughts from the 1890s initiated mass rural exodus as those suffering in the countryside moved to the cities. That transfer of inhabitants with no living means also contributed to amplify the housing deficit. The following political and economic period in Brazil was not marked by social policies, but by a struggle between political parties - in order to gain control of the newly established democracy - and landowners – who wished to remain profitable without slave labor. In the beginning of the 20th century, most large cities experienced serious social issues, due partly to its large and unorganized growth and worsened by the European immigration and the aforementioned transition of slave to free labor.
In downtown Rio de Janeiro, for instance, there was an eruption of insanitary multi family shacks (cortiços), yellow fever epidemic and cholera, which gave the city international reputation as “the city of death”. European immigrants and new progressive governments wished to transform Rio de Janeiro into a “First World” modern city and joined efforts to begin a set of sanitation measures that included building water and sewage access as well as destroy the cortiços. The government of a particular reformist mayor called Pereira Passos is still referred to as “Bota-abaixo” – a Brazilian expression for “tear everything down”. Homeless low-income inhabitants had no other option but to settle in the remaining available and affordable land which was often in environmentally fragile and insanitary areas. In 1930, a popular Revolution ended the Republic period and established in power the populist president Getúlio Vargas, who governed Brazil for the next fifteen years. Even though half of his government was a dictatorship, there are no doubts as to how Vargas improved the rights of the working class. Even after 1945, when his 3 consecutive mandates ended, he managed to return to power by a coup d’etat and continue his authoritarian, yet social, policies from 1951 to 1953. The paternalistic Vargas government initiated a program to provide houses for the working class with resources from a Retirement Fund (IAP), which subsidized the construction of thousands of homes grouped into what were called IAPs (due to the origin of the funding). It is estimated that 325 complexes were constructed during the Vargas Era (1930 to 1964) totaling approximately 26.500 housing units in 24 states (Bonduki, 2014).
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LARA FURTADO | HISTORY AND THEORY OF PLANNING | FALL 2014
SOCIAL HOUSING
The IAPs are still praised for its architectural quality and size as well as its modern design with good lighting conditions, balconies and communal infrastructure such as daycare and hospitals. However, the construction of units to house the working class did not solve the problem of the low-income population who continued to occupy slums in the fringe of the formal city. “Every housing policy from that moment on [Vargas Era] has maintained a pattern: it gets started already chasing after a damage previously installed.” Adauto Cardoso – Planning professor at Institute for Research and Urban Planning at UFRJ. In 1964 however, with the beginning of the Military Dictatorship, a National Housing Bank (NHB) was established specifically to deal with the population inhabiting informal settlements or concentrated in environmentally risky areas. The “Conjuntos Habitacionais”, or Housing Ensemble, were large scale developments of single family homes located far from the urban center and are accused of having been used to isolate the unwanted from the rest of the city.The projects built by the NHB, disregarded the main concept behind social housing initially designed by modern architects, which was to concentrate activities in a small space to generate urbanity and integrate communities. “The result was the introduction of a rational housing form, materialized in monotonous large developments with poor quality, which washed out the proposals for social housing from Modern Architects and built during the Vargas Era” (Bonduki, 2014).That period was responsible for turning social housing into a synonym for “people storage homes”, often, far from the urban center.
The following decade was defined by a period of hyperinflation, strikes and student organizations, which were fueled by the end of the military repression in 1984.The Lost Decade, as the 90s was called, was Brazil’s period of economic stagnation when inflation was up to 700%, approximately 43% per month. At that time, due to the end of the NHB, the initiative to build homes fell into the hands of the private market which concentrated into high and middle classes leaving to the poor the alternative of occupying land illegally. The start of a new millennium was followed by political interventions in a municipal scale to build social housing specifically to families affected by governmental infrastructure developments or in urgent life-threatening living conditions. Policies were concentrated in valuing the recently established Brazilian currency, the Real, and developing a stronger economic image worldwide as well as pay the public debt. Finally, in 2003, the populist president Lula was elected and, based on his politics of helping the poor, set up the housing program My House My Life later on in 2008, which was mentioned in the presentation of this research (PAGE?). The program does establish subsidies for housing across the country, but the lack of regulation left large contractors with freedom to cut costs on constructive quality and reduce unit sizes. What can be observed about the Program is a direct transfer of taxpayer’s money into large construction and engineering companies. There is also a compliance from the State of those excessive winnings: from the moment the government established a threshold value that My House My Life is able to subsidize, it opens up the possibilities of investment from other higher income classes and thus, larger profits to developers. In this scenario we are now a country covered in debt- but finally homeowners. So it is worth it, isn’t it? 13
LARA FURTADO | HISTORY AND THEORY OF PLANNING | FALL 2014
SOCIAL HOUSING
BRAZIL REFERENCES IBGE – Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (2010) Aglomerados subnormais no Brasil. Available in: http://www.ibge.gov.br/home/estatistica/populacao/ censo2010/aglomerados_subnormais/default_ aglomerados_subnormais.shtm
Rufino, B. (2012) Incorporação da Metrópole: centralização do capital imobiliário e nova produção do espaço em Fortaleza. São Paulo. Diss. 2012. Print.
Habitat for Humanity (2010). The Housing Crisis. Available in: http://www.habitatmidohio.org/about-habitat/thehousing-crisis/ Bonduki, N. (2014) Pioneiros da Habitação Social - V1 Cem Anos de Política Pública no Brasil. Unesp, São Paulo. Cardoso, A. (2011) Conjuntos na era Vargas se multiplicaram para dar teto a trabalhadores. Available in: http://extra.globo.com/noticias/rio/conjuntosna-era-vargas-se-multiplicaram-para-dar-tetotrabalhadores-1767958.html Nakano, K. (2009). Nakano, Kazuo. “Revista AU |Fato & Opinião - O Programa Minha Casa, Minha Vida Articula Planejamento Urbano a Política Habitacional?” Revista AU. PINI. Available in: http://au.pini.com.br/arquiteturaurbanismo/182/fato-opiniao-o-programa-minha-casaminha-vida-articula-134745-1.aspx 14
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SOCIAL HOUSING
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BRAZIL IMAGE GLOSSARY BOTAFOGO http://www.vitruvius.com.br/media/images/magazines/ grid_9/e488_471-03.jpg
MINHA CASA MINHA VIDA 1 http://www.jornalgrandebahia.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/244moradias-do-programa-Minha-Casa-Minha-Vida-foram-entregues-%C3%A0popula%C3%A7%C3%A3o-de-Irec%C3%AA.jpg
CONJUNTO HABITACIONAL BNH
MINHA CASA MINHA VIDA 2 http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MgDsTqJMR_E/UjNULKt34RI/AAAAAAAApqE/ KphrXjEQ99k/s1600/CASA.JPG
http://www.exposicoesvirtuais.arquivonacional.gov.br/ media/134/phfot_408811.jpg CONJUNTO SANTOS http://www.novomilenio.inf.br/santos/bairro13.htm INFLAÇÃO SÃO PAULO http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bMHPR2PjN54/ Tn7pBdVXRDI/AAAAAAAAAEo/smXxjDLaP5Q/ s1600/10514.jpg GREVE http://www.torturanuncamais-sp.org/site/index.php/ noticias/211--os-30-anos-da-greve-de-41-diasCONJUNTO E FAVELA http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/ Conjuntos_habitacionais_-_Favela_-_S%C3%A3o_ Bernardo_do_Campo.JPG
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LARA FURTADO | HISTORY AND THEORY OF PLANNING | FALL 2014
SOCIAL HOUSING
HISTORY UNITED KINGDOM TIMELINE The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain and represented the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. Its impact was felt not only on the economy and production models, but also on the life conditions of the many workers who moved to industrial sites and settled in the called Rookeries. Friedrich Engels described in his book some aspects of these Rookeries, where people lived in crude shanties and shacks with no sanitary facilities, some not completely enclosed and others with dirt floors (Engels, 1892).
That crisis led the government to acknowledge that the State could be responsible for housing the working class. Inspired by the Garden City movement, planners promoted the construction of new suburban ‘garden’ estates, situated on the outskirts of cities. Mainly consisting of three bed houses for families, the design of the estates aimed to create self-contained communities of low density - often with no more than 12 houses per acre. Facilities, including churches, schools and shops, were provided; public houses were initially excluded from the plans. For most new tenants these new conditions were a huge improvement on their previous slum housing where they had experienced overcrowding and often were without even basic facilities (Univ. of the West of England, 2008).
By the end of the nineteenth century, housing was seen as an issue as urban dwellers—especially small children— died due to diseases spreading through the cramped living conditions. Marxist and Socialist ideals fueled several riots protesting against unemployment and demanding better working conditions. After the First World War, it became clear that the country faced an acute shortage of housing since, while the country fought, building activity came to a standstill. Inflated building costs combined with a scarcity of materials and labor, made it impossible for the private developers to provide houses with rents within reach of the average working class family. The close of the war also brought a new social attitude that focused the Government’s attention on a national responsibility to provide homes, giving rise to Lloyd George’s famous promise of ‘homes fit for heroes’ referring to the many soldiers returning from the war (Univ. of the West of England, 2008).
In 1919, the Addison Act was responsible for officially instituting and legislating for Council Housing. The act gave local councils a requirement to provide housing at reasonable rents and replace the slums, and also allowed them to make long-term development plans with funding provided by central government (Highbury Group, 2010) This was a landmark, as housing had now become a social service. After this initial burst of building activity across the country targeted at reducing the post-war housing shortage, local councils began to tackle the problem of its existing slum housing. The Housing Act of 1930 encouraged mass slum clearance and councils set to work to demolish poor quality housing and replace with new build. Local councils tried initially to rehouse people locally back into the communities they were forced to vacate following the demolition of inner city slum areas. However central redevelopment was only ever confined to relatively small schemes at this time and the vast majority of new houses were built on new estates, most located on the fringes of the cities. 17
LARA FURTADO | HISTORY AND THEORY OF PLANNING | FALL 2014
SOCIAL HOUSING
Due to the Second World War British housing stock suffered a new shortage - in London alone over one million homes were damaged or destroyed in the war. The following election of 1945 had a Labor government voted to whom housing policy was focused heavily on local authority involvement rather than reliance of the private sector. The way to achieve a quick provision of homes after the war was through the Temporary Prefabricated Housing program to build factory built single story temporary bungalows across the country until labor could be mobilized for more permanent housing. Despite the construction of 156,622 prefabs in the next couple of decades, the country still faced an acute housing shortage and waiting lists soared in urban areas. All over the country local authorities were pressured into building homes for growing families as homeownership diminished as Council Housing became widely popular. The percentage of the people renting from local authorities rose to over a quarter of the population, from 10% in 1938 to 26% in 1961. In 1963 a new housing act encouraged the factory production of apartments as a way to enable denser constructions in land considered more central. Many call this period the Great British Housing Disaster, since mass production was being done without extensive research about construction techniques and supervision of developments. The concept of council high-rise flats originated poor quality badly built housing in high-density estates and some quickly gained a poor reputation. Millions of people have lived in defective homes since that period, the result of construction being fully administered by private contractors. However, the Great Recession in 1974 slowed the subsidies being given to contractors since housing was no longer prioritized. Margareth Thatcher’s Right to Buy in 1980 was launched then to give tenants of council homes the legal right to buy, at a large discount, the home they were living in.The sales were an attractive deal for tenants and hundreds of thousands of homes were sold.
“Home ownership stimulates the attitudes of independence and self-reliance that are the bedrock of a free society.” Michael Heseltine – Environment Secretary in 1990. To support the growing private-rented sector the Thatcher government greatly tilted the balance of the law in favor of the landlord. The Act ended rent controls, allowing tenants to protest against the rent in the first six months or after a landlord tries to increase rent after their fixed term had expired. Some local Labor-controlled councils were opposed to it, but the legislation prevented them from blocking purchases, and gave them half of the proceeds (Moore, 2013). Right to buy was responsible for transferring some of the best stock from public tenement to private owner occupation and by 1987, more than 1,000,000 council houses in Britain had been sold to their tenants (BBC News, 2005). The subsequent years were followed by a renewed presence of housing associations in the political scenario as institutions responsible for building homes and administering the few council homes still existent.The obsession with private property fueled by the Right to Buy campaign have left the U.K. in a housing crisis with soaring rents and no major housing program to remedy it. “House builders are not building enough houses, and the proportion of people owning their own homes has been falling since 2007. People have long ago found that it does not always make you free to be shackled to a mortgage, still less if you cannot cross the increasingly high threshold into ownership.” (The Guardian, 2014)
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SOCIAL HOUSING
LARA FURTADO | HISTORY AND THEORY OF PLANNING | FALL 2014
SOCIAL HOUSING
UNITED KINGDOM REFERENCES BBC News (2005) Thatcher years in graphics. Available in: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_ pictures/4446012.stm Engels, F. (1892). The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co. pp. 45, 48–53. The Guardian (2014) Margaret Thatcher began Britain’s obsession with property. It’s time to end it. Rowan Moore for Housing The Observer. Available in: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/apr/06/ margaret-thatcher-britains-obsession-property-right-tobuy Highbury Group ( 2010 )The Politics of Housing Development in an Age of Austerity. Available in: https://www.westminster.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_ file/0008/78272/Politics-of-Development-in-an-Age-ofAusterity.pdf Moore, C. (2013) Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography, from Grantham to the Falklands. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Print. University of the West of England (2008) The History of Council Housing. Bristol. Available in: http://fet.uwe.ac.uk/ conweb/house_ages/council_housing/print.htm 19
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U.K. IMAGE GLOSSARY LONDON ROOKERIES - JACOB’S ISLAND http://thelondonexplorer.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/ jacobs-island.gif
THE SUNRAY ESTATE - LONDON http://www.ideal-homes.org.uk/__data/assets/image/0011/356258/sunrayestate-00597-640.jpg
ROOKERIES LONDON http://lucyinglis.com/georgian-london/slum-livinglondons-rookeries/
GLASGOW TOWER BLOCKS http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/7392295/Three-die-afterfalling-from-Glasgow-block-of-flats.html
GAREN CITY - LETCHWORTH http://classconnection.s3.amazonaws.com/52/ flashcards/993052/png/screen_shot_2012-05-01_ at_110455_pm1335938719906.png
BALLYMUN FLATS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballymun_Flats#mediaviewer/File:Ballymun_ tower_2007.jpg
CHEPSTOW GARDEN CITY http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/ Portwall_Road%2C_Chepstow_Garden_City_-_ geograph.org.uk_-_1038431.jpg BECONTREE http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/ Homes_Fit_for_Heroes_Dagenham_-_geograph.org. uk_-_50407.jpg BECONTREE AERIAL http://www.barkinganddagenhampost.co.uk/news/ heritage/film_project_documents_life_on_britain_s_ largest_estate_1_2222156
BRISTOL FLATS http://fet.uwe.ac.uk/conweb/house_ages/ch_flats1937c.jpg PREFAB HOUSING IN BRISTOL http://fet.uwe.ac.uk/conweb/house_ages/ch_unity.jpg AERIAL VIEW OF SOUTHMEAD http://www.uwe.port.ac.uk/house_ages/ch_aerialsouthmead.jpg COUNCIL HOMES POSTER http://ampp3d.mirror.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/1987_election_ campaign_poster.jpg FAVELA-STYLE HOUSING http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/apr/06/margaret-thatcherbritains-obsession-property-right-to-buy
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HISTORY UNITED STATES TIMELINE “Housing has always been treated as a moral good and, for low-income people, this perspective has been neither moral nor good.” - Lawrence Vale In the context of the United States, public housing has demonstrated the power of private markets to influence even that which is explicitly termed “public” (Vale, 2013). In a society build based on meritocracy, housing hardly considered within the scope of public obligations. Ultimately the development of public housing leads to the discussion about the role and limits of the state in providing shelter to the poorest citizens. Since the Industrial Revolution and the proliferation of slum housing across the country, the housing initiatives that catered to “the other half” (Riis, 1890) were developed by philanthropists. The Model Tenements, as these constructions were called, were specifically build for a public considered “the deserving poor”- the earnest who struggled for reasons beyond their control and who fit into the puritan family model. Even though that assumption – that poverty could be out of one’s control - meant the acknowledgement of a structural social problem, it still did not transfer to public authorities an urgency to develop extensive housing policies. The Trade Union movements of the 1920s contributed to empower the working class who formed cooperatives able to organize and fund the construction of housing for its members.
Those bottom-up initiatives were contrasted by the New Deal during the post-depression era. The need to reignite the job market led the Government to use housing as a strategy to improve the economy and turned it over to private construction companies. In 1937 the United States Housing Authority (FHA) was created as an institution to guide the destruction of slums and the mass production of housing designed to house the misplaced families. While the slum clearance projects had an interest in providing healthy housing conditions to lower-income families, the resulting architecture was divided into high-density apartments in the urban city and single-family homes constructed in newly developed suburbs. In the 1950s Veteran Housing were built to shelter soldiers returning from World War II, also under the suburban design, which was influenced by the Garden City Movement. “Congress continued to devise new roles for the private sector in the attempt to make development of low-income housing commercially profitable.” (Vale, 2013). Needless to say, at that period several American cities defended racial segregation, which was evident in the all-white suburbs built by the FHA. Strict tenant policies were enforced to ensure a certain demographics in suburbs while the public dense projects were neglected by the administration and fell into decay.
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SOCIAL HOUSING
While the projects became a synonym for gang violence and unsanitary living conditions, the housing bubble of the 1980s ensured that no alternative housing policies were developed for almost two decades. In 1992, however, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) developed a program called HOPEVI which distributed almost U$4 billion in grants to revitalize (destroy) decayed public housing projects into mixed-income developments (New Urban News, 2002). The tenements built by HOPE VI resembled the FHA suburban homes and were designed based on New Urbanism principles of walkability and densification of urban centers - however, not as dense as existing projects.The program became notorious for providing quality public housing but only to a fraction of the families previously installed while hiding away others as if something to be ashamed of. “All too often, the HOPE VI program has seemed a cruel acronym for “House Our Poor Elsewhere.” (Vale, 2013).
The assumption that the program is based on families’ choice is naive. HOPE VI was responsible for dismantling communities to replace them with newer and more valuable properties while giving no support for dwellers to settle in other areas that stimulate social and economic integration. Unfortunately, the national debate still revolves around the importance of Public Housing and whether the government should be responsible for its production, even though, in 2013, approximately 36 percent of renters nationwide paid 30 percent or more of their income on housing costs (U.S. Census Bureau, 2013). Meanwhile, Section 8 vouchers are responsible for one third of HUD’s budget while still not providing fair housing opportunities for all.
“No longer intended as a coping mechanism for dealing with the least advantaged or the so-called “hard to house,” public housing is again intended to be a reward for good behavior, a government perk allocated only to those judged worthiest among the poor.” (Vale, 2013; pp. 16) As an alternative for the displaced communities, HUD distributed Section 8 Housing Vouchers, which were to be used by families in order to pay for rent. Families would be able to use the vouchers anywhere that fit the threshold rent values specified by the Authority according to their city and number of family members, hence the name “Housing Choice Voucher Program”. However, several Section 8 tenants across the US have reported cases of discrimination against them for possessing vouchers, whether it is manifested by a blatant negative answer or by landlords who steer them to segregated areas in the city with other low income families and less access to infrastructure (City Journal, 2000).
“What our experience with Section 8 vouchers teaches us is simply this: replacing an old failure with a new one should not be confused with success.” - Howard Husock, 2000.
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SOCIAL HOUSING
LARA FURTADO | HISTORY AND THEORY OF PLANNING | FALL 2014
SOCIAL HOUSING
UNITED STATES REFERENCES City Journal (2000) Let’s end housing vouchers. Howard Husock. Available online: http://www.city-journal.org/ html/10_4_lets_end_housing.html New Urban News (2002) Hope VI funds new urban neighborhoods. Available online: http://bettercities.net/ article/hope-vi-funds-new-urban-neighborhoods Riis, Jacob A. How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1890. Print. U.S. Census Bureau (2009-2013) 5-Year American Community Survey. Vale, L. (2013) Public Housing in the United States: Neighborhood Renewal and the Poor. Policy, Planning and People. Edited by Carmon, N. and Fainstein, S. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia : 285 – 306.
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U.S. IMAGE GLOSSARY SLUMS http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/kstx/files/201312/ otherhalflives.jpg
LEVITTOWN PA http://www.visualphotos.com/photo/1x5062449/housing_developments_in_ levittown_pa_7H0504.jpg
COBBLE HILL : http://ci.columbia.edu/0240s/0243_2/ slides/0243_2_104292.html
QUEENSBRIDGE HOUSES http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queensbridge_Houses_(Queens)#mediaviewer/ File:Queensbridge_Houses.jpg
AMALGAMATED HOUSES http://www.placematters.net/sites/default/files/places/ Amalgamated.jpg
CABRINI GREEN https://happyspacesprojectblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/wpid-1500px_ aerialview_pruitt-igoemyth_credit-stathistsocofmo1.jpg
FIRST HOUSES NYC http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S-64d9PNkXQ/ TZpgyQNHRrI/AAAAAAAArC4/s995zc3ZiYE/s1600/ IMG_1796.JPG
COLUMBIA POINT PROJECTS https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7192/6967635949_69141aa744_z.jpg
TECHWOOD HOMES ATLANTA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Techwood1.jpeg SLUMS BREED CRIME http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Housing_ Authority#mediaviewer/File:SLUMS_BREED_CRIME._ UNITED_STATES_HOUSING_AUTHORITY_-_ NARA_-_515429.jpg LEVITTOWN HOUSES http://newlitcollaborative.ning.com/profiles/blogs/week2-extension-levittown-ny
CABRINI DEMOLITION http://wibiti.com/images/hpmain/040/152040.jpg PRUITT IGOE DEMOLITION https://placesjournal.org/assets/legacy/media/images/ ForeclosedRoundtable-2_525.jpg REPLACEMENT TO CABRINI GREEN http://wibiti.com/images/hpmain/522/132522.jpg SECTION 8 WELCOME http://www.metuchenmatters.com/orchardave.JPG 26
LARA FURTADO | HISTORY AND THEORY OF PLANNING | FALL 2014
SOCIAL HOUSING
LARA FURTADO | HISTORY AND THEORY OF PLANNING | FALL 2014
SOCIAL HOUSING RESULTS CONCLUSION A simple in class activity in which people had to draw their ideal home already produced an amazing result.The drawings compiled in Image 5 show the complexity of the lines that everybody drew. The drawings on the top were made by me, a trained architect, to show the contrast between that managerial technical drawing and the fluid organic drawings of the community. It is unfortunate to see housing lose the personification and individualization that people want to see and that is in their subconscient as a perfect home. With that in mind, this project ends with positive examples of alternative housing that is being developed worlwide that integrates the needs of specific communities. These new design ideas may present a real solution to housing in high dense areas, environmentally fragile sites or overpriced land.
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DISCONECTION PRODUCTION vs NEED
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28 Image 5: Complex drawings developed during the in class exercise. Difference between technical lines and human needs. Source: Planning History and Theory Class. 2014.