There's much, much more to it than just planning a community with some closely-spaced high-rises. The real failure of these projects like Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes and Cabrini-Green was that they were part of the whole misguided public housing system. They weren't just brutalist high-rises; they were cheaply-built, poorly-maintained structures into which the most disadvantaged members of society were rounded up and told to live.

Not much more than a mile away from the former site of Cabrini-Green, in Chicago's Near North neighborhood, is Cabrini's urban-planning counter-example: Carl Sandburg Village. This series of mid-century high-rises and low-rises shares a lot of design concepts with Cabrini, but was privately built, with better architecture and higher quality, and following a conversion from rentals to condos, has been carefully maintained over the decades by its owners.

While Sandburg Village's residents are not the city's poor, they aren't necessarily affluent either: The place has a reputation as an affordable area for first-time buyers as well as retirees.