by Isaac Solidarity Webzine June 11, 2009
When Atlanta Housing Authority bulldozers ripped into Bowen Homes in early July, they destroyed more than the 950 units of public housing on the city's west side. It also brought an era to an end. The first city in the country to construct public apartment complexes as part of the 1930s "New Deal" is now also the first to completely eliminate planned, subsidized housing.
Echoing elites in other cities anxious to wipe public housing off the map, local media has framed the demolition as a victory against "crime" and "concentrated poverty." Left out of the soundbites is a far more complex reality. For seven decades, tens of thousands of units of public housing were a vital safety net, a center of community organizing, and a political battleground between market based or social visions of the city. Public housing played an integral role for generations of Atlanta's working class, especially the African-American majority.
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http://www.solidarity-us.org/node/2231
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