roachboy

well for the highrise "solution" to have been short-term in any coherent sense, there would have had to been something coherent done to--o i dunno--plan economic development on the part of at the very least city governments. but there wasn't. the history of american urban policies with regard to the poor has largely been to herd them around, dump them places, provide neither infrastructure nor development of anything like a coherent economic sector and then blame the folk who live in these areas for developing--o what to call them?--informal economies that reproduce the logic of capitalism without the legal constraints part. the questions/problems/attitudes/politics that underlying this are complicated, like others have pointed out. but this basic pattern happens over and over and over.

maybe look at the work of michael katz (in addition to jacobs book, which is kinda of required reading). cant remember titles exactly--something like punishing the poor. it's quite good. also manuel castells "the city and the grassroots"--but there's a ton of stuff to read.

i have a ton of references on this laying around but i never feel quite comfortable about posting syllabus-like lists.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite