A Sociolegal History of Public Housing Reform in Chicago Academic Article

abstract

• This essay summarizes and compares Alexander Polikoff's Waiting for Gautreaux: A Story of Segregation, Housing, and the Black Ghetto and Mary Pattillo's Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City to convey the contributions and limitations of each book. Both works provide a rich sociolegal history of public housing reform in Chicago and illustrate the challenges Chicago has faced in implementing recent HOPE VI public housing reforms. I compare Polikoff's forty-year battle to desegregate public housing in Chicago with Pattillo's insightful observations of class dynamics between the new middle-class African-American power brokers of housing reform and public housing residents. Through this comparison, I seek to show that Polikoff's long-term prescriptions for public housing reform are based upon a conception of the inner city that may no longer be entirely accurate. This comparison also conveys the social complexity inherent in HOPE VI reform efforts, a complexity often overlooked in the prevailing policy and academic debates.

authors

• Alexander, Lisa

published proceedings

• Journal of Affordable Housing and Community Development Law

author list (cited authors)

• Alexander, L. T.

complete list of authors

• Alexander, Lisa T

publication date

• January 2008

publisher

• American Bar Association  Publisher

published in

• n1084-2268ISSN  Journal

keywords

• And Sociolegal History
• Hope Vi
• Law And Public Policy. Polikoff
• Pattillo
• Public Housing Reform
• Segregation
• Urban Redevelopment

URI

• https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/773

start page

• 155

end page

• 175

volume

• 17

issue

• January 2, 2020

URL

• https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/773/