Good Places to Live

Demonstrating how public housing projects are stigmatized and stereotyped as havens of poverty, illegal activity, and violence, this study contends that the problems with which they are so often associated are not inherent but the result of structural inequalities and neoliberal government policies. It urges a reconsideration of the fate of this type of housing tenure, arguing that urban poverty--dubbed as "spatially concentrated racialized poverty" by the author--is not solved by razing public housing. Instead, he illustrates how these projects can be rebuilt from within based on their communities' strengths and supported by meaningful public investment. It provides hope that vibrant and healthy neighborhoods can be created while maintaining much-needed low-income housing. Four projects are explored--in Vancouver, Toronto, Halifax, and Winnipeg--through the voices of actual residents who affirm that their projects can be ideal homes, if the political will exists.