One of the most infamous examples of failed housing projects was the Pruit Igoe development in St. Louis, Missouri. This project was a failed attempt to provide a more livable environment for the poor than the typical unsafe, informal slums. Unfortuantely, such housing projects were not able to prevent the types of people that lived there from continuing their bad habits such as drug use and gang violence. If anything, it fostered such crime as these types of projects have brought large amounts of people with similar backgrounds together, enabling them to continue in criminal activities on a more dense scale. Because of the extreme scale of crime, vandalism, and disrepair, the Pruit Igoe housing project was eventually demolished, and nothing became of the attempt to revitalize an impoverished, blighted urban area.A more effective way to approach revitalization and urban slums and poverty seems to be in reshaping the individuals who reside in such areas. While the World Bank, United Nations, and other governmental and non-governmental agencies are working hard to built and develop better cities and provide better housing for the urban poor living in slums, such projects will do little to change the way the people live. The culture of poverty and of crime that exists in the slums will not simply go away with a simple change in the physical environment; there needs to be a change in the individuals' mentality as well. As modern day thinker
and prominent Christian world leader, Ezra Taft Benson, said:
"The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mild men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature."
If you ignore the religious aspects of this quote and reflect on the concepts of self-reliance that it teaches, it really is a novel way to think about change. By attempting to change human nature, by affecting change in peoples' mentalities rather than in their environments, it becomes easier for them to recognize what they need to do to fix their circumstances on their own. If people can change men to become more self-reliant, to be able to better recognize and act upon what their needs are, the negative issues (i.e. crime, vandalism, graffiti, etc.) surrounding slums would not exist to the extent that they do today.
4 comments:
I found your piece highly interesting. I agree with you that large external organizations are grossly ineffective in solving local problems, or in this example in revitalizing urban slums. I think that you are accurate in your view that help must come from within the community and the indvidual.
I also support your argument that the key for achieving this success lies in human nature. However, rather than changing human nature, I would argue that what is needed is a return to human nature. I found a passage in "Self-Reliance" by R.W. Emerson that reminded me of the the sort of defeated and detached mindset that I imagine is held by many people living in slums. "But the man in the street, finding no worth in himself which corresponds to the force which built a tower or sculptured a marble god, feels poor when he looks on these. To him a palace, a statue, or a costly book have an alien and forbidding air, much like a gay equipage, and seem to say like that, "Who are you, sir?" Yet they all are his."'
To me, this passage explains why someone would vandalize a housing project. The project is not of the woman or man, but of an alien organization.
I recently read an article in the LA Times about similar "slum."
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-jordandowns28-2009feb28,0,6670814.story
I was so moved by the plan to tear down the notoriously-dangerous Jordan Downs housing Project in the Watts neighborhood and turn it into a "new urban village."
I was immediately skeptical of the reality of this plan in light of the economy but the article explains the "recession-proof" of the plan.
Because it is a subsidized housing project that is government backed, private developers may be eager to invest.
I am interested in watching the progress of this development and thought you might be as well!
This entry is really interesting. I think that slums can be found in every single country and it's something that could be easily forgotten. I'm a strong believer that people can be products of their own environments and when a slum is their environment, their worldviews and behaviors are vastly different than what others outside of the slum would call to be acceptable behavior in society. For many who grow in the slums, the unacceptable behavior that is seen is nothing but what they learned through childhood as means of survival.
Like you, I hope that there is way in which we could help those who grow up in slums change their ways and teach them other options for living their lives. I agree that by helping the person and other people, they can then help with changing the environments and hopefully minimizing the number of people living in slums.
Slums are definitely a huge facet of our country that could be easily forgotten if not for a solid social foundation surrounding them. I think that we hear alot about slums in the news, but unless we've actually been or experienced them firsthand-we tend to ignore the facts that they actually do exist. Environment is a huge factor when it comes to evaluating an individuals potential. i agree with you completely that many kids are products of their environment more so than there actual persona. When someone grows up surrounded by individuals that think it's fine to steal and deal drugs, a poor example is set from the get-go.
setting up a task force to increase awareness and help solve the problems that slums bring on in today's society would definitely be a step in the right direction!
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