Gentrification Of DC Public Housing Projects

The District of Columbia is trying to bulldoze the Arthur Capper and Carrolsburg housing projects in South East Washington DC. Although the design is generally much better than that of the older projects, this is being used deceptively to gentrify the area and get rid of the districts poor (by pushing them into PG county).

This paper is published online at : http://dc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=17925

Simon Fitzgerald HONR. 288I Prof. Doug Lewis Nov. 27, 2001

Housing Projects, Architecture and the Deceptive Use of HOPE

In the first half of the twentieth century, the influx of poor and working-class immigrants, especially the descendents of freed slaves from the South, into Washington D.C caused a severe housing shortage and the construction of substandard dwellings reminiscent of shanty-towns. "Nearly 9000 houses (were) without indoor toilet facilities. Over 4000 did not have indoor running water. More than 10,000 families {had to) use candles or oil lamps.... (As of 1938, the) population (had) increased 30% in the (previous) 10 years (and) new dwellings for only half of these newcomers (had) been provided." These conditions "were dramatically manifested in (what were called) Alley Dwellings," housing built on alleys within blocks that did not face any major streets (fig. 1).(1) It is in this time that the nation's capitol began the construction of public housing projects.

"Upper-class reformers," represented in the first quarter of the century by the first lady Ellen Wilson, began pushing for the elimination of blind alley construction as a public health and public safety concern (fig. 2).(2) With the advocacy of Senator Arthur Capper, Congress created the Alley Dwelling Authority in 1934 to demolish alley dwellings and build replacement housing, "establishing... the first housing authority in the country."(3) One of the agency's first actions was the demolition of "one of the most notorious alley slums in Washington" and the creation of two public housing projects to replace them on the same site in 1941, the Ellen Wilson Dwellings (between Sixth, Seventh, G, and I streets SE)(fig. 3) and the Carrollsburg Housing Project (between Third, Fourth, M and I streets SE)(fig. 4-5).(4) In the years that followed, almost every city had created a housing authority and a national Housing and Urban Development Department was created to oversee the construction of public housing. By 1986, over 1,400,000 public housing units had been erected.(5)

Fewer than fifty years after the construction of these first housing projects, American public housing as a whole seemed to be failing its purpose. For those decades, housing authorities built "hulking inwardly facing public housing developments(,) high-rises and barracks-style housing... ?that became eye-sores to the community and destructive to the lives of their residents."(6) "Many of the nation's public housing sites have exemplified urban decay and substandard living conditions."(7) Public housing became a destructive rather than incubating force in the cities and seemed to cause more social ills than it solved. Consequently, the leaders of the country began pushing for a fundamental change in public housing construction. "In 1989, in an effort to gain a better understanding of the problems facing public housing, Congress established the National Commission on Severely Distressed Housing"(8) which was given the charge of proposing a National Action Plan to eradicate severely distressed public housing by the year 2000.(9)

According to the commission's report, 6% of public housing units were described as "distressed because of their physical deterioration and uninhabitable living conditions, increasing levels of poverty, inadequate and fragmented services reaching only a portion of the residents, institutional abandonment, and location in neighborhoods often as blighted as themselves."(10) In response to this report, Congress approved an appropriations bill in 1992 that called for "an urban revitalization demonstration program involving major reconstruction of severely distressed or obsolete public housing projects."(11) The bill created funding for new grants under the HOPE program (Homeownership and Opportunity for People Everywhere) that had been started at the time of the commission's report in 1989. It therefore became commonly known as the HOPE VI project.(12) While the language of the bill authorizing HOPE VI revitalization bill is very vague (13) many feel that the very strength of the program is its flexibility.(14) HOPE VI gives local housing authorities much of the responsibilities and discretion previously reserved for HUD, but at the same time, requires them to enter into partnerships with private corporations or non-profit community groups to ensure community involvement. Community groups must submit an application with an local housing authority that must adhere to the yearly Notice of Funding Availability (15) that outlines HUD's "current requirements and available funds."(16) Those applications that appear the most promising are then approved by HUD and receive HOPE VI grants to fund redevelopment.(17)

While HOPE VI is presented as a "new urban phoenix,"(18) history has proven that well-meaning initiatives can soon become even more frustrating failures. Furthermore, there is reason to believe that this initiative is not being done for the residents of the projects, but for the developers being paid by the city. As the birthplace of the public housing project in America and of all legislative initiatives that change the nature of public housing, Washington D.C. is a unique showcase for the successes and failures of public housing. In fact, the two sites first developed by the Alley Dwelling Authority in 1941, the Ellen Wilson Dwellings and the Carrollsburg Dwellings, have already been slated for demolition and reconstruction under HOPE VI grants. One can only expect the new developments to fair better than the failures that they are replacing if the fundamental flaws that led to the original's degradation are corrected. An analysis of the architecture and planning of the Ellen Wilson Dwellings and Carrollsburg Dwellings comparison with the HOPE VI replacements shows that much of isolating and stigmatizing effects of the old plans have been improved. However, some of the inherent flaws of old designs are still present. The designs are promising, but stability has not been promised by the design.

The now demolished Ellen Wilson projects stood on one immense block between 6th, 7th, G and I streets SE, and were described as "barrackslike" by ?McKee much like other distressed projects.(19) The 18 buildings of the project housed 217 public housing units on one large block interlaced with 4 alleys, breaking the site into four sections.(20) The southernmost section was an upside down T-shape whose long side faces I street to the south. Two small square segments fell to the north of this area; separated by part of the T-shaped segment, one faces Sixth Street, and one faces Seventh Street. A long strip of land stretched from 6th Street to 7th Street, separated from the private buildings to the north by an alley and from the rest of the project by an alley in the south. The majority of the project's buildings were two or three story duplexes (which give the project the image of barracks) arranged in "U" shapes of three, four or five buildings around a large "lawn."(21) The entrances to these buildings were almost entirely oriented toward alleys or the courtyards. On the corners of Seventh and I Streets and on Sixth and I Streets were two pairs of parallel brick duplexes. These, like the "U" shape arrangements, face mostly lawns and walkways inside the project (fig 6). These designs are quite ordered; however, their arrangements and structures are very problematic.

The Carrollsburg project, located immediately to the southwest of the Ellen Wilson site, is a much larger complex, but demonstrates many of the same design characteristics. The 28 brick buildings contain 314 units of the project are located on six blocks between Third, Fifth, M, and I streets SE. Like the Ellen Wilson Dwellings, the buildings are all two and three story brick buildings (largely duplexes) that also resemble barracks, although they range from behemoth block-long three-story apartment buildings to small two-family two-story structures. Five of the six blocks of the project are divided by alleys, which contain parking spaces and lead to the entrances of many buildings. Like the alleys of the Ellen Wilson site, these are not straight, line-of-site thoroughfares but twisting and convoluted one-lane paths.

The buildings of the Carrollsburg projects are, for the most part, not arranged in as orderly a manner as in the Ellen Wilson Dwellings. Several are set deep in the lots, accessible only by long paths. One block is designed in a "U" shape like those of the other site; however, this block (between I and K and Third and Fourth Streets) is a double "U," with 4 buildings forming the outer layer, and two smaller parallel buildings forming the inner-layer and separated from the outer shell by an “U”-shaped alley. The "U" shape opens to the south where four of the two-family buildings are set at the corners of the alley and K Street. At the core of this lot is a courtyard towards which many of the buildings’ entrances are oriented. Several other lots contain large apartment buildings that line the streets and segregate off inner-courtyards that are accessible from the streets. Unlike the Ellen Wilson site, much of these courtyard areas are home to basketball courts and play areas instead of the simple lawns and paths (fig. 7). While there are certain features that distinguish the Carrollsburg project from the Ellen Wilson project, many fundamental flaws are present in both.

Perhaps the most basic of these tragic design failures is that of the streets. In the Ellen Wilson project, the overwhelming design is that of the "super-block project." While the blocks of the Carrollsburg project are clearly defined by regular streets, several of the blocks are still very long. Jacobs characterizes streets of such lengths as "self isolating" and causes of "stagnation" because "the people in these long blocks are kept too much apart to form reasonably intricate pools of cross-use." She adds that: "even when ?these projects are laced with promenades and malls, and thus, in theory, possess streets at reasonable intervals through which people can make their way. These streets are meaningless because there is seldom any active reason for a good cross-section of people to use them."(22) This analysis applies to the alleys of the projects as it does as well to the "lawns" and walkways, because they are only useful to those entering the buildings of the projects. They are not what Jacobs calls "real streets" because they do not "tie in with streets outside the project borders" and therefore offer as little hope of cross-use as the "promenades through vacuous parks."(23) Since those that are passing through the neighborhood are not connected to those paths of the people living in the project, the system creates a very basic segregation that characterizes the typical stigmatizing and isolating effect of these public housing designs.

The projects' use of alleys as buffers is another alienating feature of the street plan. In the Carrollsburg project, alleys separate both of the southernmost blocks from M Street and the private buildings on that street. The block between K and L Streets is also separated from the buildings on Third Street by an alley that separates the private buildings on the west from the project on the east (fig. 7). The Ellen Wilson Dwellings are similarly separated from G Street to the north by a row of private buildings adjacent to G Street and a public alley that divides the housing project property on the south from the private property to the north (fig. 6). This use of alleys and private, street-front-property to buffer the public housing project from the public streets creates isolation between the project and the outside world. This trait, therefore, exacerbates the alienating difference between the public streets and semi-public housing project paths, and serves physically to take the project out of its neighborhood. It is this ambiguity of public space and private space that is one of the most insidious aspects of public housing projects.

Such delineation, however, is further confused by the orientation of the buildings on the project lot. For example, the "U" shape arrangements and predominance of inner courtyards are designed so that very few of the entrances to the buildings are accessible from the street. In fact, six of Carrollsburg"s 28 buildings and twelve of Ellen Wilson's 18 buildings have no entrances from the street. In this manner, the projects’ designs force those living in the project to "wind ?their way through undefined and anonymous grounds of the project to reach his building."(24) In effect, the placement of the entrances on "promenades through vacuous parks" tends to siphon people off of the streets. The streets, therefore, cannot "draw people along the sidewalks past places to become traveled and peopled" because all the people that are drawn to these streets are going to the project and are soon drawn off of them. Furthermore, in a society where "a well used city street is apt to be a safe city street"(25) these empty streets are apt to become dangerous. This dangerous situation is the case of every path of the project, because the buildings are not oriented toward the street, so they cannot monitor the action of the street. Meanwhile the alleys and paths that they do face are often not visible from the street. The inability to reinforce a visual protection of the paths of movement creates a lack of "defensible space... which has caused isolation from the community."(26) The residents “cannot secure streets where the public space is ?not unequivocally public, physically unmixed with... nothing at all space, so that the area needing surveillance has clear and practical limits."(27) Since this is a danger that is peculiar to public housing constructions, the bizarre street patterns create a fearful feeling of difference in the projects' inhabitants that can be described best as alienating.

Just as these alleys and walkways become semi-private parts that are open to the public, many of the projects' other public areas present similar safety problems because of their location in semi-private places within the project. The nine public courtyard areas within the Carrollsburg project's lots that contain the basketball courts and "play areas," as well as grass malls and "sod"(28) are often surrounded by the project’s buildings, so that they are completely out of view from the streets, yet easily accessible from them (fig. 7). Likewise, the Ellen Wilson project contains fifteen "lawns," seven "drying areas" and one "area to be seeded and graded"(29) that are equally hidden from view of the street (fig. 6). Although these areas are open to public use, one must enter deep into the backyards of the project to reach them. The "interior of project... grounds suffer from the unique distinction of being public in nature, but hidden from public view."(30) These projects are simply not "well equipped to deal with strangers."(31) This is a common theme in housing projects as the ambiguous areas become perfect stages for illicit activity. In the words of the Carrollsburg HOPE VI Revitalization Application, "their (the project's) open spaces are located away from the main streets and, thus, become a haven for crime."(32)

Newman describes the effect of these ambiguous private-public places allow others to "perceive the vulnerability and isolation of the inhabitants' of the project.(33) They create crime by destroying the effectiveness of community surveillance and community dependence. The resulting reputation is then likely to cause more crime and further the feelings of isolation of the tenants. The danger that the design creates a dialectical process that seems to hopelessly augment the isolation of the public housing tenants from the surroundings, which in turn makes the project more dangerous. As this cycle is unique to public housing, it becomes a parable for the home of low-income tenants and a prejudice that is not easily refuted. This particular problem is, however, only a part, though a powerful part, of the atmosphere that makes such distressed public housing projects so "uninhabitable."(34)

Another characteristic that creates isolation and danger for the projects' residents is the architecture of the buildings: it immediately conveys the fact that this is a housing project entirely apart from the fundamental design and character of the surrounding neighborhood. Both developments consist(ed) of a variety of two and three story brick structures that could be described as barracks with barred windows (fig. 3-5).(35) Garvin calls this type of public housing "depressing brick boxes surrounded by fenced in patches of grass."(36) When compared to the architecture of the Capitol Hill neighborhood that borders Ellen Wilson immediately to the north and is only two blocks away from the Carrollsburg project, the structures appear to be a hideous cacophony (fig. 8-17). The Ellen Wilson and Carrollsburg Dwellings, like so many other "distressed" projects, have "the stigma of poverty and minority group has been stamped on to" them; each has been "made to appear as different as possible from its surroundings."(37) Furthermore, the seven blocks of this bland architecture robs the project of the diversity that is so essential to its surroundings. It, first of all, is missing any "commercial choices (or) cultural interest"(38) that would lead to a cross-use of the area with the community. More strikingly, the projects neither appear "lively (nor) urban"(39) but dull and military. The projects are the epitome of what Jacobs calls "the Great Blight of Dullness"(40) in which neighborhoods show an essential "inability to update themselves." They were, in her words "dead from birth" and were only later categorized as distressed when the "corpse began to smell."(41) Jacobs suggests how the isolation of low-income residents from the aesthetic and life of the city in constructions that reflect the depression of their economic situation is a blight, a sign of illness. Furthermore, she foretells that the realization that the projects were distressed, saying that such a situation was inevitable once such monotonous and dull neighborhoods were constructed.

In addition, developments of the area since the original construction have only served to intensify the role of the projects as "concentrated, isolated pocket of povetry." After the construction of Arthur P. Capper projects in 1958 and the Carrol Apartments in 1964, this area consisted of a twenty-block complex of public housing consisting of 1,080 public housing units (fig. 18).(43) The effect of this "single massive use" of urban land is what Jacobs describes as a "border vacuum." It forms "dead ends" so that the people "adjoining... the projects... stay strictly over on their side of the border."(44) Because of the limited uses or (in some areas) uselessness of the projects" neighbors to the south, the Navy Yard and the largely vacant Southeast federal center,(45) this border is one which stretches all the way from the Ellen Wilson Dwellings to the Anacostia River (fig. 19). The construction of I-295 seemed to officially delineate that boundary to the North. Although the Ellen Wilson Dwellings remained to the north of the highway, seemingly on the wealthy Capitol Hill side, it is important to remember that, as Jane Jacobs describes is the case with railroad tracks, a "district lying to one side of the tracks may do better than... the other side. But the places that do worst are directly beside the tracks."(46) The highway, in effect, cuts through the project like a scar that will not heal, bringing unwanted noise and separation to the project borders. These developments have likewise only served to heighten the isolation, desperation and depravation that were present since the initial construction of these projects in 1941.

The many elements that make these projects so "distressed" are, unfortunately, quite typical of many housing projects. It comes from "one of the unsuitable ideas behind project construction : the very notion that they are projects, abstracted out of the ordinary city and set apart."(47) Although the construction of the highway, the massiveness of the low-income complex, the dullness of the architecture, the lack or "real streets," the unwise placement of public areas, and the uselessness of much of the project land are not inherent applications of this idea, their applications are concurrent with this strategy. Isolation and degradation, in turn, cause stress on the homes of distressed people and tend to create for distressed projects. For there to be any drastic improvement in these structures, the basic elements of the redevelopment must be concurrent with the antithesis of the this "notion," that the public housing units are living parts of the city as a whole.

Many hope that the HOPE VI program is innovative enough to make these types of changes, as discussed above. The new developments are at times are difficult to compare to the old projects, mainly because the developments are very recent, and because the flexibility of the HOPE VI program allows much variation among the revitalization plans themselves. The Ellen Wilson Dwellings were one of the first projects to be revitalized using HOPE VI funding. The construction Townhomes on Capitol Hill began on this site in 1996, and the buildings have been occupied since 1998.(48) By the time of the formation of the National Commission on Severely Distressed public housing, the Ellen Wilson projects had been abandoned for several years.(49) The Revitalization plan was filed in the first year for HOPE VI grant proposals in 1994, and the project was razed in 1996.(50) Nevertheless the revitalization was completed in 1998 with the construction of 154 rowhouses that come in one-bedroom, two bedroom and three-bedroom variety (fig. 20-21).(51)

The Carrollsburg Dwellings, on the other hand, are still largely occupied by tenants.(52) Though the many problems with the structures have made revitalization necessary,(53) the revitalization of the Carrollsburg project is still in its planning stages. The proposal for HOPE VI funding for revitalization of the Carrollsburg and Capper projects, the rest of the 20 block complex mentioned earlier, was submitted in the beginning of 2001,(54) with demolition set to begin in 2002, and the reconstruction to be finished no earlier 2005.(55) The HOPE VI plan for the Capper/Carrollsburg site includes townhouses, stacked townhouses, walk-up and elevator apartments, as well as a high-rise senior building; however, the present site of the Carrollsburg projects, between Third, Fifth, M, and I streets SE, is only slated to be replaced by "townhouses" and a walk-up/elevator apartment.(56) Unlike the Ellen Wilson revitalization, this plan is also being pushed as part of a larger plan to revitalize the near southeast that includes the redesign of the Navy Yard, the development of federal land in the Southeast federal center, the rejuvenation of office buildings on the M Street corridor, the redesign of the Anacostia waterfront as a park, and other small projects along New Jersey Avenue and Eighth Street.(57) Although these two redevelopment designs contain many differing characteristics, both developments show fundamental improvements over the isolating and discriminating designs of the original projects built in 1941.

The neighborhoods, first of all, both make an important point of creating "new streets according to the L'Enfant plan for Washington."(58) This actions immediate effect is to "breakdown the size of the blocks" from the super-blocks previously on the site.(59) The single block of the Ellen Wilson Dwellings was broken into three blocks (fig. 22), and the six blocks of the Carrollsburg project are slated to become ten blocks (fig. 18). In fact, the HOPE VI application for the Carrollsburg/Capper revitalization explicitly states that the motive of this action is to facilitate the deconstruction of the project as a ghetto. "Existing streets have been used and new streets added to form coherent blocks and a housing network that reinforces the idea of the neighborhood that connects to its surroundings." Furthermore, the new streets serve to "clearly delineate paths of movement," which Newman states is essential to creating defensible space, by eliminating the ambiguous and winding alleys and walkways that had such isolating effects in the older projects.(60) Nevertheless, the redesigns are, at best, a mixed victory, as the new streets in both redevelopments dead-end within the borders of the old project. They therefore, do not "connect with streets outside the project" which Jacobs says is necessary for integration of the project with the surrounding neighborhood.(61) Lastly, the developments in the revitalized Carrollsburg site still appear to be separated from M Street and its proprietors; the only difference is that the buffer is a street in place of an alley. Therefore, while the new streets and smaller blocks create a more open, less hostile environment, they do not physically re-tie the project into the neighborhood. They cannot, as the new streets do not connect with any established thoroughfares of the surrounding neighborhood. Again the success of the re-design is mixed, at best.

Nevertheless, the new streets facilitate the clearance of much of the semi-public space that was so vulnerable and allows for its replacement with safer, more urban designs. For example the new streets are utilized by the placement of buildings on the street front. This use not only allows for the clear demarcation of "paths of movement" discussed above, but it also creates more "defensible space" that was lacking in the "random positioning" of buildings. The street-front buildings have this effect because they "extend (the) area (of responsibility) of the residential unit onto the street" creating "proprietary" attitudes in the residents.(62) In these reoriented lots, the open malls and hidden "play areas" that were so troublesome, embodying the frustrating ambiguity of the semi-private areas, are largely eliminated. In the Townhomes on Capitol Hill the backyards are fenced off and clearly private, and while they do not appear to be fenced-in on the conceptual unit plans of the HOPE VI revitalization plan of the Carrollsburg project, they are unmistakably private, the property of the corresponding townhouse.(63) In the words of Jane Jacobs, the new streets, the orientation of the buildings to face the streets, and the elimination of the ambiguous "ooze" of semi-public space allows the "eyes (of) natural proprietors of the street" to monitor an "area needing surveillance (that) has clear and practical limits." The effect of this new safety and empowerment in the neighborhood reverses a lot of the isolation and stigmatization that the vulnerability of the former projects. Furthermore, the presence of buildings on the street should "draw people along the sidewalks" as they are now infinitely more interesting.(64) Unfortunately, several areas, public areas are still hidden from public view. In both revitalization developments, this is the case of the parking spaces located within the lots as well as the hidden courtyards of the Carrollsburg site's apartment building (fig. 24-25). (65) These exceptions withstanding, the resulting neighborhood should be a more lively, urban setting that fits in with the city at large in place of dull and dangerous pseudo-military style public housing islands.

The most dramatic aesthetic difference of these new developments is their architectural attractiveness. This has a tremendous effect of destroying the stigma of public housing. The effect of the townhouses, predominant in both new designs, is described by a resident of a HOPE VI development in Baltimore, as "houses just like everybody else has."(66) Perhaps just as importantly, the developments both show sincere efforts to regenerate the "diversity (that) is natural to big cities" and therefore so essential to reweaving public housing "back into the fabric of the city."(67) This diversity is shown aesthetically in the Townhomes on Capitol Hill in the 16 facade variations that are present,(68) and in the Carrollsburg plan by the facade variations of the townhouses and the alternating use of townhouses, stacked townhouses and the apartment building (fig. 23). The diversity of the designs also creates an aesthetically lively neighborhood and a diversity that is likely to draw people along the sidewalks in ways that "depressing brick boxes" do not. This effect is crucial if the public housing tenants are to feel part of integrated with the functions of the city.

The new diversity is promising, however, neither site has mixed primary uses in itself (i.e. both sites are strictly residential). This mixture of uses is described as essential to city diversity by Jane Jacobs.(69) Their absence signals a failure of the sites to create diversity. However, the Townhomes site only covers three blocks, and while the Carrollsburg redevelopment will house ten blocks, it will be surrounded by new developments that are significant. The massive redevelopment of the Near Southeast that includes the HOPE VI revitalization of the Carrollsburg projects offers several elements of mixed-primary diversity that may offset the unique primary use of the Carrollsburg site. An onsite community center will be added just Southeast of the old Carrollsburg site, adjacent to the Van Ness elementary school. The Redesign of the Arthur Capper Senior buildings (part of the HOPE VI plan as the Carrollsburg redevelopment) includes a "health clinic" and "retail services" that create mixed-use neighbors of the Carrollsburg project.(70) The rejuvenation of the M street corridor is planned to add office space, hotels, restaurants and retail space that will bring users to the edge of the HOPE VI development at all times of the day (if there are bars then users will be present well into the night).(71) The now largely vacant Southeast Federal Center is expecting construction that could bring many workers in to the area and add to the utilization of the business and streets of the area.(72) The redevelopment of the Navy Yard and the Anacostia riverfront as a tourist attraction could bring many users into the area and fill up the hotels on M Street.(73) This would hopefully put "users on (the sidewalks) fairly continuously" to help pull users into the area and re-tie them into the life of the city. Nevertheless, the border of the highway to the north still provides a barrier to stand in the way of this hope. Furthermore, while those living in the development may use many of the new services and business being constructed, there is still not much to draw users from the outside into the neighborhood except to visit a resident, walk a dog, or go for a jog, etc. In other words, there is the potential of significant inter-use, but it is not guaranteed. In fact, it is only possible if the area remains safe and attractive and the Near Southeast Redevelopment is successful in itself outside of the HOPE VI redevelopment.

This inclusiveness with the surrounding community suggested by the lively and diverse architecture is furthered by the use in both projects of distinct local architectural styles. Amy Weinstein, architect of the Townhomes on Capitol Hill "replicated" the "rhythms of surrounding streets" with a "mix of variations on Capitol Hill's richly variegated three- and four-story rowhouses, hyphenated by lookalikes of the Hill's 18th century clapboard Colonials."(74) A similar effect is suggested for the Carrollsburg site by the application for the HOPE VI revitalization, which promises to "take queues (sic) from the architectural character and scale of the Capitol Hill neighborhood in order to create connections with the Capitol Hill neighborhood to the north."(75) These similarities are apparent in comparisons of the architecture of the Capitol Hill houses with the Townhomes on Capitol Hill and with plans for the Carrollsburg constructions. In addition, the apartments and stacked townhouses of the Carrollsburg site are designed attractively and should harmoniously co-exist with the existing townhouses (fig. 8-17, 20-21).

Because of the architectural similarities, it is possible to wander into the old Ellen Wilson site without realizing that the site is any different from the rest of the Capitol Hill neighborhood. This will be a more difficult effect to achieve on the Carrollsburg site because of the highway,(76) but it can be safely assumed that one will be able to walk from the M Street hotels or offices into the redeveloped site without realizing it. People should therefore have less fear or anxiety of the area as a "project" and should interact more with the area and its inhabitants accordingly. For this reason, the architectural redesign is incredibly successful at destroying the isolation and shame that had become the dominant paradigm of public housing projects, as it will be practically impossible to tell where the public housing begins and where private developments end. Accordingly, it will be harder to prejudge the tenants because it will be difficult to identify them.

Perhaps the largest single flaw of the redevelopments of these two projects is the fact that both are part of a large, one-time development of the entire 20 block complex of old public housing projects. The massive redevelopment will destroy all of the old buildings on the sites of the old Carrollsburg and Arthur R Capper projects, just as the Ellen Wilson redevelopment destroyed all of the former buildings on that site. The new buildings will then be built all at once.(77) Jacobs denounces this type of "one age construction," saying that old buildings are so necessary for generating city diversity that "it is probably impossible for vigorous streets and districts to grow without them." Those "decaying city neighborhoods built up all at once," she states, "have been handicapped in everyway.... (They) show a strange inability to update (themselves), enliven" themselves.(78) This is a problem with both sites, however it is less threatening in the Townhomes development because of the simple difference in scale of development. Both sites, unfortunately, share the challenge of having to replace extremely unattractive "one-age" constructions that were meant to replace old decaying city neighborhoods. Few, if any, of the old buildings would be useful, desirable or feasible to conserve. Nevertheless, both developments repeat the mistake of the original projects in making massive one-time constructions that could lead to problems once the novelty of the new neighborhoods has worn out and people find no way to make new small constructions or otherwise add variety to the age of the buildings. Lastly, neither development includes stipulations or guidelines that allow for new construction or modification of the properties, so the age of the buildings will most likely never be diversified. Although those involved will repeatedly say that the Townhomes on Capitol Hill and the HOPE VI redevelopment will object to the description of the developments as "projects,"(79) their nature of the cataclysmic one-time development is best described as a project.

In all, the majority of the fundamental failings of the two housing projects built in Southeast Washington D.C. in 1941 are corrected or improved upon in the HOPE VI replacements of these sites. The new street patterns allow for a smooth integration with the neighborhood; the logical placement of the buildings on the street front instead of facing courtyards and alleys within the lots allow for a safer urban feel to public housing and allow residents to feel part of the surrounding city; the diversity of structures and designs promotes a diverse and lively neighborhood that was not possible in the Great Blight of Dullness of the previous housing architecture; and the use of local architecture furthers the ties with the neighborhood that were not present before. The new developments are not abstracted out of the neighborhoods as they were before, and the cumulative effect of the redesigns is that one cannot immediately identify the area as public housing. Along with the mix of residents' incomes distinguish these projects from traditional housing projects; however they still fit into the category of "urban renewal" that can be notoriously troublesome.(80) Needless to say, even though several of the flaws of the old projects are repeated, the developments are much better than their predecessors and offer the potential to be much nicer neighborhoods for their (new) occupants. They do bring with them their own inherent problems.

One of the issues apart from the design factors is the question whether these developments will actually served the "severely distressed" tenants that are being removed from those projects that are being demolished. The "poorest renters may not get a chance at this new urbanist dream."(81) First of all, because of the mixed-income design, only a fraction of the total units house those that are traditional public housing tenants. The Townhomes on Capitol Hill offer only 33 of these homes available to those of the lowest socio-economic group: those who make between $14,000 per year and $21,400, and 34 for those whose salary limits range from $21,400 per year to $42,800.(82) The Carrollsburg/Capper redevelopment will replace the current "707 very low income units" on the Carrollsburg/Capper site with 517 units for those with "very low income," 517 for those with a "moderate income" of 30% of the median income ($25,680) or less per year and 528 units for those with "market rate income."(83) Carl Messineo, a lawyer with the Center for Community Change's Partnership for Equal Justice states, "current residents make, on average $8,000 dollars a year. It's not truly (replacing the old housing units) unless current residents can afford to move back in."(84) In raw numbers, the redevelopment of the Carrollsburg/Capper project will call for the loss of almost 100 units for senior citizens and the disabled, and will displace 120 family units.(85) This destruction of units will create stress on a system that is already inadequately prepared to deal with those in need of housing now. After two years, the lowest band of the Townhomes on Capitol Hill already has a waiting list of 400 people.(86) The DCHA itself already had a waiting list of 11,097 and the section 8 program had a waiting list of 16, 434 when the Capper/Carrollsburg HOPE VI application was filed. Messineo sums up the feelings of many of the residents currently active in fighting this demolition as part of the United Residents of Public Housing, when he asks "Does the city actually want to reduce its number of low-income housing units?'

This unfortunately can be seen as part of a nation-wide trend. When the Urban Revitalization Demonstration Program was first announced, it was required to replace every unit that it "removed from service," but subsequent legislation repealed this requirement in 1995.(87) As a result, "in the 81 projects approved for HOPE VI funding by the end of 1996, 37, 449 units would be demolished and there would be 27,526 final public housing units." As of 1998, future plans called for the demolition of 100,000 more units and replacement of as few as 40,000 of these units.(88) Even though the Capper/Carrollsburg project "replaces every occupied housing unit currently on the site," they do not take into account the several hundred units of the Arthur R. Capper family dwellings that were recently demolished by the DCHA that were on the present site of revitalization.(89) Other developments of this type have been criticized for being simple gentrification. The Techwood/Clark Howell redevelopment near downtown Atlanta has been called a successful attempt to remove "an unwanted neighbor from Georgia Tech's and Coca-Cola's doorsteps and {replace) it with the gentrified community the city leaders had long wanted."(90) It could be argued that the Capper/Carrollsburg redevelopment or even the Townhomes on Capitol Hill construction were similar efforts to remove "barriers to full-scale rebirth" of an area so close to the Capitol dome.(91)

In essence, although these revitalizations show great improvements in these individual "distressed" public housing projects. They definitely do not solve the nation's nor the city's public housing problems. They cannot, simply because the cost is prohibitive.(92) Furthermore, in some ways they cannot be compared. Although the changes in architecture and planning will create a much healthier culture from which a neighborhood could grow, the HOPE VI developments do not take on the same challenges of traditional public housing. This refers not only to the concentration of low-income residents, but also the number. Although the approach is novel, and the created neighborhoods should be healthy and lively, the plans are in some ways a cop-out from the problem, only dumping the "distressed" residents, who were in some ways a culture for many of the social ills of the old projects, onto other projects or possibly on the streets with no place to stay (while at least six have died on the streets of DC during the winter of 2001-2002 due to hypothermia). These plans are therefore grossly inadequate to meet the goals of public housing.

Endnotes

1. Paige and Reuss 1983 75-80. This is a study of the history of public housing in Washington D.C. that was published by the D.C. History & Public Policy Project at the University of the District of Columbia as an “undertaking of the Department of Urban Studies... written specifically for policy makers and for citizens concerned with public policy” as stated in a forward by Stephen J. Diner, the directory of the project in Housing Washington’s People. 2. Diner 1983 9-10. This is part of the same collection as the Paige and Reuss work. Ellen Wilson’s last words are reported to have been “I should have been happier if I knew that the alley bill had passed,” giving the alley dwelling elimination movement the momentum it needed in Congress to establish the Alley Dwelling Authority. 3. Paige and Reuss 1983 78. The Alley Dwelling Authority was renamed the National Capitol Housing Authority and given the powers of any other state housing authority in 1937 to make it eligible for funding under the U.S. Housing Act of 1937. 4. Paige and Reuss 1983 160. This is quoted from someone within the Alley Dwelling Authority at the time. 5. England 1998 3. This is a report to a house appropriations committee by the director of the Housing and Community Development Issue Area. 6. Bacon 1998 7. 7. England 1998 1. 8. Bacon 1998 7. 9. HUD website HOPE VI page. 10. England 1998 3. This report assigns many of the factors of distress to social problems, but hopes to solve them largely with structural changes. She says that this is troublesome, but I would argue that many of these social ills are exacerbated by structural failings. 11. HOPE VI Guidebook FY 1993 Appropriations Act. 12. Bacon 1998 7. Previous HOPE grants family homes were outlined in the Cranston-Gonzalez National Affordable Housing Act and have not been awarded since 1994. 13. Keating 2000 2. 14. England 1998 3,30. 15. Freedman 1998 25-31. 16. England 1998 3. 17. Freedman 1998 25-31. 18. Saum 1999 60. 19. ?McKee 1997 103. 20. ?McKee 1997 103. Paige and Reuss 160. Mckee states that the project housed 115 people, but the caption under a photo of the Ellen Wilson Dwellings states that the projects housed 217 people. With 18 buildings of the size of those in the Ellen Wilson dwellings, 217 is a more realistic number. I do not know the reason for this discrepancy. 21. Ellen Wilson Site Plan. 22. Jacobs 1972 178-186. 23. Jacobs 1972 395. 24. Newman 1972 24-25. 25. Jacobs 1972 34-36. 26. Hope VI Revitalization packet Exhibit C 20. This term “defensible space” is a reference to Oscar Newman’s book Defensible Space. Newman says on page 3 of his work that “defensible space is a model for residential environments which inhibits crime by creating the physical expression of a social fabric that defends itself.” He later states that one of the necessary characteristics of a living area that is easily maintained by the proprietors is the “delineat?ion of paths of movement” on page 4. This is the missing element that makes the project dangerous. 27. Jacobs 1961 36-37. 28. Carrolsburg site plan. 29. Ellen Wilson site plan. 30. Newman 1972 32. 31. Jacobs 1961 40. 32. Hope VI Revitalization packet Exhibit C 20. 33. Newman 1972 4. 34. England 1998 2. 35. ?McKee 1997 103. HOPE VI Revitalization Application Exhibit A 3. The Ellen Wilson Dwellings are described as “barrackslike” by ?McKee, and the Carrolsburg Dwellings are described as barracks in the HOPE VI application. This is not suprising as the historical precedent of public housing were converted Confederate barracks as discussed on page 163 of Diner’s Housing Washington’s People 36. Garvin 1976 168 37. Newman 1972 15. 38. Jacobs 1972 144. 39. Jacobs 1972 396. 40. Jacobs 1972 144. 41. Jacobs 1972 198. This “inability to update” is not only a characteristic or the housing project itself, but it is also an effect that the project has had on the surrounding neighborhood, as shown in the immediate surroundings unusually “high vacancy rates” and “outright abandonment” that the HOPE VI application described in Exhibit C page 23 while the Capitol Hill housing market was otherwise extremely healthy. 42. Hope VI application Exhibit A 4. 43. Public Housing Address Listing. This is a page out of the file of DC Housing Authority. The Artrhur Capper projects consist of a senior citizens building on the 600 block of L street with 297 units, and the Arthur Capper family dwellings are 375 units that surrounded by 3rd, 7th, and M Streets and I-295. The Carrol Apartments have 60 units and are across the street from the Arthur R. Capper senior citizen’s building. 44. Jacobs 1972 257-261 45. Norton 1999 3. This letter is an official statement of support for the Southeast Federal Center Public-private Redevelopment Act of 1999. She states that the “valuable federal land close to the Capitol was long unused and has been a mjor factor in the deterioration of the neighborhoods” nearby. This describes the land of the SEFC and the Navy yard. 46. Jacobs 1972 257 47. Jacobs 1972 392 48. England 1998 22 49. ?McKee 1997 103. England 1998 22. While ?McKee statest that the project “was evacuated in 1980,” England says that the project had been “vacant since 1988.” While ?McKee states that “community efforts to rebuild the Ellen Wilson Dwellings... began in 1988, years before HOPE VI.” England says that, a community development corporation, Ellen Wilson Neighborhood Redevelopment Corporation pushed for revitalization as early as 1991. 50. ?McKee 1998 103 51. Townhomes on Capitol Hill site plans 52. HOPE VI Revitalization Application Attachment 21. 773 out of 780 units were occupied when the application was filed. 53. HOPE VI Revitalization Application Exhibit C 17-21. Problems include cracks in the facade, outdated boiler-systems, inadequate electrical and plumbing systems, narrow hallways, and two underground abandoned oil-tankers. 54. HOPE VI Revitalization Application Exhibit B 6-7. The planners of the project include DC Housing Authority, Forest City Redevelopment Group, Mid-City Urban LLC, and Torti Gallas and Partners CHK, Inc. 55. HOPE VI Revitalization Application Attachment 9. Godrey 2001 9. This project had to be approved by November 1991 for the time-line give to be followed. 56. HOPE VI Revitalization Application Attachment 6B. I’m assuming this includes stacked townhouses 57. Development in Southeast. This is a list of redevelopment projects in the Southeast provided by the office of Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton. The projects are the following: “M Street Renovation, 8th Street Main Street Project, South East Expressway Repairs…, Marine Barracks: 300 beds, parking, ball fields, South East Federal Center Redevelopment, Anacostia Community Rowing Center, Community Ferry/Water Taxi, New Jersey Avenue Projects: Washington Post Printing plant, Washington Star warehouse, Residential plans.” 58. ?McKee 1997 103. HOPE VI Revitalization Application Exhibit D 33. This quote is from ?McKee and about the Townhomes on Capitol Hill. The quote about the Carrolsburg project in the revitalization says that one “on-site improvement” is the “improved streetscape along the historical L’Enfant historical street grid.” 59. HOPE VI Revitalization Application Exhibit E 41. This is about the Capper/Carrolsburg revitalization, but the intended effects can be assumed to be the same. 60. Newman 1972 82. 61. Jacobs 1972 186. 62. Newman 1972 1-4. 63. Site plan of Townhomes on Capitol Hill. 64. Jacobs 1972 35-37 65. Site plan of Townhomes on Capitol Hill 66. qtd. Rybcyznski 1997 71 67. Jacobs 1972 186. 68. ?McKee 1997 103. 69. Jacobs 1972 152-178. 70. HOPE VI Revitalization Application Exhibit E 36-39. The park will include a “family and career counseling offices, a multi-purpose room, a full size gymnasium, an exercise room, a daycare center…, a library, GED classrooms, a computer room, and afterschool homework room, an arts and crafts area, a foodbank program, a computer training center, management offices,… and other facilities to deliver… services.” However, all too many of the ideas for old housing project community centers became abandoned and useless rooms or buildings that did little to serve the community. 71. Office Development. This is a list of the office development on M street provided courtesy of the office of Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton. 72. Norton 1999 3. She says that “there has been nothing to compare with these developments on federal land – the Navy Yard and the SEFC – since Constitution Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue along the Mall were developed in the 1930s.” 73. Southeast Federal Center –Redevelopment Concept- Development Program. This is a plan for the redevelopment of the Southeast Federal Center and the Navy Yard calling for a 13 acre “Museum Center Complex.” 74. ?McKee 1997 103. 75. HOPE VI Revitalization Application Exhibit E 34. 76. HOPE VI Revitalization Application Exhibit C 23. The average price for a home in Capitol Hill sells for $239,803 while it sells for $105,000 in the Capper/Carrollsburg area. Real estate values are more than 75% lower around Capper/Carrollsburg than they are across the highway. 77. HOPE VI Revitalization Application Exhibit E 37. 78. Jacobs 1961 187-199. This is also a problem that may surface with the Townhomes on Capitol Hill. However, it is a much smaller development than the Capper/Carrolsburg renewel. The stagnation that Jacobs forsees is more prevalent in large developments as the monotony of age becomes overwhelming, rather than the three block remake of the Ellen Wilson site. Although the Ellen Wilson redevelopment is several years older, I feel it is of the same age, so I include it in the “one-age” development of the 20 block area. Nevertheless, the property is more connected with the Capitol Hill area, largely because of the placement of the highway, so that it is a novelty surrounded by one-hundred year old homes rather than a monotonous part of single age development. 79. In discussions with those working in the Townhomes on Capitol Hill office, the manager and secretary both were quick to interrupt me to correct me if I ever (accidentally) referred to the development as a “project. 80. Keating 2000 384-398. 81. ?McKee 1997 97. 82. Interview with Andy Buelken, property administrator of The Townhomes on Capitol Hill. 83. HOPE VI Revitalization Application Exhibit E 44-47. No clear guidelines are given by the application to define its use of the phrase “very low income,” however at one point states that they would be available to someone who had a $6.00 an hour job. 84. Godfrey 2001 12. 85. HOPE VI Revitalization Application Exhibit E 47. 86. Interview with Andy Buelken, property administrator of The Townhomes on Capitol Hill. 87. England 1998 10. The legislation referred to is the Rescissions Act of 1995. 88. Keating 2000 384-386. 89. HOPE VI Revitalization Application Exhibit A 2. 90. Keating 2000 384-388. One method of pushing the program through was the steady evacuation of residents from the dwellings so that fewer people would be able to dissent just as the Carrollsburg revitalization has used demolition to lower the number of replacement units needed. 91. HOPE VI Revitalization Application Exhibit A 1. 92. Saum 1997 61. O’Neil 1997 65. These articles discuss HOPE VI developments in Baltimore. Both came to the conclusion that the price was too great to make enough of these developments to solve the housing crisis.

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