The Pruitt Igoe myth is a story about public housing in America as told through the lens of one particular public housing project that became notorious. Pruitt-Igoe was built in 1954 and 1972 conditions in Pruitt Igoe had deteriorated to the point where the federal government decided it was best to just blow it up. This was the first public housing project in the country that was demolished. Pruitt Igoe became a symbol for not only the failure of U.S. housing program but also the failure of high-rise modernist architecture. The Pruitt Igoe Housing Project was unsuccessful because of various triggers that were ignored. While many believed African Americans were the cause thirty six million dollar project failure; others thought it had to do …show more content…
As explained in the documentary The Pruitt-Igoe Myth: An Urban History (2011), directed by Chad Freidrichs, there was a combination of obstacle that lead to the demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project in 1972. The Saint Louis Housing Authority used these buildings as an escape goat from the slums. Sylvester Brown observes that the housing authority was using new buildings as a way to help people out of the slums. What the St. Louis housing project did not understand was that simply building new homes with modern architecture is not enough to help low-income families out of poverty. Throughout the film, systemic racism played influenced the end of Pruitt-Igoe. The United States was portrayed by a system of opposition that dominated and destroyed people for there own benefit. Pruitt Igoe was designed to be a segregated space. There were apartments reserved for the whites and separate apartments reserved for African Americans. Pruitt Igoe was a massive collection of building that relied heavily on funds, which almost entirely came from the tenants. Soon whites were encouraged to move out by the government and the housing project became racially integrated. When occupancy flannelled the conditions o the building went down hill. African American faced discrimination. The goal was to segregate the city into predominate low-income black area to be controlled and condensed in Pruitt Igoe (Pruitt-Igoe). Whites were protected from the realities of the world, (Lecture, Corey) where as African Americans were not provided appropriate services. They became disadvantaged, ultimately faced the radically changed cities and realities of America’s social