I am trying to find out which city built the first ever public housing scheme in the world. In Liverpool, St. Martins Cottages, 6 blocks 4 storeys high were opened in 1869 and are often quoted as the first in Europe. On this site I found a date of 1936 for a public housing scheme in Atlanta. Does anyone know of any earlier projects than 1869 anywhere in the world. Thanks in advance.
Spress

I presume you're keen to narrow this down to complexes of public housing in the form of recognisable 'estates', as the concept of public housing is very old, at least in Britain, with 'Almshouses' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almshouse) having been around for over 1,000 years

What I am looking for are a complex of properties built by the council or the city fathers etc to be rented out to the public such as the projects in the USA or the estates here in England.

The Techwood Homes in Atlanta were built in the mid-1930s, were torn down in the mid-90s, and were located on the present-day site of Centennial Place.

The Quarry Hill Flats in Leeds were also built in the mid 30s and were demolished in the late 70s.

These were probable the world's first modern public/council housing projects.

I presume you're keen to narrow this down to complexes of public housing in the form of recognisable 'estates', as the concept of public housing is very old, at least in Britain, with 'Almshouses' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almshouse) having been around for over 1,000 years

When were the tenements in Edinburgh's Old Town built? Even though I'm not sure they were any kind of 'estate' I remember they were populated with the working class. Surely they count in some vague way.... :|

The Techwood Homes in Atlanta were built in the mid-1930s, were torn down in the mid-90s, and were located on the present-day site of Centennial Place.

The Quarry Hill Flats in Leeds were also built in the mid 30s and were demolished in the late 70s.

These were probable the world's first modern public/council housing projects.

God no... I'm sat in a London County Council flat dating back to the 1920's as I type... LCC built many estates in London before the 1930's.

One of the first was the Boundary Estate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_Estate) in Bethnal Green, which was a classic slum clearance and opened in 1900.

Following your link on the Bounday estate I went to Wikipedia, I was informed that this estate opened in 1900 by London County Council was the world's first council housing. This is wrong as the flats in Liverpool are much older. And as I have stated before I think they are the world's first but I do not want to say so with any real authority until I have done some more research. They seem to be holding out well at the moment and could well be another first for Liverpool

In the Netherlands, the public housing sector was born with the housing law of 1901 (which allowed gouvernement support)

However, before that there already was an unorganised version of the system, based on social entrepreneurship, like the 'Bouwmaatschappij tot Verkrijging van Eigen Woningen' (Building corporation to aquire own housing, 1868) and De Amsterdamse Vereeniging tot Bouwen van Arbeiderswoningen (Amsterdam association for building workers housing, 1875)

As far as I can find, the oldest social housing in the Netherlands are the 'Dubbeltjeswoningen', Mauritskade 29-54 Amsterdam, built between 1870 en 1885 by the BVEW

http://www.dubbeltjeswoningen.nl/attachments/Image/geschiedenis/GetAttachment.jpg

In general, the Netherlands and the UK are the countries with the richest social housing history.

For Amsterdam goes that literally almost all of city, except for the medieval and 17 century city, is built by housing corparations. In fact all of the Netherlands after 1901 is virtually is. Often with the greatest architects of that time (Berlage, J J P Oud, de Klerk)

And I suppose the same goes for the UK.

De Klerk
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Michel_de_Klerk_Spaarndammerplantsoen_Amsterdam.jpg

Dunno if it really counts, but in my opinion the oldest social public housing project in the world is the "Fuggerei" in Augsburg built between 1516 and 1523.

The settlement was initiated by Jacob Fugger primarily as a settlement for workers in his factories who were sick or otherwise couldn't work (and earn money), and is still owned and financed by the Fugger Trust today through returns from forests and other real estate owned by the trust.
Jakob Fugger was a member of the City Council of Augsburg from 1498 on, and became a noble in 1514.

67 "houses" (read: stairwells) with 140 standardised apartments. Rent was set to one Rhenish Guilder - today equivalent to 0.88 Euro - and is still the base rent paid today by its about 150 inhabitants. Technical requirement for the inhabitants is to be destitute and be catholic.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1b/Fuggerei.jpg/600px-Fuggerei.jpg
(Wikipedia)

"Dumbbell tenements", privately built, have existed in New York since the 1870s as an improvement over the rickety wood and brick slums that filled with immigrants quickly after 1845. In a sense they were a form of public housing due to the civic-mindedness of their creators. Factory towns like Pullman Illinois just south of Chicago supplied workers with an almost utopian vision of fully self-contained communities. That experiment ended with the bloody Pullman Strike in 1894 and was rarely seen since. A government backed version of this sprang up in Boulder City Nev. during the construction of Hoover Dam in the mid 1930s. Huge housing projects such as Parkchester and Bedford Stuy were initially built by companies like the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. in the 1930s and early '40s. Around WW2, the Mitchell Lama Act created the first federally financed public housing and states and cities applied for those funds to build fully public housing developments in the iconic institutional style of Cabrini Green in Chicago, and Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis.

160 year old Council estates in the Marollen district, Brussels:
http://www.brukselbinnenstebuiten.be/img/foto_CiteHellemans.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Cit%C3%A9_Hellemans_01.JPG
Today totally renewed.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Cit%C3%A9_Hellemans_08.JPG
http://www.globalview.be/pictures/big/A_24338.jpg

Sorry for the size....