The financial crisis added urgency to this effort to reinvigorate a long-dormant national conversation about public housing, which remains the subject of
unjust stigmas and unjustified pessimism. Oriented toward reframing the issue by imagining new possibilities, the workshop explored diverse combinations of architecture and urban policy that acknowledged the responsibilities of government and the limits of the private markets. Principles were discussed, ideas
were tested, and scenarios were proposed. These were distributed along a typical regional cross-section, or transect, representing a wide range of settlement patterns in the United States. The transect was broken down into five sectors: Urban Core, Urban Ring, Suburban, Exurban, and Rural. Participants were asked to develop ideas within these sectors, taking into account the contents of an informational dossier that was provided in advance. The term is barely heard in public today, except in reference to historical policies and the buildings they produced, many of which now face demolition. In the United States, when discussing future policies and practices, you are more likely to hear terms like “affordable housing” or “mixed-income housing.” Among other things, this shift in terminology reflects a gradual shift in cultural meaning, where the “public” aspects of public housing have come to signify dependence or subordination, while responsibility for the basics of human habitation has fallen mainly on the markets.