Rather than improve the conditions of the poor, the projects made the plight of the underclass more visible. While daily life in the projects was not worse than homelessness, or life in tenements, or boarded up and burned out neighborhoods, the problems within Pruitt-Igoe were moreconspicuous due to the complex’s large size and architectural distinction-- architects nationwide had praised Yamasaki’s innovations in the mid- 1950s, which were supposed to quell social ills and build community within the complex. As Fig. 8 shows, there is evidence to suggest that life in Pruitt-Igoe was not worse than in other poor areas of the city: the decline of Pruitt-Igoe mirrored the status of the surrounding areas.26
Pruitt-Igoe was a symptom of racial and class division in St. Louis; however, the poor living conditions in the complex were more visible due to Pruitt-Igoe’s image as an innovative architectural achievement. As Lee Rainwater demonstrated in Behind Ghetto Walls, life in the project was often harsh, but, in many ways, conditions there were not worse than in typical “ghetto” neighborhoods. The key difference was not the types of problems—graffiti, drugs, female-headed households, poverty, racial segregation—but the cramped quarters of the high-rise design, which increased friction between residents and exacerbated the aggravation common among the very poor. As Fig. 9 shows, poverty levels in Pruitt- Igoe were not lower than in the surrounding areas, including East St. Louis; thus, poverty was a location-specific trend in the older urbanized areas, and not limited to Pruitt-Igoe.27