Includes bibliographical references and index.

Public housing, design politics, and twice-cleared communities -- Public housing and private initiative : developing Atlanta's Techwood and Clark Howell homes -- Redeveloping Techwood and Clark Howell : the purges of progress -- Up from little hell : developing Chicago's Frances Cabrini homes -- Urban renewal and the rise of Cabrini-Green -- Staving off collapse : mediated violence and the beginning of Cabrini's end -- Bringing the Gold Coast to the slum : Cabrini-Green's redevelopment and the litigation of inclusion -- Conclusion : public housing and the margins of empathy.

"In the 1930s, two iconic American cities, Atlanta and Chicago, demolished their slums and established some of this country's first public housing. Six decades later, these same cities also led the way in clearing public housing itself. Vale's groundbreaking history of these "twice-cleared" communities provides unprecedented detail about the development, decline, and redevelopment of two of America's most famous housing projects: Chicago's Cabrini-Green and Atlanta's Techwood /Clark Howell Homes. Vale offers the novel concept of design politics to show how issues of architecture and urbanism are intimately bound up in thinking about policy. Drawing from extensive archival research and in-depth interviews, Vale recalibrates the larger cultural role of public housing, revalues the contributions of public housing residents, and reconsiders the role of design and designers."--Publisher's description.

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