Quote: (11-05-2014 05:34 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:
Texas_Tryhard, since you're a medical practitioner (right?), I would very much like to hear your thoughts on how applicable this experiment is to humans. I think medical science would have more to say about the underlying mechanism than sociological one.
You can research human equivalents very easily. The most pronounced examples were in the time of the modern utopian housing experiments which took place in the United States and parts of Canada from the mid-1950s to the mid-1990s
Here it is:
![[Image: Wz7WeNHl.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/Wz7WeNHl.jpg)
![[Image: PMb8RREl.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/PMb8RREl.jpg)
^ Pruitt-Igoe Homes in St Louis was one of the largest single complexes built during this era.
This stuff touches on my area of study in social engineering. Back in the post war period social housing was created as a utopian answer and fix it all to ailments that plagued living in the pre-war period (lack of space, filth, lack of order, etc). To the creeping up modernists and utopian the old way of living in the a urban setting grossed them out. They wanted sterile, clean, uniform living for people with access to schools, food, and parks right at their door step. The created these large housing complexes as their response.
^ Pay attention to how it is talked about highly in the old video stock. This was very much the thought process of the time that these buildings would be a 100% improvement and would be the future of urban housing.
The thing that is interesting is that these homes were not initially made for the poor. They wanted middle class people whom in America were largely white to move into these units. In the start, for many of the early projects they were mostly white and middle class. It wasn't until suburban expansion and market gimmicks such as
redlining which purposely segregated the urban populations from the suburban did you start to see the tide turn on the demographics of these housing units. Initially these homes were humble and did offer a upgrade from crowded homes and slums that were typical in the pre-war period but things started to unravel quickly. It turned full scale after the 60's when "Great Society" initiatives put housing as a key component. Which further accelerated again after the boots came down in late 60's and 70's when now few mostly black historic urban communities had riots in what was left in their long standing communities (Many long standing Black American communities were purposely destroyed to build freeways and highways to help channel new autos from the suburbs to the working centers in the downtown). After that many black American if they were on the lowest end of the socioeconomic scale were places into these massive housing units which were now whole City operated due to the market and city not being able to sell the homes as originally planned. Quickly the poorest of the poor found homes here but the cycle of having little income to ensure maintenance and the City cheapening out on maintenance led to conditions falling apart, which lead people to move out, which led to even less rents to maintain things,
wash..rinse..repeat.
With these units now full and all basics supplied and covered, with the slow removal of the male population to keep order you saw almost all of these housing units become dens for crime and social degradation. The "projects" basically became a zoo in many cities and many got to the point of being self-policed since cops could not keep a handle on things or fell to the corruption of drug money that came in and out of the towers. Add again the fact that no social order was present and you saw murder rates sky rocket in these communities in very little time. These would be the equivalent to the de-populaiton scenario the mice faced in the shafts once their social order eroded.
This is what it broke down into:
![[Image: Pruitt-Igoe-corridor-actual.jpg]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Pruitt-Igoe-corridor-actual.jpg)
A lot of material exists on the subject. Its been a few years since I had to dig deep into the matter but even NPR itself has many podcasts on the subject.
![[Image: tumblr_mbqy0d2VVX1rgxfcoo1_250.gif]](https://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbqy0d2VVX1rgxfcoo1_250.gif)
