Why Does Angela Glover Blackwell Hate Public Housing? The Ideological Foundations of Public Housing Dismantlement

• In Event: 095 - Section on Community and Urban Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 18. Housing.

Abstract

The intellectual work of, and political intervention by, renowned American sociologist William Julius Wilson (WJW) has played a crucial role in legitimating the destruction of public housing in the late 20th and early 21st century. Yet, to understand the intellectual roots of WJW’s work and distinctiveness his political contribution to dismantling public housing, we have to examine the Chicago School of Sociology (CSS) of the early 20th century and that of sociologist Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the middle of the last century. I then turn to pre and post-Katrina to examine how a variety of actors mobilized these ideas to normalize the dismantlement of public housing communities and displacement of thousands of low-income black families.

Author

• John D. Arena, City University of New York-College of Staten Island