Well over a 1,000 people—many with coffee in hand—attended this morning’s plenary session at the AIA convention. It was a packed lineup. Speakers included Steven Holl, the 2012 Gold Medal recipient, and Vincent James, a principal at VJAA, the 2012 AIA Firm of the Year, both of whom delivered inspiring remarks about their work and architecture at large. And then came the bearer of bad news: Kermit Baker, the AIA’s chief economist, who spoke candidly about the recession’s impact on the profession (read more here).

Baker was followed by the event headliner: HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, who studied architecture at Harvard and formerly served as commissioner of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development. President Obama appointed him to head HUD in late 2008; he was sworn in January 2009. 

During his roughly 20-minute speech, Donovan, who was born in New York, discussed the evolution of affordable housing in the United States, focusing on New York City.

Photo courtesy Wikipedia 

Ever heard of The First Houses (pictured above)? They’re known as the first public housing units in the country (hence the name). Designed by architect Frederick Ackerman, the eight buildings, ranging from four to five stories, opened in 1935 in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Two years later, the Harlem River Houses – the first federally funded public housing project in the country – were completed in Upper Manhattan. Archibald Manning Brown designed the complex.

Donovan went on to discuss how the Postwar urban renewal programs decimated neighborhoods, sometimes “wiping them from the map.” Public housing projects often failed due to a lack of vital amenities such as shops, schools, transportation options -- and jobs. “It wasn’t that the housing units were substandard,” he said; rather, these complexes didn’t provide opportunities for resident to thrive. The South Bronx epitomized the consequences of so-called urban renewal. Here, thousands of buildings were torched by arsonists (pictured below). Residents fled. By the 1970s, the area around Yankee Stadium had lost 75 percent of its population, said Donovan.