“The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, last week approved $31 million worth of contracts to demolish 4,500 public housing units of such high quality that some are on the National Register of Historic Places. These aren’t forbidding tower fortresses but appealing, three-story garden apartments. Most were built in the 1930s and 1940s, when subsidized rental housing was deemed a worthy endeavor and sheltered working families.”