The Projects: A New History of Public Housing

This is an in-person program at the Museum's lower Manhattan gallery.

As the US struggles to provide affordable housing, millions of Americans live in deteriorating public housing projects, enduring the mistakes of past housing policy. In his new book The Projects, Howard A. Husock explains how we got here, detailing the tragic rise and fall of public housing and the pitfalls of other subsidy programs. He takes us inside a progressive movement led by a group of New York City philanthropists, politicians, and business magnates who first championed public housing as a solution to urban blight.

Yet despite the movement’s lofty ideals, the creation of the Projects led to the destruction of low-income communities across the country. Husock connects the history of public housing with contemporary debates on the government’s role in the housing market. Through interviews with residents, he reveals how public housing transformed the lives of Americans and the physical faces of cities and towns. Mapping out a better path for policy-makers, he lays a new foundation for upward mobility in America.

After his talk, Howard Husock will engage in dialogue with Nicholas Dagen Bloom, Professor of Urban Policy and Planning at Hunter College and author of several histories of housing.