Important History That Should Spark Needed Discussion. First up, I fully admit I am *far* from a public housing expert of any kind. I read books like this to learn about issues, not because I already know about them. The closest first hand knowledge I have of any of this is growing up in Exurban Atlanta and being generally aware of the Atlanta news… right as the Atlanta Projects were coming down and being rethought in the late 90s/ early 2000s around the time of the Olympic Games in Atlanta. And even then, even while working with a community service oriented collegiate honor society throughout my college years in this period, while we worked a lot with various “community revitalization” efforts, we never really worked in the Projects. Maybe some other Atlanta chapters did (Georgia Tech, Morehouse, Spelman, etc), but my school just in the suburbs (Kennesaw State) didn’t.
All of that tangential personal history dealt with, the actual text here is great for sparking discussion on a few different, yet mostly related, topics… but the text here is also written almost as a textbook. It *feels* like something you would actually take a class on with this as the text and expect to be quizzed and tested about the various people and dates and movements and philosophies and such, yet it isn’t as dry and formal as an actual academic paper tends to be. It is one of those University Press (NYU, in this case) titles that seems truly destined to be *most* read as a textbook, very nearly explicitly designed for exactly that… and yet it *should* be read by a much wider audience, particularly among the “leader” / “influencer” / “organizer” set, because it really does have some interesting things to say about the entire history up to 2023 or so – and, somewhat, of the potential future – of public housing in the United States.
Among the discussions relevant here are the Nazi-based origins of public housing as we now know it in the 2020s – literally, the leaders who first proposed the national laws that led to the Projects openly praised Adolf Hitler and many of his acolytes of the late 1920s/ early 1930s – when their antisemitism and violence was already clear, but well before their “final solution” began. How can we openly embrace the freedom and diversity we claim to hold so dear in the US in the 2020s while also advocating for ideas that are in places almost word for word out of Hitler’s own mouth?
Another discussion point that Husock actually does a truly phenomenal job of exploring, even if a touch tangentially, is reparations. No, not for slavery – by and large, clear records of that don’t exist and the people directly affected by it are long dead. HOWEVER, the black communities whose property was effectively stolen -via so-called “eminent domain”, where the government can dictate the price it will pay you for your land – … this happened in the 1930s and later. We have actual property records of those who owned that land at that time. While many of the owners themselves are now dead, as many of them would have been born around the turn of the 20th century, some of the later ones – the projects built more in the “golden era”, as Husock describes it, of the 1950s and early 1960s… some of those original owners *may* still be alive. In either case, it is very likely that direct legal heirs of many of these people – their kids, grandkids, or even great-grandkids – are very much alive today and could be more adequately compensated for what was taken from their near ancestor. In theory, this could be seen as a just remediation for sins that while in the past, are still recent enough to bear accurate justification. Obviously, this would have to be more completely thought through and debated by those with far more knowledge of the specifics than I have, and likely far greater philosophers and ethicists than I will ever begin to approach claiming to be, but I do believe that Husock lays the basic groundwork for such conversations quite well in this text, and it should be read for this if for no other reason.
The final major discussion that Husock leads to here in the text is actually the very original discussion – what, if anything, should be done regarding public housing: Who should fund it, who should manage it, who should benefit from it, *is it possible* to truly benefit from it, under what conditions can it be successful, what is “successful public housing”, etc?
Husock makes clear that in certain times and places – even in this Millennium – public housing *has* worked and *can* work – but he also makes equally clear that the realities of public housing have rarely lived up to the ideals and goals of its proponents.
Read this book. Even if you yourself happen to be a public housing expert, you’re still likely to learn at leasta few things here. Write your own review of this book. And, perhaps more importantly, write to your governmental “leaders” at every level from your local City Councilman (as Housing Authorities are run by local leaders) all the way through your Congressman and even the President (as Federal policy is set in DC) and let them know your thoughts after reading it. Maybe, just maybe, we can actually get these discussions had in the manner than they are due.
Oh, and the star deduction? The bibliography clocked in at just 11% or so, which is short of even my recently relaxed standard of 15%.
Very much recommended.
This review of The Projects by Howard A. Husock was originally written on May 8, 2025.
