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July 14, 2009
Thoughts on Koyaanisqatsi and the Fragility of Public Housing Experiments
One of the best movies I've seen recently is Koyaanisqatsi, an unorthodox and revolutionary 1970s documentary about the absurdity of modern life. (Koyaanisqatsi is a Hopi word meaning 'life out of balance')
A particularly intense segment shows the demolition of a large housing project in St. Louis. The segment, I think, is supposed to show the failure of urban public housing in the 1960's and 1970's when, a few years after they were advertised as a solution to crime,unemployment and homelessness , public housing projects proved to simply exacerbate those problems. Since I started working on urban public housing in Medellin, I've had those images fromKoyaanisqatsi on my mind a lot.
The need for housing solutions in Medellin is pretty evident: shacks and slums surround the city and dozens of new ones sprout up every day. Unfortunately, however, the task of creating new neighborhoods for thousands of poor people is often quite difficult. During recent tours of public housing projects, I was reminded of the American stereotype of housing projects as crime-ridden and run-down.Unemployment , crime and drug addiction are evident everywhere. Within months, the buildings I'm monitoring go from looking like smaller versions of the red brick condos of wealthy Medellinneighborhoods to looking like the St. Louis projects right before demolition.
Part of this is our fault. Eager to meet project goals (and without proper inter-agency coordination), city workers have moved people from neighborhoods like Moravia into public housing without first equipping the new neighborhoods with schools, hospitals and employment opportunities. Often, the buildings themselves lack adequate construction and are falling apart. Residents have nowhere to send their kids to school, nowhere to seek medical help in the event of an emergency and nobody to help them get acquainted with their new living spaces and new neighbors.
There is an urgent need for social workers in these areas. The projects put together people from neighborhoods that used to be at war, making them fertile ground for more crime and violence. Without schools and public spaces, kids have just as much idle time as they did in the alleys of slums, which also exacerbates crime. Further, people who have never learned proper waste disposal throw their trash everywhere. Adding to the existing inadequacy of some buildings,unemployment and desperation has led some residents to break apart parts of the building to sell scrap metal.
Already, in some housing projects, armed groups, composed in part of demobilized paramilitaries, have begun to demand protection money from the buses that operate in the area. In some cases, they even control who comes in and out of theneighborhood. When the city fails to occupy all the apartments simultaneously , the empty apartments are turned into drug markets and brothels whose criminal bosses are literally the main local authority. In fact, in some areas I visited, there simply is no police presence.
This is all the more remarkable given the fact that the absence of the state in Medellin's slums has for a long time been identified as a major driving force behind crime, poverty and marginalization. The only state presence in some urban housing projects is a couple of police officers; in others there is no state presence at all. Some housing blocks, admittedly, have working public schools and childcare centers, but they do not meet even a small fraction of local demand. Meanwhile, there is still new housing underconstruction which, in a few weeks, will house hundreds of new residents who will also need schools and hospitals.
When I drive by these projects with friends I family, I've pointed them out with pride. After all, housing is one of this administration's main priorities and the sheer number of public housing buildings is impressive from a distance. Nevertheless, after my most recent visits, I realize that these areas are quickly entering the same cycles of crime, unemployment and poverty that plagued slums like Moravia. The pace of social decay is so fast that, within months, the situation may be irreparable.
Therefore, I will spend most of this week preparing an urgent report about the conditions in some of these housing projects. If urgent action is taken, there is a possibility that we can turn theneighborhoods around. If not, one of the mayor's most important projects may become just another failed public housing experiment and another nightmare for the city of Medellin.
Posted by Pablo Rojas at July 14, 2009 09:47 AM
