The urban American landscape is rapidly changing as high-rise public housing is being demolished and its residents dispersed. Once heralded as a revolutionary design solution to address a pressing housing shortage, Chicago's public housing structures have rapidly deteriorated and living conditions have become sub-standard. Mixing It Up explores the redevelopment of Chicago's public housing and the impact this has on the communities being displaced.
Mixing It Up examines, through the words and voices of current and former public housing residents, the long-term impact of these changes on the very people that the policy is supposed to help, and the impact this has on society as a whole. The film provides residents' perspectives on and scholars' responses to the urban redevelopment of Chicago, while creating a historical record of communities that will cease to exist.
Mixing It Up will be used to spark debate about the effectiveness of public policy to demolish high-rise public housing and create low-rise mixed-income communities. The film will address a range of questions, centering the around following core queries: How do these changes actually impact residents of public housing? What happens to the communities that once lived in these high-rise physical spaces? And, can implementing a physical solution remedy a social problem?
Mixing It Up is a sequel to Bezalel's critically acclaimed Voices of Cabrini: Remaking Chicago's Public Housing (1999) The documentary picks up where Voices of Cabrini left off, focusing less on the act of tearing down public housing than on tracking what has become of those displaced in the process.
