According to Nicholas Dagen Bloom, “administrative incompetence ” has been the main problem in public housing, whether called social housing, council housing, or “the projects.” He offers the example of New York City's public housing, which constitutes 10% of all such dwellings in the United States, as an example that it can and has worked. The New York City Housing Authority's
history illustrates that housing management practices, broadly defined, are the most important factors in the long-term shape of public housing communities. NYCHA has operated under many of the same stresses that bedeviled other housing authorities, but its success has illustrated that constant vigilance can sustain concentrations of high-rise superblocks in second ghettos. NYCHA's current deputy general manager for operations, Robert Podmorc, believes that even today in New York within three or four days there would be a "serious impact on quality of life" should maintenance standards falter at the authority's many developments. Very few other housing authorities had any sense of urgency to their management operations and most failed to address serious defects either on a daily or even yearly basis.