Louis Place is near Northside neighborhood and surrounded by Palm Street on the North, Cass Avenue on the South, North Florissant on the East and North Jefferson on the West. St. Louis Place a portion of the Union Addition was designed out by John O'Fallon and others in the year 1850. St. Louis neighborhood is renowned for the fashionable nineteenth-century residential district surrounding part. Even at present the large Victorian houses around the part is still standing and also old mansions along St. Louis Avenue, an area once recognized as 'millionaire's row'. The vicinity towards the south originally was 'Kerry Patch' built up as poorer immigrant communities having more modest residents and multifamily units. Kerry Patch at present a portion of the Carr Square neighborhood and the south-easternmost section of the St. Louis Place district became the construction site of Pruitt-Igoe. (St. Louis Place (60) Location) closer study of the failure of Pruitt-Igoe only a decade after its completion reveals that what actually occurred in St. Louis, however, reveals that the inherent idea of Pruitt Igoe arose from the anxiety of civic leaders to protect the city by rebuilding it, having a strong mayor declaring to rebuild their city into a Manhattan on the Mississippi and a rather ambitious young architect visualizing the sky to be the only limit. Their survey of the city during the post World War II revealed that St. Louis business and political leaders had every reason to be anxious. The city depicted only one among the four in United State to have declined population in 1930s. The City Plan Commission in 1947 prepared a complete physical plan to bring people back to St. Louis. The plan designated the DeSoto-Carr neighborhood as 'extremely obsolete' and devised detailed site plans for its rebuilding. The Commission recommended for evacuate the area and constructing 'two-or three-story row type buildings and a large public park. (Why They Built the Pruitt-Igoe Project) The election of Joseph Darst as mayor facilitated translation of such plans into action. DeSoto Carr had been a poor area housing inhabited by both whites and blacks before it was razed. The earlier scheme was to construct an enclave for a majority of middle-income black residents. However, the final plan designated...

The Whites were not willing to move into and thereby converting the entire Pruitt-Igoe project only having black residents. Some pointed out that there in no truth in the statement that cost limits of the Public Housing Administration compelled the authorities to enhance the scale of the project. In reality the building contractors appeared to have inflated their bids to turn the public housing construction in St. Louis to cost about 60% above the national average. While the unit cost limits of PHA could not be enhanced to encompass the bids of the contractor they were forced to raise the density, reduce the room sizes and eliminated some of the amenities. This at last turned to become a massive, destructive and expensive effort that resulted in noticeably slow the city's decline. During the period 1950 to 1970 the population of the city decreased by 234000 people. (Why They Built the Pruitt-Igoe Project)