Do good fences make good neighbors? Public housing residents don’t think so
Residents stand near the wall that separates the former West Rock public housing development from the town of Hamden. Photo by Peter Hvizdak, courtesy of the New Haven Register.
“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,” Robert Frost begins. As long as there has been someone to divide from, human beings have been making fences to keep someone in, or more importantly, keep someone else out.
In New Haven, Connecticut, a mile-long fence exists to keep public housing residents out. The fence sits between the town of Hamden, a working-to-middle class suburb of New Haven, and the former West Rock public housing Development, known for it’s troubled past.
It’s existed in some form for 50 years, now a triple-reinforced chain link fence, built by the town of Hamden when resident started complaining that “riff-raff” from the projects brought with them crime, trouble and disorder.
Now, West Rock public housing development is gone – demolished and waiting for federal money to be rebuilt as a mixed-income community. But the wall remains. Even though the only people on the other side of that wall are a small complex of elderly residents, some Hamdenites are still skeptical about taking it down.
Why? Well, the wall seems to have worked. Hamden residents felt safer. And with the stories that came out of West Rock, it’s no wonder. My mentor, David McClendon, used to cover New Haven’s public housing, and I heard many, many stories about things that happened there.
David told me stories of women who were forced to do sexual favors for maintenance men in order to get repairs done. Of violence and corruption that turned his stomach and boggled his mind. West Rock was home to many good families, but it was also home to the kind of grinding cyclical poverty that turns many good families bad.
The wall keeps these remaining elderly residents from accessing the main road. What should be a 15 minute trip to town takes more than an hour because of the fence.
But even more than being an inconvenience, I take issue with the idea that we can keep ourselves safe by keeping “us” in and “them” out.
Poverty is isolating. The less money you have, the fewer connections and resources you often have. The more desperate you become. Your behavior can often mirror that desperation in very un-neighborly ways.
It’s not just today. Think of the early 1900s with xenophobic fears of the Irish and Italian immigrants. Many scientists of the day declared them dirty, doomed to poverty because of their genetically-predisposed stupidity, and pollutants of the American gene pool.
Our response, when we see something we’re afraid of, is to shut it out. We tightened immigration laws in the 20s. We build fences. We come up with ways to keep “them” out.
But if poverty’s isolation is what creates the behavior and the people we want to shut out, what good can it do to continue to isolate people?
It creates further isolation in their lives and a false sense of security in our own.
Are we truly safe when we keep anyone who might threaten us out? Or are we truly safe when our communities are open enough that every child, every family, has access to the resources they need?
I’m not saying we should stop locking our doors at night. There will always be a sliver of society that we must protect ourselves against. But when we allow children to be raised abject poverty, violence and isolation and use fences, walls and barriers to make sure their reality never reaches our own – we’re kidding ourselves if we really think that’s safety.
Fences are so 20th century. As this wall in New Haven comes down, perhaps so will the idea that keeping others out is the only way to keep our own families out of danger.
Post Your Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment
T/S Members
Log in with your True/Slant account.
Megan, this is so true! Fences and walls are sometimes more harmful than helpful. This reminds me of a particularly horrible fence I know of here in Chicago. There is a CHA complex up on Chicago and Larabee–I don’t know what it’s called–that has a wrought iron fence around it with bent out bars along the top. Though those top bars don’t have razor wire on them, they are just the sort that would. The fence looks just like a prison yard fence and is just as imposing and depressing. And to add insult to injury, there is a big gate into the complex of run down buildings that looks like a prison yard gate. Every time I walk by it, I think of your blog and I think that that fence is about protecting the outside, redeveloped neighborhood from the CHA community behind the fence. And to add further insult to injury, there is a “community” garden abutting that fence run by 4th Presbyterian (from the Mag Mile, by the way) that is completely fenced off and locked. *If* anyone from the CHA community wanted to participate in the garden, they’d first have to get around the prison fence closing off the CHA property and *then* gain access to a locked and fenced of “community” garden. It makes me very sad.
Sarah (from The Documentalist)
Hi Sarah! Thanks for your comments and your careful observation of you’re community.
I think you’re talking about the Cabrini Rowhouses, which are a collection of 500 plus units between Chicago and Hudson Aves. Yes – the fence is huge and wrought iron. It’s actually the place where one of those fences fell a few years back and killed a young boy. The fences are huge, and the design of the rowhouses is very isolated. It’s like a maze inside.
The community garden is a pretty great place. I did a story on it last summer: http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/one-story-up/2009/06/a-garden-grows-in-cabrini-green.html
I think they have the fence to prevent vandalism and such. Knowing the people who run the garden, I imagine they’re not 100 percent comfortable with the fence either. At least they’ve decorated it with those big colorful signs, which makes it inviting. And every day during the summer, kids from Cabrini come and play in the garden for hours. It’s pretty sweet.
Anyway, thank you for your thoughtful comments!
I don’t actually live in that neighborhood (I’m a South sider
), but I’ve had to go up that way for business reasons and every time I walk by those homes it makes me sad. So I’m very glad to hear that the garden is a wonderful place and that Cabrini kids get to play in it in the summer–I admit that I’ve only seen it in winter when it’s locked and desolate, and with it’s positioning next to that big fence, it just seemed unfair. I’m so glad my impression was wrong!
In response to another comment. See in context »