"One of the most thoroughly investigated breakdowns of social order in high-rise public housing occurred in the Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis. The Pruitt-Igoe project consisted of approximately 40 eleven story buildings, with a total of 3,000 apartments. From its inception, the project failed overwhelmingly to meet the social and psychological needs of its residents. Pruitt-Igoe became notorious for its rampant vandalism and constant sense of fear and distrust (Rainwater, 1966). The project, which had received architectural awards for its design, was razed to the ground in 1972--less than twenty years after its completion. Here is an example of an environment that was initially attractive, yet almost instantly functioned as a social slum.
William Yancy (1971) conducted a series of interviews with residents of Pruitt-Igoe in an effort to discover why the project had failed so totally as a human habitat. He found that Pruitt-Igoe lacked the cohesion, social order, and mutual support that have been found to characterize many central-city neighborhoods. When one resident was questioned about her neighbors, she lamented, "They are selfish. I've got no friends here. There's none of this door-to-door coffee business of being friends here or anything like that. Down here, if you are sick you just go to the hospital. There are no friends to help you" (p.13). Another resident of Pruitt-Igoe complained, "I used to watch the kids in this building. In the beginning I tried to discipline them. I'd tell them every time I found them doing something mischievous what was wrong and what was right. But kids don't like that; their parents don't like that .... They put the blame on you. Watching children is dangerous" (p.15)."
Source: Quotation from Holahan, Charles J. (1982). Environmental Psychology. NY: Random House. (Chapter 10, pp.329-330).
References cited in the quotation:
Rainwater, L. (1966) Fear and the house-as-haven in the lower class. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 32, 23-31.
Yancy, W.L. (1971). Architecture, interaction and social control. Environment and Behavior, 3,3-21.
The Pruitt-Igoe housing project being demolished and razed to the ground.
Source of picture: Holahan, Charles J. (1982). Environmental Psychology. NY: Random House. (pp.330).
Copyright © 2000 by Hisham S. Gabr. All rights reserved.
This page last revised: 09/05/03