The Pruitt-Igoe Myth: An Urban History

Saint Louis’ famed Pruitt-Igoe urban housing projects were supposed to be a modernist exercise in utopian habitats. Completed in 1955, made up of 33 eleven-story buildings arrayed on 57 urban acres, the complex adhered to the overly optimistic city planning of the time: close quarters would foster community among the tenants, and vertical living would supply a wealth of green space for children and families in the grounds below. Of course, theory bumped up against practice, and racially charged relocation policies combined with poor maintenance to create deplorable conditions in less than two decades. Director Chad Freidrichs (who brought his delightfully paranoid Jandek on Corwood to T/F in 2004) works through the Pruitt-Igoe story and its implications with great interviews, a wealth of archival material and a overarching sensitivity that allows him both a vast historical scope and admirable human-level interest. An illuminating and beautiful piece of work. –True/False