High-Risers: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing by Ben Austen

I remember hearing about “the projects” when I was a child. I didn’t truly understand what it meant, or what they were, of course—that understanding wouldn’t come until several years later. When it did, the few things I read (or, occasionally, saw on television)  centered around African-American poverty, crime, and gangs; leaving me with the impression that it was a terrible, frightening place to live.

What I never learned about was how they came to be, or how different life was for the early tenants compared to what it eventually became.