The government has been executing a master plan to depopulate cities of their poor populations and push them to the outer edges of town. The theory of spatial deconcentration was uncovered by Philadelphia housing activists led by Yolanda Ward in the late 1970’s. The result of think-tanks like RAND and government sponsored committees like the National Advisory Commission Report on Civil Disorders, this work was initiated in reaction to several urban uprisings during the 1960’s. Dominated by career military men, the committees were asked to analyze the ’urban problem.’ After spinning their collective brain wheels the committees concluded that poor urban areas could never be transformed into productive, viable neighborhoods. The extreme hopelessness experienced in these concentrated areas had the potential to destroy the ‘American way of life’, a real threat to the establishment of the time as proven by National Security documents and the FBI’s vicious COINTELPRO attacks on social movements. The solution was to clear these areas of services and residents, ‘landbank’ them and rebuild them as ‘new towns in town’ for the middle-class. It was suggested that inner-city residents be offered some form of subsidy to induce them to leave the area. The question most likely receiving the least attention in these discussions had to be ‘where are the people going to go?’ The only plan was that poor folks be dispersed throughout metropolitan areas in a careful manner ensuring that their concentration never upset the dominance of the middle-class living in the suburbs.

Dilapitated housing projects pile hundreds of families on top of one another

The intellectual muscle of these committees was provided by urban theorist Anthony Downs who was paid by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to offer solutions to the ‘urban problem.’ The ideas of Downs, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, became official HUD policy as areas in Chicago, St. Louis, Philadelphia and many other U.S. cities were drained of poor folks and rebuilt for the urban gentry.

Yolanda Ward claimed to have stolen hundreds of documents from HUD’s DC office. She was mysteriously murdered on the street in DC and none the documents she claimed to possess have ever been published. The gentrification of urban areas continues in many areas as public housing residents are being forced out many times with nowhere to go. Homelessness in our cities has skyrocketed once again as a direct result of this policy which makes the government feel safe and the real estate industry rich.

Economist John Maynard Keynes told Roosevelt that housing is ‘by far the best aid to recovery … I should advise putting most of your eggs in this basket.’ In an economy marked by chronic homelessness and unemployment, a major housing initiative would provide both homes and jobs for millions. The U.S. possesses vast stocks of homes needing only some investment towards refurbishment before they could be reopened as affordable housing. This coupled with a massive effort to construct new units and legal protections ensuring affordability revive the ideas of organizers like Bauer and Ward.

Unfortunately in response to the current crisis the Bush administration responded by streaming trillions of dollars out of the Treasury and into the pockets of the rich. Any effort towards economic human rights in this country faces a severe challenge since the government’s false excuse of having no money available may actually become true in the next 10 years. A very wise man told me once that ‘ when you have a big problem, you need to have a big solution.’ Beyond our borders there have been big solutions put forth by governments to counter the conditions which cause a lack of housing.

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