Co-Op City /// Pruitt Igoe's Antithesis

I guess that this acts as a counterpoint and part two to my previous post, the Pruitt Igoe Fallacy. Comparing Pruitt Igoe in all of its horrid eventuality to an extremely similar project, Coop City, is quite confusing. The projects both had their genesis in providing dense affordable housing for lower-income members of St Louis and New York City respectively. They both were constructed following modernist ideologies, of materials that were conducive to low cost and maintenance. They both had similar issues with rent striking due to maintenance issues. However, Coop City stands today as a beloved community [with a population that would make it the 10th largest city in New York if it stood alone], and the other is in a rubble pile with a stink of "the failure of modernism" connotations surrounding it. I think that a lot of that comes from the fact that the people who actually lived there were successful in garnering a significant level of control regarding policy within the community. They weren't hit, from the joint, with bizarre and unbelievably offensive and dangerous policies such as not allowing for the fathers of households to be present [this policy was eye-opening and mind-blowing when i heard it about the pruitt igoe housing development]. The citizens of Coop City, on the other hand, were able to build community within their bounds within this close-knit, shared amenity housing project.

 

Some of the power of the people to actually create positive continued progress in the coop city community comes from the fact that the people who live there are actually part shareholders to the project. This is where "coop city" comes from. The project, unlike some, gives voice to tenets from the middle to lower class, allowing for the change and policy that the common man truly needs to be heard and fulfilled much better than projects like Pruitt Igoe, which saw the St Louis Housing Authority is able to essentially allow the people living there to live in squalor without ever truly listening to and much less attending to their issues. To this point of service to the people, the project can be relatively self-sufficient, with grocery, laundry, some retail, areas for exercise, and parks all contained within its bounds. Community is grown and promoted through these things as well, as within the documentary, there was shown a near constant flow of activity groups to meet with within the city's amenity areas. 

The city also would not require you to own a car, as public transit such as subway runs directly to the city's core, allowing for very easy access to all. This further draws a community together, because instead of loading up into a private vehicle, commuting to work, and driving right back into a garage, the citizens are going to the transit stops, interacting with each other, and speaking with other residents every day on everyone's commute.

All in all, the project is a great case study in a slightly alternative community and lifestyle and how it works in comparison to its peers, namely because it places the power with the people who are actually affected by the power and decisions made by it. Important, alternative communal lifestyle options such as this is not possible if it has an authoritarian figure deciding what everyone has to he okay with, they work when everyone's voice can be heard, and things can be done to best benefit the overall community.

 

 Links for consideration

https://www.coopcity.com/

https://www.nyc.gov/site/planning/plans/bronx-metro-north/bronx-metro-north-coop-city.page