You can blame the architect if you want, the aesthetic was certainly...austere. But I find a different argument far more compelling. The city politicians knew exactly what they were doing in housing large swaths of the urban poor in a small section of the city.

Not only that they used those projects as a way to punish independent political adversaries in the city government. Everyone who originally conceived of the programs tried to build mixed density communities spread throughout the city that were only partially social housing, but racism & power politics prevented that.

Then the city doubled down & didn’t provide services appropriate for the number of people now densely packed in one place.

The book “Blueprint for Disaster” outlines the history of this very well.