Preface Figures and Tables 1. Introduction: Reclaiming Public Housing Public Housing: Critics and Apologists Public Neighborhoods Public Housing as Constructed Communities The Stigma of the Projects Public Housing Transformations: Public and Private Public Housing in Boston Pressures on Public Housing Three Boston Public Neighborhoods 2. West Broadway: Public Housing for "Lower-End" Whites South Boston's Lower End before Public Housing Public Housing and South Boston's Lower End, 1935-1965 The D Street Wars Assaults on the Project Assaults by the Press The Residents Fight Back The Fight for Redevelopment Success and Distress 3. Franklin Field: Public Housing, Neighborhood Abandonment, and Racial Transition Franklin Field's Origins: The Geography of Marginality Housing Veterans on Franklin Field The Long Decline Lurching toward Redevelopment The Limits of Redeveloped Housing Accounting for Failure 4. Commonwealth: Public Housing and Private Opportunities Boston's "Wild West": Brighton before Public Housing Public Housing on Brighton's Last Farm Fidelis Way, Scourge of the Neighborhood Redevelopment Partnership: A Three-Way Street Assessing "Success" 5. Reclaiming Housing, Recovering Communities: A Comparison of Neighborhood Struggles Trajectories of Collapse Trajectories of Redevelopment Seven Kinds of Success Expanding and Applying the Measures of Success Recovering Communities Signs of Life? Note on Literature and Methods Notes Credits Index.