The Pruitt-Igoe housing development in St. Louis is the focus of this film, but it could have just as soon been Cabrini-Green in Chicago or any one of a number of similar projects across the American big cities. It's an exploration as to why these huge public housing projects became hellish instead of the paradises they were originally envisioned. Fortunately, the filmmakers don't pick any one or two simple answers but talk about the multitude of issues that led to the projects failing...and ultimately being demolished. Among the problems discussed in the film were the lack of jobs as businesses and middle classes migrated to the suburbs, the increase of violence and vandalism, lack of maintenance, segregation as well as the insane notion that in order to get public assistance that fathers could not remain in the home! This documentary is depressing and few folks would enjoy watching it. Now I am NOT saying it's bad and it's good for folks to become familiar with the issues that come up in the film. But it's just not the sort of thing most people would choose to watch and is probably more a film that educators might show to sociology or other such classes in order to explain the failures of these programs. Interesting and well made...despite it being such a terrible story.

The subject matter is interesting but the execution of the film is incredibly shallow. It's only redeeming point are a few of the interviews which transcend the discussion and manage to bring out some human feeling into is what basically a town-planning policy and execution story.But as a film, it suffers greatly from the small number of people interviewed - I counted eight, of which only four or five are actual former residents. Much historical footage is used and some of it feels tacked on as a way of adding volume to what would have otherwise turned it be a documentary short. At some point you get a feeling of material being reused in order to fill the time. And that's a shame, as this is both interesting and relevant to much of our society. This case-study deserves a better retelling.

The Pruitt Igoe myth reveals a saddening chapter in this nation's urban history. It covers what could have been the rise of a real housing solution for the urban poor but what ended up being a lesson for urban planners everywhere and the talking. For those who want to end government subsidized programs like public housing. The film covers many issues concerning the urban environment like the housing problem urban poverty and segregation. These are problems that plagued every major city in the United States but the film of course focuses on the Pruitt Igoe housing complex and the city of st. Louis. St Louis continues to this day to be one of the most segregated cities in America. Using a map you can drop a line down Delmar boulevard, one of the main thoroughfares of the city, and separate the majority of the black population from the white population. The divide becomes even worse when you leave the city and go into St Louis County, where all of North County is poor African American communities while West and South County are more affluent white suburbs. I would even argue that this film provides insight into many of the problems the st. Louis sees today including gang violence in the Michael Brown killing that happened in Ferguson Missouri one of the North County suburbs. If you don't understand urban poverty as a whole, and especially why these issues occur in St Louis, the Pruitt Igoe myth reveals the very beginning of the story. The original idea behind the construction of Pruitt Igoe is that the public sector could offer a better solution to housing the urban poor than the private sector could. After World War Two, many African American families from the south migrated north to urban centers in search of work and often found themselves living dilapidated, unsanitary slums. The slumlords who owned these properties refused to do anything about it because they were making so much money by taking advantage of these people. As one interviewee described Pruitt Igoe, what began as almost literally a glimmering hope for poor and working class families to have a housing option close to where they worked, soon turned into a crumbling shell of what could've been. Lack of proper funding to maintain the buildings soon left elevators inoperable, lights broken, and windows shattered. Originally the plan was to use the tenants rent to pay for upkeep and maintenance, however it soon became very evident that this would not cover the entire cost, and the funding that was cut by politicians for public housing was sorely missed.So why wasn't the rent enough? Part of this had to do with the poor planning that took place by the planners, business leaders, and politicians foresaw huge growth in the future of st. Louis and jobs a plenty for everyone. The girls of course never came, and St.Louis fell into a downward spiral as industrial jobs left the city. New jobs were being created, but only out in the suburbs are African American families were not allowed who own property either through redlining or racist practices by real estate brokers and the surrounding communities. So the number of people renting in Pruitt Igoe dwindled and the forecasted money to be used for maintenance never materialized. We know now that the racially charged practice of keeping African-American families centered in the inner cities while white family's moved away was a very real phenomenon that was influenced by politicians and lawmakers at the time. Looking back, we are also aware of the imminent crumbling economies of the inner cities. However I would argue that it is not necessarily wrong of the planners of St. Louis to have approached Pruitt Igoe as they did. They filled a need that would be very helpful to the poor families living in the slums, quality housing. It was of course a very short sighted plan and perhaps some of the issues of Pruitt Igoe could have been avoided with just a little more funding to help keep the buildings well maintained and a desirable place to live for families who did not have many other options. However there has been no response to the obvious racial and class divide that this project helped to create and there can be no tonight that I go helped mold the city into what it is today. The racial boundary lines drawn by by the planners at this time continue to be the racial boundary lines we see in modern St Louis and that continued segregation and concentration of poverty has been the downfall of St. Louis in the 21st century. As much press the Chicago gets about being the murder capital of the US in 2011 the murder rate per 100,000 in St Louis was nearly twice that of Chicago's at 35. 3 according to the Federal Bureau Investigations Another possible explanation for this that was mentioned in the documentary was that since the city of St Louis boundaries are very rigid and constricted, that there is no the city except for the impoverished, crime ridden neighborhoods. But these neighborhoods formed in the city for a reason, and that's because post World War Two, this is the only place where poor families could live. The decades-long struggle that has been brewing in these neighborhoods between police and the citizens of these areas of the city should unfortunately leave little surprise in many St.Louisans minds that the Michael Brown tragedy would occur in the north side of the city. The racial tensions here are nothing new and has been brewing since the days of Pruitt Igoe. We may not be able to change what has happened in the past, but we certainly do know what has become of it and urban planners must take this into consideration for any future endeavors in the inner cities of America.

This is a fascinating and excellent documentary about the collapse of a public housing high-rise project in St. Louis, MO. Pruitt-Igo, a massive block of high-rise apartments was supposed to offer hope to the poor living in dismal slums. It was typical of similar disasters in other cities, for example Cabrini-Green and Robert Taylor in Chicago and ones in the Bronx. At first the residents were happy to be able to move out of the slums which were being torn down and into the modern, clear, cheerful apartments of Pruitt-Igoe. Former residents who were there at the beginning in the 1950's remember with nostalgia being able to live for the first time in a clean, bright apartments. Evidently at the beginning the residents got along splendidly. The architecture of these high-rises has been criticized for being inhuman and blamed for causing the monstrous social problems which ensued, but evidently at first the architecture didn't effect people that way. Children played safely in the halls and moms communicated freely between apartments.There were from the beginning some rather annoying glitches, the biggest of which was a rule that men couldn't live in the apartments. This meant that husbands had to either live apart from their wives and children or stow away in their wives' apartments. It's hard to see why rules like this were created, but easy to see what the ultimate effect would be. Poor families would be split up and an epidemic of out-of-wedlock births would follow. But that would be farther down the road and there are numerous other forces contributing to the epidemic of out-of-wedlock births.Another short-sighted rule was a law that forbid increases in rent. Since rent went to maintenance there wasn't enough money to maintain those huge high-rises. Elevators jammed, the stairwells became toilets. Jobs left the city and population left at the same time. Whites fled to the suburbs leaving Pruitt-Igoe almost entirely black. The towers became shabby and dilapidated. Vandals and criminals moved in and in a couple of decades what started out as a bright and noble crusade to help the needy crashed to the ground in flames. The film wants to blame the particular conditions of St. Louis at the time for the destruction of Pruitt-Igoe, but although those conditions were the proximate cause of the catastrophe, the entire plan was built on quicksand from the beginning. Because it was a huge government project which required huge amounts of money to maintain there was no way that such a project could be successfully centrally planned and still function. It was just too big, there were just to many false assumptions, and just too many political considerations at work.This is true for public housing everywhere. Almost anywhere you go you'll find that public housing, whereas it might not be as bad as Pruitt-Igoe, is still a breeding ground for crime and social dysfunction. Though the film makers try to deny the obvious, government attempts at social engineering are doomed to fail by their very nature. Lumbering government bureaucracies can't adapt to changing conditions. Rules and regulations created by bureaucrats look good in theory but are unworkable in practice. The idea that an entire dependent class might be created as a result of the best of intentions was never considered by the planners. In some cities, like Chicago, the black out-of-wedlock birthrate is now approaching 85%. Some could argue, with just cause, that it is the nanny state programs of the Great Society that are directly responsible. Only a liberal big-government project could fail in such a spectacular way.