THE LESSONS OF CO-OP CITY

The tall towers can be seen from miles away--glum, graceless structures, most of them still unfinished. They mark Co-Op City, a vast middle-income housing project for about 60,000 people, which is now rising over the desolate flats of northern New York City. Ringed by highways and anchored in mud, this group of apartment houses stands as both a prediction of huge vertical subdivisions yet to come and a warning of failures that can be avoided.

Congress has called for the construction of 24.2 million new dwelling units by 1978. The only way to get them is to think big, and Co-Op City's sponsor--the United Housing Foundation, a nonprofit group organized by 40 labor unions--conceived the $294 million project on a monumental scale. When it is completed in 1971, Co-Op City will cover 300 acres of filled marshland, with 35 apartment towers, from 24 to 33 stories in height, eight block-square parking garages, six schools, several shopping centers, 236 townhouses, and assorted service buildings--an instant city.

The people inside. United Housing obviously wanted to produce a city of thousands of inexpensive rooms, which it did very well. Each of the 15,372 apartments has hardwood floors, ample closet space, a large kitchen, central air conditioning. At $450 per room down and $25 per room in monthly maintenance charges, Co-Op City is an unbeatable bargain--at first glance.

But it is also shaping up as an eminently depressing place to live. Co-Op City is dense (200 people per acre). It is relentlessly ugly: its buildings are overbearing bullies of concrete and brick. Its layout is dreary and unimaginative. Right now, residents have to bus their kids to nearby schools and shop in a make-do supermarket on the bottom floor of a garage. Not a spadeful of dirt has yet been turned on a new subway line that will connect the project directly with New York City, of which it is supposed to be a vital part. Even worse, except for some projected excellent landscaping, there is little effort to create neighborhoods at Co-Op City, or a feeling of community. Instead, residents are treated like clean socks, rolled up and tucked into gigantic bureau drawers. Wasted muscle. The saddest thing about Co-Op City is that its bleak environment was achieved at great public cost. Only governmental assistance can put good housing within the grasp of big-city dwellers who earn an average of $7.500 a year, not to mention the poor. At Co-Op City, state and city governments helped with a long-term 90% mortgage at a low interest rate, a municipal real-estate-tax exemption, and investment in schools, and other capital improvements. Total assistance over 40 years, reckons Architectural Critic Walter McQuade in Architectural Forum, will reach about half a billion dollars. "Government is paying most of the ticket on this trip," he adds, "and government has the right to insist that the destination be pointed not only by economics, but by sociology and architectural talent as well."

But the failure of Co-Op City does not stop with its debilitating environment. If the U.S. is going to meet the demand for housing without even more public aid, construction costs must come down. One promising way is to apply technical innovation, including large-scale prefabrication. But stiff municipal building codes and the power of the building trades' unions have blocked most such attempts, while construction costs spiral up, 12% a year.

Co-Op City is so big that its sponsor was able to reduce some costs through bulk purchasing. The sponsor might have used the same muscle to force really significant changes in construction techniques. What labor union could resist bending its archaic rules in order to work on a fiveyear, $294 million job? What city has anything to lose by modernizing building codes in order to keep 15,000 middle-class families in town? At Co-Op City, the questions were not raised and the opportunities not seized. But its example remains for other projects to heed.

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