“Our mothers take credit, but in Stateway we raised ourselves.” – Jasmon Drain On May 17, 1954 the U.S Supreme Court handed down its decision banning segregated schools, and on the same day, the Chicago Housing Authority announced plans to build…

Ida B. Wells Homes was a public housing project of the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) located in the Bronzeville neighborhood in the South Side of Chicago. They were constructed between 1939–41 as part of the Public Works Administration and…

Located on Chicago’s North Side, Cabrini-Green complex began as the Frances Cabrini Homes, a public housing project led by the Chicago Housing Authority in 1942. The homes targeted veterans of WWII and included fifty-five structures. The American…

Described by Aaron Modica as "national symbols of the failure of urban policy," Robert Taylor Homes were once the largest and most infamous public housing project in America. Part of a post-war slum-clearing initiative, Robert Taylor Homes were…

Altgeld Gardens, a 1,498 units consisting of low-income two-story row houses on 190 acres of land was built adjacent to the Calumet River water system by the Federal government between 1943-45 purposely for black war industry workers, southern…

The Trumbull Park located in the South Deering neighborhood on the far-south side of Chicago, Illinois is predominantly known for the series of race riot that erupted in the neighborhood in 1953. Trumbull Park was a white public housing…

"The beginnings of any substantial American public housing program lay in the Great Depression of the 1930's. Viewed in an overall political sense, the New Deal era was a mixture of social reforms with innovations in state capitalism that took…