When Sergeant Wilson first walked into her apartment on the base, she said, she felt cold chills down her spine because it reminded her of the dilapidated projects of her native Baltimore.
French rap groups like IAM, Scred Connexion and Assassin have addressed a vast array of social issues, from racism and the problem of immigrant assimilation in France, to the erosion of parental authority in the dilapidated projects that ring major French cities.
Many live in what amount to segregated, dilapidated housing projects, and their children are often shunted into schools for the mentally retarded.
Well before Michelangelo Antonioni and Ingmar Bergman would bring alienation to the forefront of international cinema, he used striking landscapes and cityscapes — an active volcano, dilapidated housing projects, the ruins of Pompeii — to explore troubled relationships.
This was in spite of millions of euros being invested since the riots by the government into refurbishing or rebuilding the communities' dilapidated housing project and public areas.
Through the project, dilapidated classrooms and playgrounds have been refurbished, separate latrines for girls added and new classroom furniture provided.
Many are at the bottom of society, segregated in dilapidated housing projects and trapped by poor education, unemployment, discrimination, teenage pregnancy and drug and alcohol abuse.
The multibillion-dollar HUD program brought local community leaders and tenants to the table by giving them a role in creating the revitalization plans for their dilapidated housing projects and more control over operations.
Although the housing project was dilapidated and infamous for violence, drugs and gangs, former residents also remember a strong sense of community.
WHAT can you do with a 50-year-old public housing project that is dilapidated, dangerous and heartily disliked by its neighbors?
It shouldn't be, because at heart that's what consumption of any art form is; a way of getting closer to the experience – imaginative and actual - of others, whether their voice echoes from the courtyards of renaissance Europe, the choruses of ancient Greece or a dilapidated housing project in the Bronx.
