J.S. Fuerst with the assistance of D. Bradford Hunt, When Public Housing Was Paradise: Building Community in Chicago, (Greenwood, 2003; paperback, University of Illinois Press, 2005).

Collecting seventy-nine oral histories from former public housing residents and staff, When Public Housing Was Paradise is a powerful testament to the fact that well-designed, well-managed low-rent housing has worked, as well as a demonstration of how it could be made to work again.

J. S. Fuerst was involved with public housing in Chicago for more than half a century. He was a professor of social welfare policy at Loyola University, and he passed away in 2009.

D. Bradford Hunt edited the oral histories and introductory text.

John Hope Franklin wrote the Forward. Until his death in 2009, Franklin was James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of History at Duke University and served as president of the Organization of American Historians and the American Historical Association, among others.

Available from the University of Chicago Press.