To Build and Walk Away:The Pruitt-Igoe Myth

Pruitt-Igoe contained an amount of negative space that once witnessed and understood evoked feelings of dread. I didn't know I was looking at the Pruitt-Igoe apartment complex when first watching the segment in Koyaanisqatsi in which a series of unkempt apartment complexes are shown in sweeping areal shots. I had seen large apartment buildings before, nothing seemed awry. When the shots come in closer, and it was apparent that the buildings were lifeless empty shells, the horror becomes clear. Every window was broken, like there was an effort put into Pruitt-Igoe's special appearance: just enough damage to convey everything bad in this world, while still being able to stand. How could this have happened? It was like a carcass lying in the open. 

Before it was demolished in the 1970s, Pruitt-Igoe was supposed to be a turning point in the socioeconomic heath of St. Louis, MO. A modern public housing project conceived during the 1950s that would provide low-income families with apartments that were dream homes compared to the slums they were familiar with. It consisted of 33 11-story apartment buildings, which was one of the largest complexes in the USA at the time. It was advertised as a utopia, or more realistically, a clean civilized place that would promote idealist white civilized behavior, or even more realistically, a place to segregate the poor black population; a band-aid.

The St. Louis government paid for the construction, but failed to pay for the upkeep of a massive ecosystem they didn't understand. The documentary The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, directed by Chad Freidrichs, investigates the factors that lead to the devastation; a problem even larger than the original slums they were trying to eradicate.

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth uses heartbreaking footage of the apartments as well as interviews with former tenants. It is shocking how disparate their memories of Pruitt Igoe are; from the joys of their first Christmas out of the slums, to family members brutally murdered in the playground. The intentions of the St. Louis housing authority begin to get hazy as the film goes on. Some who are interviewed described the complex as a prison. Living in Pruitt-Igoe was supposed to be an opportunity, but it came with a price. There were regulations that prohibited "able-bodied husbands" from living there, effectively breaking up families so wives and their children could qualify to live there. Telephones and televisions were prohibited also. All of this lead to overwhelming feelings of isolation. And while young children were taught to fear the white men in suits who regularly checked homes to be sure their fathers were appropriately absent, there was a total lack of regulation in keeping the buildings safe from criminals, fire, and filth. It was doomed from the start to keep everything good out and drag complete negativity in, until it literally had to be imploded.

Mountain Top Removal and Why That is Not Such a Good Idea

Mitt Romney wants to make America independent from foreign oil by 2020. His plan does not include research on clean energy such as biofuels, solar power, and wind power. Instead he wants to drill and mine more than ever. Apparently this will create more jobs (and I did I mention make us more independent). But what about the effects on the land, the miners and drillers, the people living around the drilling, any progress we have made scientifically to improve our quality of life?

Below is a short documentary from Vice.com's Toxic series called,  
Toxic: West Virgina, that exposes the dangers of mountain top removal to access coal. It strips the land of topsoil and pollutes the groundwater. That doesn't just effect the wildlife; it hinders community development. Producer, Meredith Danluck writes,

"The companies try to play it off by saying that they’re developing flat land. On flat land, theoretically, you can put a mall or a Wal-Mart. But when they do mountaintop removal and make the land flat, the substructure is so compromised that the things they’ve built have been condemned. After a couple of years, the walls and plumbing start busting up because of the structure settling."

You may recognize the host, Derrick Beckles, as the face of the WHUDAFXUP branch of the Truth anti-smoking campaign. Fortunately he's not making any awkward stunts to try and freakout the establishment and make his point, though his snark still lingers. This episode of Toxic interviews real salt-of-the-earth people. If you're turned off by listening to bleeding heart hippies, they are nowhere to be found in this film. Though I have nothing against a good tree-hugging hippie, the message is powerful hearing it from the people who actually live there, and are unfortunately physically suffering as the land is. These are people who are constantly sick from the pollution caused by mining, and made to feel stupid for debating the ills of this business. As a man in the film said "They make fun of your commonsense."

"Right there is what I have to take on a daily basis to stay alive."

It's obvious that what we have going for us isn't working, and if that energy "plan" comes to fruition you can expect ten times what you see in this video. The atrocities these people are experiencing will happen to more people, maybe even you if it hasn't already.