The foregoing facts apply only to England and Wales. In Scotland the state of things is much less satisfactory. No statistics of overcrowding are available, but the following comparative table shows how different the housing conditions are in the two countries:—Size of Dwellings, England and Scotland, 1901.Dwelling.Percentage of Population.England.Scotland.1 room1.611.12 rooms6.639.53 rooms9.819.94 rooms21.99.15 rooms and over60.120.4Over 50% of the population of Scotland live in tenements of one or two rooms; only 8.2% in England. A comparison of the largest towns in the two countries gives the following result:—Percentage of Population.Scotland.England.Town.1 Room.2 Rooms.Town.1 Room.2 Rooms.Glasgow16.238.9London6.715.5Edinburgh8.932.4Liverpool2.75.9Dundee11.351.7Manchester0.84.01Aberdeen6.133.2Birmingham0.32.4Greenock11.347.6Sheffield0.44.0Kilmarnock18.943.3Bristol1.65.7Mean12.742.4Mean1.86.7The conditions in Scottish towns where very tall tenement houses are common, resemble those in other countries, in which overcrowding is far greater than in England. All these matters are comparative, and the superiority of conditions in England ought to be recognized. Yet, in Scotland, too, great improvements have been effected. In 1861 there were 25,959 houses without windows; in 1901 only 130. These facts throw light on the long standing of the housing question, the change of standard and the improvement effected.In Ireland there is more overcrowding than in England, though probably less than in Scotland, with the possible exception of Dublin, which has a larger proportion of one-roomed dwellings than any Scottish town, namely, 24.7%. The percentage of population living in overcrowded conditions in the principal towns is—Dublin 40.6, Limerick 31.7, Cork 23.4, Waterford 20.6, Londonderry 16.7, Belfast 8.2.
The foregoing facts apply only to England and Wales. In Scotland the state of things is much less satisfactory. No statistics of overcrowding are available, but the following comparative table shows how different the housing conditions are in the two countries:—
Size of Dwellings, England and Scotland, 1901.
Over 50% of the population of Scotland live in tenements of one or two rooms; only 8.2% in England. A comparison of the largest towns in the two countries gives the following result:—
Percentage of Population.
The conditions in Scottish towns where very tall tenement houses are common, resemble those in other countries, in which overcrowding is far greater than in England. All these matters are comparative, and the superiority of conditions in England ought to be recognized. Yet, in Scotland, too, great improvements have been effected. In 1861 there were 25,959 houses without windows; in 1901 only 130. These facts throw light on the long standing of the housing question, the change of standard and the improvement effected.
In Ireland there is more overcrowding than in England, though probably less than in Scotland, with the possible exception of Dublin, which has a larger proportion of one-roomed dwellings than any Scottish town, namely, 24.7%. The percentage of population living in overcrowded conditions in the principal towns is—Dublin 40.6, Limerick 31.7, Cork 23.4, Waterford 20.6, Londonderry 16.7, Belfast 8.2.
Sanitary Conditions.—With regard to the quality of existing housing reference has already been made to the effect of the Public Health Acts and the general improvement in sanitation. The only numerical measure is afforded by the death-rates, which have fallen in England from 20.9 per 1000 in 1871-1875 to 15.4 per 1000 in 1903-1907 and in the United Kingdom from 21.3 to 15.7 per 1000 in the same period. The condition of the dwelling must be credited with a considerable share in this fall. There have, in fact, been great changes and all in the direction of improvement. The rise and development of sanitation, of house and main drainage and sewage disposal, the purification of water and provision of a constant service in the house, the removal of refuse, the segregation of infectious illness, sanitary inspection—all these, apart from the demolition of the worst housing and the provision of better, have raised the general healthiness of the dwellings of the people. In face of these facts and of the vital statistics, to say that the people are physically deteriorating through the influence of bad housing is to talk obvious nonsense, for all conditions have been improving for more than a generation. If physical deterioration is going on, of which there is no proof, either it is not caused by bad housing or there is less than there was. Deterioration may be caused by the continued process of urbanization and the congregating of an ever larger proportion of the population in towns; but that is a different question. If the town has any injurious influence it is not due to the sanitary condition of the houses, which is in general superior to that of houses in the country, but to the habits and occupations of the people or to the atmosphere and the mere aggregation. But much misapprehension prevails with regard to towns. The most distinctive and the most valuable feature of English housing is the general predominance of the small house or cottage occupied by a single family. Only in London and a few other towns do blocks of large tenement houses of the continental type exist, and even there they are comparatively few. In England and Wales 84% of the population live in dwellings of 4 rooms and upwards, which means broadly separate houses. Now the prevalence of small houses involves spreading out and the covering of much ground with many little streets, which produce a monotonous effect; a smoky atmosphere makes them grimy and dull skies contribute to the general dinginess. The whole presents to the eye a vast area of dreary meanness and monotony. Thus the best feature of English national housing turns to its apparent disadvantage and the impression is gained by superficial observers that the bulk of our working-class populations lives in “slums.” The word “slum” has no precise meaning, but if it implies serious sanitary defects it is not applicable to most of our town housing. There are real slums still, but the bulk of the working class population do not live in them; they live in small houses, often of a mean and dingy exterior but in essential respects more sanitary than the large and often handsome blocks to be seen in foreign towns, which are not put down as slums because they do not look dirty. A smoky atmosphere is injurious to health, but it must be distinguished from defects of housing. Ideal houses in a smoky place soon look bad; inferior ones in a clean air look brighter and deceive the eye. The worst of the old housing has disappeared; the filthy, dilapidated, airless and sunless rookeries—the real slums—and the underground dwellings have been swept away in most cases, and what remains of them is not so bad as what has gone. But reform has been very regularly applied. Some towns have done much, others little. The large towns, in which the evil was most intense and most conspicuous in bulk, have as a class done far more than smaller ones in which the need perhaps was less great, but in which also a less healthy public spirit prevailed. The worst housing conditions to-day are probably to be found in old towns of small and medium size, in which the ratepayers have a great disinclination to spend money on anything, and the control of local affairs is apt to be in the hands of the owners of the most insanitary property. Nor is this state of things altogether confined to old places. Some of recent growth have been allowed, for the same reason, to spring up and develop without any regard to sanitary principles or the requirements of public health. There is therefore abundant scope for further reform and in not a few cases urgent need of it. On the other hand, we have a number of towns, particularly manufacturing towns, both large and small in the midlands and the north of England, which have already reached a good general standard of housing in all essential requirements, and only need the regular and steady exercise of vigilance by the public health service to remove such defects as still remain or may reveal themselves with the lapse of time.
Rents.—Rent is a matter of great importance from every point of view, and that is now being realized. A quantity of official information on the subject has been collected and made available by an elaborate inquiry ordered by the Board of Trade in 1905 and published in 1908 (Cd. 3864). It relates to working class dwellings in the principal industrial towns in the United Kingdom, 94 in all: namely, 77 in England and Wales, 11 in Scotland and 6 in Ireland. The following tables give in a condensed form the chief statistical results obtained in October 1905:—Predominant Range of Weekly Rents.England and Wales.Scotland.Ireland.London.Provincialtowns.One room....2/- to 2/61/6 to 2/6Two rooms4/6 to 7/63/- to 3/63/10 to 4/32/6 to 3/6Three rooms6/- to 9/-3/9 to 4/65/2 to 6/54/- to 5/-Four rooms7/6 to 10/64/6 to 5/6..5/6 to 6/9Five rooms9/- to 13/-5/6 to 6/6....Six rooms10/6 to 15/66/6 to 7/9....Rents are lowest in Ireland and next lowest in English provincial towns, considerably higher in Scotland and highest of all in London, for which further special details are given. It is divided into three zones (1) central, (2) middle, (3) outer, which have the following mean weekly rents:—London Mean Weekly Rents.Zone.Central.Middle.Outer.One room4/63/9..Two rooms7/-6/-..Three rooms8/97/66/6Four rooms..9/-7/9Five rooms..11/-9/6Six rooms..13/-11/-In central London—which extends to Stepney in the East, Lambeth m the South, Islington in the North, and includes Westminster, Holborn, Finsbury, Marylebone, Shoreditch, most of Bethnal Green, Southwark and Bermondsey—the rent of a single room may be as high as 6s. or even 6s. 6d. (Holborn) a week. It is here that overcrowding is greatest, and block-tenements, philanthropic and municipal, most numerous. The rentals of the block dwellings have not been taken into account in the foregoing official statistics; they range as follows: 1 room, 2s. 6d. to 5s.; 2 rooms, 5s. to 8s.; three rooms, 6s. 6d. to 11s. The lowest rent for which a single room can be obtained in this area is 2s. 6d. a week. In no English town are rents nearly so high as in London. If 100 is taken as the index number for rent in London the nearest towns to it (Croydon and Plymouth) only reach 81, and one town on the list (Macclesfield) is as low as 32. The index number of twenty-one towns out of the whole is 50 or under, and these include a number of important industrial centres—Hull, Leicester, Blackburn, Northampton, Warrington, Coventry, Crewe and others. The index numbers of the great towns are: Liverpool 65, Manchester and Salford 62, Birmingham 59, Leeds 56, Sheffield 55, Bristol 53, Bradford 59, Hull 48; that is to say the level of rents in these towns is little more than half that in London. This is one more proof of the untypical character of London, and of the fallacy of generalizing from it to the rest of the country. Even in the overcrowded towns on Tyneside rents do not run to three-fourths of the London level. When the towns are divided into geographical groups the index numbers run thus: London 100, Northern Counties 62, Yorkshire 56, Lancashire and Cheshire 54, Midlands 51, Eastern Counties 50, Southern Counties 61, Wales and Monmouth 60. Rents are always highest in capitals, and Edinburgh complies with the rule; but it is very slightly in advance of Glasgow, and in Scotland generally the range is much smaller than in England. Dublin, on the other hand, is differentiated from the other Irish towns as widely as London from English ones.A general and progressive rise in rents has been taking place for many years. The following index numbers for the great towns aregiven in the second series of memoranda published by the Board of Trade in 1904 (Cd. 1761):—Relative Working-Class Rents.188086.6189089.9188590.11900100.0189596.3The tendency to rise is attributable to increased cost of labour, due to higher wages and less work, increased cost of materials and higher rates. Weekly working-class rents generally include rates which are paid by the landlord. Housing reform has contributed to the rise, both directly and through the rates, on which it has thrown a heavy burden in various ways. When slums are cleared away and replaced by superior dwellings the new rents are generally higher than the old and this fact has proved a great difficulty. Most of the improved housing is beyond the means of those who need it most, and they seek other quarters resembling the old ones as nearly as possible. The example of Liverpool, which has the largest proportion of casual and ill-paid labour of all the great towns, and has been the most successful in providing new dwellings of a fair quality, centrally situated and not in blocks, at really low rates, shows that the problem is not insoluble; but as a rule too little attention is paid to the question of rent in housing reform, especially in building undertaken by municipalities. It is not ignored, but the importance attached to it by the poor is not realized. To them it is the first consideration after four walls, a roof and a fire-place; and 6d. a week makes a vast difference in their calculations. Reform which aims at raising the lowest classes of tenants by improving their dwellings defeats itself when it drives them away.
Rents.—Rent is a matter of great importance from every point of view, and that is now being realized. A quantity of official information on the subject has been collected and made available by an elaborate inquiry ordered by the Board of Trade in 1905 and published in 1908 (Cd. 3864). It relates to working class dwellings in the principal industrial towns in the United Kingdom, 94 in all: namely, 77 in England and Wales, 11 in Scotland and 6 in Ireland. The following tables give in a condensed form the chief statistical results obtained in October 1905:—
Predominant Range of Weekly Rents.
Rents are lowest in Ireland and next lowest in English provincial towns, considerably higher in Scotland and highest of all in London, for which further special details are given. It is divided into three zones (1) central, (2) middle, (3) outer, which have the following mean weekly rents:—
London Mean Weekly Rents.
In central London—which extends to Stepney in the East, Lambeth m the South, Islington in the North, and includes Westminster, Holborn, Finsbury, Marylebone, Shoreditch, most of Bethnal Green, Southwark and Bermondsey—the rent of a single room may be as high as 6s. or even 6s. 6d. (Holborn) a week. It is here that overcrowding is greatest, and block-tenements, philanthropic and municipal, most numerous. The rentals of the block dwellings have not been taken into account in the foregoing official statistics; they range as follows: 1 room, 2s. 6d. to 5s.; 2 rooms, 5s. to 8s.; three rooms, 6s. 6d. to 11s. The lowest rent for which a single room can be obtained in this area is 2s. 6d. a week. In no English town are rents nearly so high as in London. If 100 is taken as the index number for rent in London the nearest towns to it (Croydon and Plymouth) only reach 81, and one town on the list (Macclesfield) is as low as 32. The index number of twenty-one towns out of the whole is 50 or under, and these include a number of important industrial centres—Hull, Leicester, Blackburn, Northampton, Warrington, Coventry, Crewe and others. The index numbers of the great towns are: Liverpool 65, Manchester and Salford 62, Birmingham 59, Leeds 56, Sheffield 55, Bristol 53, Bradford 59, Hull 48; that is to say the level of rents in these towns is little more than half that in London. This is one more proof of the untypical character of London, and of the fallacy of generalizing from it to the rest of the country. Even in the overcrowded towns on Tyneside rents do not run to three-fourths of the London level. When the towns are divided into geographical groups the index numbers run thus: London 100, Northern Counties 62, Yorkshire 56, Lancashire and Cheshire 54, Midlands 51, Eastern Counties 50, Southern Counties 61, Wales and Monmouth 60. Rents are always highest in capitals, and Edinburgh complies with the rule; but it is very slightly in advance of Glasgow, and in Scotland generally the range is much smaller than in England. Dublin, on the other hand, is differentiated from the other Irish towns as widely as London from English ones.
A general and progressive rise in rents has been taking place for many years. The following index numbers for the great towns aregiven in the second series of memoranda published by the Board of Trade in 1904 (Cd. 1761):—
Relative Working-Class Rents.
The tendency to rise is attributable to increased cost of labour, due to higher wages and less work, increased cost of materials and higher rates. Weekly working-class rents generally include rates which are paid by the landlord. Housing reform has contributed to the rise, both directly and through the rates, on which it has thrown a heavy burden in various ways. When slums are cleared away and replaced by superior dwellings the new rents are generally higher than the old and this fact has proved a great difficulty. Most of the improved housing is beyond the means of those who need it most, and they seek other quarters resembling the old ones as nearly as possible. The example of Liverpool, which has the largest proportion of casual and ill-paid labour of all the great towns, and has been the most successful in providing new dwellings of a fair quality, centrally situated and not in blocks, at really low rates, shows that the problem is not insoluble; but as a rule too little attention is paid to the question of rent in housing reform, especially in building undertaken by municipalities. It is not ignored, but the importance attached to it by the poor is not realized. To them it is the first consideration after four walls, a roof and a fire-place; and 6d. a week makes a vast difference in their calculations. Reform which aims at raising the lowest classes of tenants by improving their dwellings defeats itself when it drives them away.
Rural Housing.—Little has hitherto been said about rural housing. It is of less importance than urban housing because it concerns a much smaller proportion of the population, and because in rural life the influence of inferior housing on health is offset by other conditions; but it has recently attracted much attention and was made the subject of inquiry by a Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1906. The report laid stress chiefly on the inaction of local rural authorities under the Public Health and Housing Acts, and on various obstacles in the way of improving existing houses and of providing more and better ones at rents which agricultural labourers can afford to pay. The available facts with regard to rural housing are scrappy and unsatisfactory. The word “rural” has no precise meaning and it includes several very different sections of the population; for instance, the inhabitants of suburbs, mining villages and mill villages as well as the real agricultural population. Complaint is made of both the quantity and the quality of rural housing. With regard to quantity it is said that in spite of migration to the towns there is a dearth of cottages through dilapidation and demolition without rebuilding. That may happen in particular localities, but there is no evidence to support a general allegation. Inquiries issued by the Board of Trade to agricultural correspondents brought the following replies: insufficient 56, sufficient 111, more than sufficient 32. Similar inquiries of land agents and owners resulted thus: insufficient 9, sufficient 11, more than sufficient 4, variable 6. From which it appears that insufficiency exists but is not general. The official evidence with regard to overcrowding is that it is much less acute than in the towns. The proportion of the rural population in England living in overcrowded conditions in 1901 was 5.8%; if the rural mining districts, the exceptional overcrowding of which has been noted above, be eliminated, the rest cannot be very bad. Moreover, the percentage has appreciably diminished; in 1891 it was 8.46. The complaint of bad quality is better founded. Some landowners take great pride in the state of their property, and excellent cottages may be found in model villages and elsewhere in many parts of the country; but much rural housing is of an extremely insanitary character. A good deal of evidence on this head has of late years been published In the reports of medical inspectors to the Local Government Board. And local authorities are very reluctant to set the law in motion against insanitary dwellings. On the other hand, they have in some cases hindered and prevented building by too rigid insistence on by-laws, framed with a view to urban housing and quite unsuited to rural conditions. A few rural authorities have taken action with regard to building schemes under Part III. of the Housing Act. A list of 31 in 17 counties is given in “Housing up to Date”; 13 applications were refused and 13 granted by the respective county councils and others were dropped. Details are given by the same authority of 54 houses built by 17 rural district councils. Public action may thus be said to amount to nothing at all. Landowners, however, have borrowed under the Improvements of Lands Acts upwards of £1,250,000 for building labourers’ cottages; and this is probably only a fraction of the amount spent privately.
In Ireland a special condition of affairs exists. A series of about a dozen acts, dating from 1881 and culminating in the Labourers (Ireland) Act of 1906, have been passed for promoting the provision of labourers’ cottages; and under them 20,634 cottages had been built and some thousands more authorized previous to the act of 1906, which extended the pre-existing facilities. The principle is that of the English Housing Acts applied to rural districts, but the procedure is simpler and quicker. The law provides that a representation may be made to the local authority by three ratepayers or resident labourers that “the existing house accommodation for agricultural labourers and their families is deficient having regard to the ordinary requirements of the district, or is unfit for human habitation owing to dilapidation, want of air, light, ventilation or other convenience or to any other sanitary defects,” whereupon the local authority shall make an improvement scheme. It may also initiate a scheme without representation, or the Local Government Board may do so in default of the local authority. The scheme is published, an inquiry held, notice given and an order made with very much less delay and expense than under the English law. Land is purchased by agreement, or compulsorily and the money for land and building raised by loan. Loans amounting to about 3½ millions sterling had been raised down to 1906. The great majority of the cottages built are in Münster and Leinster. They must have at least 2 bedrooms and a kitchen, and the habitable rooms must be 8 ft. high. One of the most remarkable features is the low cost—about £150—at which these cottages have been built, including land and the expenses of procedure.
Recent Developments.—It is clear from a general review of the subject that the problem of housing the working classes in a satisfactory manner has proved more complex than was at one time realized. Experience has falsified hopes and led to a change of attitude. It is seen that there are limits to drastic interference with the normal play of economic forces and to municipal action on a large and ambitious scale. A reaction has set in against it. At the same time the problem is being attacked on other sides and from new points of departure. The tendency now is towards the more effectual application of gradual methods of improvement, the utilization of other means and the exercise of prevention in preference to cure. Under each of these heads certain movements may be noted.
The most troublesome problem is the treatment of existing bad housing. In regard to this the policy of large improvement schemes under which extensive areas are bought up and demolished has had its day, and is not likely to be revived to any considerable extent. That is not only because it is extremely costly but also because it has in the main done its work. It has done what could not have been done otherwise, and has swept away the worst of the old housingen masse. To call it a failure because it is costly and of limited application would be as great a mistake as to regard it as a panacea. The procedure which seems to be coming into favour in place of it is that adopted in Birmingham and advocated by Mr J. S. Nettlefold (Practical Housing) coupled with a more general and effective use of the Public Health Acts. The principle is improvement in detail effected by pressure brought to bear on owners by public authority. The embodiment of this principle forms an important part of the Housing and Town Planning Bill introduced by the Local Government Board in 1908, which contained clauses empowering the central authority to compel apathetic local authorities to do their duty in regard to the closing of unfit houses, and authorizing local authorities both to issue closing orders and to serve notices on landlords requiring them “to execute such works as the local authority may specify as being necessary tomake the house in all respects reasonably fit for human habitation.”
Among the other and less direct means to which attention is being turned is the policy of getting people away from the towns. The effect of improved travelling facilities in reducing urban overcrowding has been noted above. That object was not specifically contemplated in the building and electrification of tramways, and in the development of other means of cheap local travel, but the beneficial effect has caused them to be recognized as an important factor in relation to housing and to be more systematically applied in that connexion. A newer departure, however, is to encourage migration not to the outskirts of towns but altogether into the country by facilitating the acquisition of small holdings of land. This has been done by private landowners in an experimental way for some years, and in 1907 the policy was embodied in the Small Holdings Act, which gives county and borough councils power to purchase or hire land compulsorily and let it in holdings of not more than 50 acres or £50 annual value. Failing action on their part the Board of Agriculture may frame schemes. Power is also conferred on the Board and on County Councils to establish co-operative agricultural societies and credit banks. These measures have been adopted from foreign countries, and particularly from Denmark and Germany. A very large number of applications for holdings have been made under this act, but it is too early to state the effects. They will depend on the success of tenants in earning a livelihood by agricultural produce.
Another new and quite different departure is the attempt to establish a novel kind of town, called a “Garden City,” which shall combine the advantages of the town and the country. The principal points are the choice of a site, which must be sufficiently convenient to enable industries to be carried on, yet with rural surroundings, the laying out of the ground in such a way as to ensure plenty of open space and variety, the insistence on building of a certain standard and the limitation of size. One has been established at Letchworth in Hertfordshire, 34 m. from London, and so far seems to be prospering. It consists of an area of 3800 acres, bought from the previous owners by a company registered in 1903 and entitled First Garden City Ltd., with a capital of £300,000 in £5 shares. The interest is limited to a dividend of 5%, all further profits to be devoted to the benefit of the town. The estate is divided into a central urban area of 1200 and a surrounding agricultural belt of 2600 acres. The town is planned for an eventual population of 30,000 and at present (1909) has about 5000. Some London printing works and other small industrial establishments have been planted there, and a number of model cottages have been built. In this connexion another recent novelty has appeared in the shape of an exhibition of cottages. The idea, originated by Mr St Loe Strachey, was to encourage the art of designing and building cheap but good and convenient cottages, especially for the country. Two exhibitions have been held at Letchworth in 1905 and 1907, and others at Sheffield (1907) and Newcastle (1908). The two latter were held on municipal land, and it is proposed by the National Housing Reform Council to hold one every year.
The “Garden City” has led to the “Garden Suburb,” an adaptation of the same idea to suburban areas. One was opened near Hampstead Heath in 1907: it consists of 240 acres, of which 72 have been reserved for working-class cottages with gardens. These developments, with which may be associated the model industrial villages, mentioned above, at Bournville, Port Sunlight and Earswick, represent an aspiration towards a higher standard of housing for families belonging to the upper ranks of the working classes; and the same movement is demonstrated in a still more interesting fashion by a particular form of co-operative activity known as Co-partnership Housing. The first complete example of this method of organization was the Ealing Tenants Limited, a society registered under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act in 1901, though the Tenant Co-operators Limited, formed in 1888, was a precursor on very nearly the same lines. The essential principle is self-help applied by combination to the provision of superior homes, and the chief material feature is the building of houses which are not only of good design and workmanship, but disposed on a systematic plan so as to utilize the ground to the best advantage. Land is bought and houses are built with combined capital to which each tenant contributes a substantial share; the houses are let at rents which will return 5% on share capital and 4% on loan capital after defraying all expenses, and the surplus profits are divided among the tenant members in proportion to the rents paid by them. Each tenant’s share of profits is credited to him in shares until his share capital equals the value of the house he occupies, after which it is paid in cash. There is thus common ownership of the whole group, which forms a little community. This system has caught on in a remarkable way and has spread with great rapidity. In 1905 a central organizing body was formed called the Co-partnership Housing Council, for the purpose of promoting the formation of societies and assisting them with advice; it is supported by voluntary contributions. In 1909 twelve societies, including the original Tenant Co-operators, had been formed with a total investment of £536,300. They are situated at Ealing, Letchworth, Seven-oaks, Leicester, Manchester, Hampstead (two), Harborne near Birmingham, Fallings Park, Stoke-on-Trent, Wayford and Derwentwater. The rapidity with which the movement has developed and spread since the establishment of the Co-partnership Housing Council indicates great vitality, and since it is based on thoroughly sound lines it has probably a large future. It is the most interesting and in many respects the best of all recent developments. The Report of the Select Committee on Rural Housing mentioned above suggested that a Co-partnership Housing Society should be formed in every county in England.
All the enterprises just described have one feature in common, namely, the laying out of sites on a plan which takes cognizance of the future, secures a due proportion of open space, variety in the arrangement of streets and the most advantageous disposition of the houses and other buildings. They go beyond sanitary requirements and take account of higher needs. They have lent force to the advocacy of municipal “town-planning,” as practised by several towns in Germany; and provision was made for this procedure in the Housing and Town Planning Act of 1909. The act contains clauses giving local authorities power to prepare plans with reference to any land which appears likely to be used for building purposes within or near their own boundaries; and also to purchase land comprised in a town-planning scheme and either build on it themselves or let plots for building in accordance with the plan. The chief object is to safeguard the future, prevent the repetition of past defects and encourage a higher standard of housing.
These new developments represent an upward movement at the higher end of the scale. They cater for the superior ranks of working classes, those who attach some importance to the aesthetic and moral influence of pleasant and wholesome surroundings, and are willing to sacrifice immediate gratifications to a higher end. They embody an aspiration, set an example and exercise an educative influence. But they have nothing to do with the housing of the really poor, which is the great difficulty; and their very attractiveness seems in some danger of drawing attention from it. Garden cities and suburbs will never house the poor or even the bulk of our working class population, and it would be a pity if the somewhat sentimental popularity of romantic schemes led to a distaste for the plodding effort which alone can effect a real cure of deep-seated social evils of long standing. All the new schemes and legislative proposals leave untouched the greatest difficulty of all, which lies not in the dwelling but in the tenant. It is comparatively easy to afford better opportunities to those who are willing to take advantage of them, but how to raise those who are not? The lesson taught by Miss Octavia Hill’s classical experiment is, if not forgotten, certainly neglected in the presence of more showy efforts. Or perhaps it would be more true to say that half of it is neglected. Miss Hill was one of the pioneers in the comparatively modestmethod of improving and reconstructing bad houses, which, as we have noted, is now being more generally recognized and pursued; but that was only half her work. She improved bad dwellings and made them decent, but she also managed them on business lines, by a system of inspection and rent collection which combined a judicious discipline with the stimulus of reward. This was done by means of personal service, which is the secret of all really effective work among the poor. Her words written years ago remain true to-day: “The people’s homes are bad partly because they are badly built and arranged; they are tenfold worse because the tenants’ habits and lives are what they are. Transplant them to-morrow to healthy and commodious homes and they will pollute and destroy them.”
The following is a list of the principal associations formed for the promotion of housing reform: Mansion House Council on the Dwellings of the Poor, Rural Housing and Sanitation Association, Workmen’s National Housing Council, National Housing Reform Council, Co-partnership Tenants Housing Council. They are all of recent date, except the first. There are also local associations at Liverpool, Oldham, Rochdale, York, Plymouth, and elsewhere.
The following is a list of the principal associations formed for the promotion of housing reform: Mansion House Council on the Dwellings of the Poor, Rural Housing and Sanitation Association, Workmen’s National Housing Council, National Housing Reform Council, Co-partnership Tenants Housing Council. They are all of recent date, except the first. There are also local associations at Liverpool, Oldham, Rochdale, York, Plymouth, and elsewhere.
Other Countries
At the International Housing Congress organized by the National Housing Reform Council and held in London in 1907 representatives were present from a number of foreign countries and a good deal of information was collected and published in the report of the Congress. Further detailed data have been supplied by foreign correspondents to Mr W. Thompson and published inHousing up to Date. The more important facts relating to the principal industrial countries are here condensed from this and other sources of information.
Austria.—An act for encouraging the building of cheap working-class dwellings was passed in 1902; it provides for exemption from taxes for 24 years of working-class dwellings which fulfil certain conditions including sanitary requirements, a minimum area per room, minimum height, minimum door and window spaces, thickness of walls, a maximum number of inhabitants (one to 4 sq. metres in sleeping rooms), prohibition of lodgers, fixed rent and maximum profit. The municipalities are the authority for administering sanitary and housing laws; they have no power of compulsory purchase of land without a special law. There is excessive overcrowding in the large towns; in Vienna (1900) 43% of the population live in dwellings of 1 room or 1 room and a kitchen; in 60 provincial towns the proportion is 63%. Overcrowding is reckoned at more than 5 persons to a room and more than 9 to two rooms; the proportion of overcrowded on this basis is nearly one-fifth in Vienna and one-fourth in the provincial towns (Thompson).Belgium.—An act was passed in 1889 institutingComités de Patronage; since then other Acts relating to loan societies, and to inheritance and succession in the case of small properties. Comités de Patronage are semi-official bodies, but without legal power, whose function it is to study the subject of housing, to report to local authorities on existing conditions, to advise, to collect funds and promote the provision of good houses by any means in their power. They influence public opinion and stimulate the activity of local authorities which have the power to compel improvements and close dwellings unfit for habitation; they have led to the formation of numerous societies for erecting working-class dwellings. The latter are encouraged by the law in various ways; they are exempt from the payment of some government duties and partly exempt from others. Working men buying or building houses liable to registration fees up to from 72 to 171 francs are exempted from personal, provincial and communal taxes. The National Savings Bank of Belgium is empowered to lend money to working men for buying or building houses and to insure the lives of those doing so, to preserve the home for the family. In 1904 the number of workmen’s homes exempted from taxation was 164,387, and the amount of taxation remitted considerably exceeded 3 million francs; workmen had acquired lands and houses valued at nearly £4,000,000; there were 161 societies for building working-class dwellings; 30,000 workmen representing a population of 150,000 had become owners of property; and 70,000 representing a population of 350,000 had availed themselves of the law in obtaining exemptions and loans (O. Velghe). The foregoing results effected in 15 years are remarkable and indicate a great capacity for self-help on the part of Belgian workmen with suitable and well-considered assistance. But this movement, in common with those of a similar character in other countries, does not touch the problem of housing the very poor. No statistics of overcrowding are available, but the average number of persons to a dwelling is over 5 for the whole country and nearly 9 in Brussels. The communal administrations are the authorities for health and housing; they have power to abate nuisances but not to compel landowners to sell land for building, though they have the right to dispossession for “public purposes.” No town has constructed quarters devoted entirely to working-class dwellings and only one commune (St Giles) has built any. In towns the height of buildings is regulated by the width of streets; generally it is the width plus 6 metres. The height of rooms and thickness of walls are prescribed by local regulations but not the area of rooms. The housing difficulty has been lessened in a notable degree by cheap transport facilities, including railroads, light railroads and tramways; a large proportion of the workpeople travel long distances to and from work. One-quarter travel on the State railways alone; fares are 1s. 6d. a week for a daily double journey of 20 m., 2s. for 44 m. and 2s. 6d. for 66 m. The area of the labour market of Liége extends nearly to Ostend and out of 5830 workmen travelling over 1000 live more than 50 kilometres from Liége. Some journeys last 3 hours.France.—The question of housing was publicly raised in France quite as early as in England on grounds of public health in connexion with the first visitation of cholera, and building societies were formed as early as 1851, but little was done until after 1889, when theSociété Française des Habitations à Bon Marchéwas founded under the inspiration of M. Siegfried. This led to the formation of several societies, which increased rapidly after the passage ofla loi Siegfriedin 1894, for promoting the provision of working-class dwellings. In 1902 a Public Health Act and in 1906 a Housing of the Working Classes Act were passed, and these three enactments with regulations made in 1907 govern the procedure. The act of 1906 embodies the Belgian system of Comités de Patronage, of which at least one was to be established in each department with grants in aid, and exemptions from certain taxes of working-class dwellings fulfilling specified conditions as to sanitation and rent. The law promotes the formation of Housing Societies by granting various facilities for the investment of money in building by public bodies and benevolent institutions by taking shares or by loans. Down to the end of 1906 there had been lent for this purpose £233,000 by savings banks, £258,000 by the Caisse des Dépôts, and £14,000 by charitable institutions. The law does not authorize municipalities to build houses and none of the communes have acquired land for this purpose. Under the Public Health Act of 1902 towns can purchase land compulsorily in connexion with unhealthy areas. The Public Health and Housing Acts are administered by the local authority, which makes regulations for building and for laying out building land. A minimum height of 2.6 metres and a minimum cubical content of 25 cubic metres are prescribed for rooms; there are no regulations for thickness of walls. Housing societies are under the Ministry of Works and a Superior Housing Council, which is a central advisory body. These societies are now numerous; there are 46 in Paris alone, but their operations are not on a large scale. One of them deserves special notice on account of its special object. It is called theSociété de logements pour familles nombreusesand it builds special flats calledmaisons des enfantswhich are let at low rents only to persons with large families. In 1907 it had housed 168 families, averaging 6.8 persons, in two blocks at Belleville and Montmartre. The great defect in France is the large quantity of old, bad, insanitary housing. Real slums exist in all the old towns and in some of them, such as Marseilles and Lyons, on an extensive scale. Very little has hitherto been done to grapple with this difficulty. The standard of sanitation is altogether lower in France than in England, as is shown by the death-rates, and this holds good of the housing. But conditions vary widely in different parts of the country. They are better, generally speaking, in the industrial towns of the north, which are largely Flemish and distinguished by the prevalence of small houses after the English fashion, than in the central or southern districts where tall old tenement houses of six and seven storeys abound. There are no statistics and no standard of overcrowding; but the careful inquiry carried out by the Board of Trade and published in 1909 shows the extraordinary prevalence of tenements consisting of 1, 2 or 3 rooms. In 16 towns for which information was obtained the average proportion of dwellings containing less than 4 rooms was 75% of the whole; in some it was as high as 89% and in none lower than 61%. In 8 towns, including Paris, the number of one-roomed dwellings was more than a quarter of the whole, and in two towns (Brest and Fougères) it was more than half. Some corresponding statistics for English and German towns are given below in the section on Germany. According to the same report, the general accuracy of which has been confirmed by personal inquiries, made in 1909 by the writer in a number of towns, rents are decidedly lower in France. If the London level be taken as 100 that of Paris is only 78 and the other French towns are considerably lower, 21 out of 29 being less than half the London standard. A general comparison between a number of English and French towns shows the average level of French rents to be less than three-fourths of English ones. A noticeable feature of housing in France is the large number of dwellings built by employers in recent years. The mining companies, particularly in the Pas de Calais, have built whole groups of villages; the railway companies and various manufacturers have also done a great deal, chiefly in rural areas. Among the manufacturers MM. Schneider at Le Creusot and the textile mill-owners in the Vosges are noticeable. The houses provided are of a charming type, white with red roofs; the rooms are of good size, the rents low, and a large garden is usually attached to every house.Germany.—In no country is the problem of housing more acutethan in Germany, where the increase of population, the growth of manufacturing industry and the urbanization of the people have proceeded at an exceptionally rapid pace in recent years and have combined with increasing wealth and a rising standard of living to force the question into prominence. Up to 1909 no uniform legislation for the empire had been framed and no central authority existed for dealing with housing; but the several states have their own public health and housing laws, and great activity has been developed in various directions. The most general difficulty is deficiency of quantity consequent on the rapid change in the distribution of the population. The proportion of the whole population living in the great towns increased from 7.2% to 16.2%, or more than doubled between 1890 and 1900; in England it only increased by about one-tenth. Slums are a much less conspicuous feature than in England because of the comparatively recent development of German towns, but where old quarters exist on a large scale, as in Hamburg, the conditions are quite as bad as anything in English towns, and call for similar measures. Public sanitation in Germany is still as a whole less advanced than in England; but in some cases it is superior and in general it is coming up rapidly; the administration of sanitary laws, as of others, is more effective and uniform, and less subject to evasion. This also contributes to the comparative absence of slums. And there is a third factor which has perhaps the greatest influence of all, and that is the superior manner in which German homes are kept. But the pressure of inadequate quantity is urgent; it has caused high rents, overcrowding, and the development of large barrack or block dwellings which are becoming the prevailing type. At the same time it has led to many and varied efforts to meet the difficulty. Isolated attempts go back to an early date. For instance a building society was formed in Berlin in 1849, Alfred Krupp began to build his “colonies” at Essen in 1863, Barmen started a society in 1871 and there were other cases; but general attention seems first to have been drawn to the subject by the reforming efforts of Pastor Bodelschwingh at Bielefeld about 1884 in connexion with hisArbeiterheim. In short housing reform in Germany is really a matter of the last 20 years. The first efficient by-laws for regulating building in Berlin were not adopted till 1887; the previous regulations dating from 1853 permitted many abuses and under them a great deal of bad housing was constructed, especially after the establishment of the empire and the beginning of the great development of the capital.The worst feature is the general prevalence of dwellings containing a very small number of rooms—from 1 to 3—and consequent overcrowding. The following figures are extracted from the Report to the Board of Trade on Rents, Housing, &c., in Germany (1908, Cd. 4032). They indicate the proportion of dwellings containing 1, 2 or 3 rooms, or (in a few cases) the proportion of the population living in such dwellings. The towns are those for which the information is given. They are not selected as particularly bad specimens but as representative, and they include most of the capitals and chief industrial centres. The figures relate to the year 1900, except in a few cases, in which they are taken from a municipal house census in 1905.Percentage of Dwellings or Population living in Dwellings containingTown.1 Room.2 Rooms.3 Rooms.Total under4 Rooms.Berlin8.037.230.675.8Aachen13.732.021.967.6Barmen (pop.)1.524.328.854.6Bremen3.8(?)26.826.156.7(?)Breslau (pop.)3.946.024.474.3Chemnitz (pop.)1.734.829.966.4Dantzig3.345.029.978.2Dortmund4.745.530.080.2Dresden0.83.527.832.1Düsseldorf5.026.422.754.1Elberfeld8.4(?)36.921.767.0(?)Essen2.935.430.068.3Hamburg1.03.924.729.6Königshütte (pop.)10.060.416.887.2Leipzig (pop.)0.41.714.516.6Mannheim3.122.140.465.6Munich (pop.)4.624.128.457.1Plauen (pop.)1.314.221.836.3The figures must be read with a certain amount of caution, as they are not in every case compiled on a precisely uniform method with regard to inclusion of kitchens and attics. For this reason the position of Bremen and Elberfeld is probably more unfavourable than it ought to be. But broadly the table shows that in most of the large towns in Germany more than half, and in some cases more than three-quarters of the dwellings have less than 4 rooms. Leipzig is the most striking exception. If working-class quarters alone are taken it is found that dwellings of more than 3 rooms are so few as to be negligible. In Stuttgart, where housing is very dear, the percentages for working-class quarters are—1 room 21.0, 2 rooms 51.8, 3 rooms 26.9; total under 4 rooms 98.7. Königshütte, the chief coal and iron centre in Silesia and a purely working-class town, shows the same state of things; 60% of the whole population live in dwellings of 2 rooms and 87% in less than four. It is interesting to compare English towns. The proportion of dwellings containing less than 4 rooms in London was (1901) 52.2%, in Berlin 75.8%; the proportion of the population living in such dwellings was—London 38.7%, Berlin 71.5%. Not only is the proportion of small dwellings very much higher in Berlin but the proportion of the population living in them shows a far greater discrepancy. This indicates a much higher degree of overcrowding. The only point in which Berlin has the advantage is the smaller number of single-room dwellings. The proportions are London 14.7%, Berlin 8.0%. But it is to be observed that overcrowding is not so common in 1-room dwellings, which are often occupied by a single person, as in those with 2 or 3 rooms, which are occupied by families, though probably the most extreme cases of overcrowding occur in particular 1-room dwellings. In the English county boroughs the proportion of dwellings with less than 4 rooms was 24.0%, in other urban districts 17.4, and in all urban areas including London 26.4%. When all allowance is made for minor errors and discrepancies it may be broadly concluded that the proportion of small dwellings containing less than 4 rooms is at least twice as great in German as in English towns, and that the conditions as to accommodation which in England prevail only in London are general in urban Germany. As a set-off German rooms are generally larger than English ones and in block dwellings there is often a little ante-room or landing which does not count but really increases the space.The German census does not take cognisance of overcrowding and there is no general official standard; but some towns have adopted a standard of their own, namely, six or more persons to 1 room and ten or more to 2 rooms. In Breslau, which is one of the worst towns, 17.5% of the population (53,000) of the “city” or inner ring were overcrowded on this basis in 1900. In Barmen, which is not one of the worst, 20% of the 2-roomed and 17% of the 3-roomed dwellings (together housing more than half the population) were overcrowded according to the English standard. Overcrowding and other bad conditions are worst in the basement or cellar dwellings, of which some towns have a very large number. In Breslau 15,000 persons were living in 3853 such dwellings in 1900; in Berlin 91,426 persons were living in 24,088 basements. Some of these are free from objection, but 11,147, housing 38,663 persons, were situated in back buildings and unfit for habitation on account of darkness, damp, dilapidation and the like. “Back” houses are a feature of old towns; they are houses which do not give on the street but lie behind and are approached by a passage; they are what we call courts and quite as insanitary as anything of the kind in English towns.With regard to rents the Board of Trade (London) Report gives the following figures for Berlin and a number of other towns:—No. of Roomsper Dwelling.Predominant Range of Weekly Rents.Berlin.Other Towns.2 rooms5/- to 6/-2/8 to 3/63 rooms7/- to 9/33/6 to 4/94 rooms..4/3 to 6/-Rents are higher in Berlin than in any other town, though Stuttgart comes very near it. The following table of index numbers shows the relations of 32 towns to Berlin:—Town.IndexNumber.Town.IndexNumber.Berlin100Nuremberg53Stuttgart97Aachen53Düsseldorf79Crefeld52Dortmund68Bremen52Anchaffenburg67Plauen52Hamburg66Leipzig51Mannheim64Dantzig49Königsberg62Mülhausen48Munich63Königshütte47Essen62Stettin46Solingen61Magdeburg43Bochum57Chemnitz40Elberfeld57Zwickau38Barmen57Brunswick37Remscheid56Stassfurt33Breslau56Oschersleben28Dresden54Comparing rents in Germany and England, the Board of Trade Report gives the following table, to which the corresponding ratio of French towns has been added.No. of rooms.Predominant Weekly Rents.Ratio ofGerman toEnglish (100)Ratio ofFrench toEnglish (100)England.Germany.2 rooms3/- to 3/62/8 to 3/695793 rooms3/9 to 4/63/6 to 4/9100864 rooms4/6 to 5/64/3 to 6/-10278If the mean of the English and German figures be taken it shows a very slight difference in favour of Germany; the mean weekly rent per room being 1s. 5d. in England and 1s. 4¾d. in Germany. But in England rent usually includes local taxation (rates) whereas in Germany it does not; if this be added German rents are to English as 123 to 100, or nearly one-fourth more.The statistics given above indicate a wide range of variation in the conditions prevailing in different towns in Germany; and that holds good with regard to improvements. The administration of the laws relating to public health and housing is in the hands of the local authorities. The public health service is generally efficient and sometimes very good. Increasing attention has been paid in recent years to the sanitary inspection of houses and in some towns it is now thorough and systematic, but active efforts to deal with old and insanitary quartersen masseare isolated and exceptional. Hamburg is an instance; scared by the visitation of cholera in 1892 the authorities put in hand an extensive improvement scheme on the English plan at a cost of half a million sterling. But demolition is exceptional; slums are usually subjected to supervision and are not allowed to be in a state of dilapidation, and sometimes, as at Mannheim, notices are served to abate overcrowding. In Munich a policy of gradually buying up insanitary houses has been adopted. But improvement has principally been promoted by new building and the reduction of the population in old insanitary quarters, to which cheap locomotive facilities have greatly contributed. The great bulk of urban Germany is new, and the most valuable contribution made by it to the housing question is the more effective control of new building and particularly the principle of town-planning, coupled with the purchase of neighbouring ground with a view to future extension. This policy is comparatively recent and still very partially applied, but it is now rapidly extending. A general act providing for the planning of streets was passed in Prussia in 1875 and still forms the basis of building legislation; but as noted above no effective by-laws were adopted even in Berlin until after 1887, and consequently a very faulty style of building was adopted, especially in large blocks which conceal grave defects behind an imposing exterior. The Saxon towns have been conspicuously successful in regard to housing. Leipzig stands alone among German towns in having 83.4% of its population living in dwellings of 4 rooms and upwards. Yet it is a great commercial city, the fifth in the empire, with a population of upwards of half a million. It also comes low on the rent table, having an index number little more than half that of Berlin. All the Saxon towns are low, Chemnitz and Zwickau particularly so, and the position of Dresden, being a capital, is remarkable. More than two-thirds of the population live in dwellings of 4 rooms or more, and the rent index number is only 54. In Saxony a general Building Act, especially providing for town planning, was passed in 1900; and the Grand Duchy of Hesse, which alone among the German states has a government Housing Department, adopted a Housing of the Working Classes Act in 1902. Other states have followed or are following and the air is full of movement. The distinctive features of urban housing reform in Germany are (1) the systematic planning of extensions, (2) purchase of ground by municipalities, (3) letting or sale of municipal land for building under prescribed conditions. Many of the great towns, including Berlin, Munich, Dresden, Leipzig, Cologne, Frankfort and Düsseldorf, are owners of land to a variable but sometimes large extent. This policy seems to have been originally adopted on economic grounds and those municipalities which bought or otherwise came into possession of town land at an early date derive a substantial revenue from it now, besides being in a position to promote housing improvement. There is comparatively little municipal building, and that as a rule only or principally for municipal servants, as at Düsseldorf, Mannheim and Nuremberg; but there seems to be a tendency to venture further in this direction and some towns have built houses for letting. The municipalities generally sell or let their land, and the building agencies which enjoy most official favour are the societies “of public utility”; they are encouraged in every way and have greatly developed, particularly in the Rhine province. Some are co-operative, others semi-philanthropic in that they aim at building good houses and limit their profits. In 1901 the Prussian Government issued an order urging municipalities to support these societies by remitting the cost of constructing streets and sewers, placing the assistance of building officials at their disposal, taking their shares, lending them money and becoming security for them. A great deal of public money has been advanced to building societies, and one very important source of supply has been developed, since the Old Age and Infirmity Insurance Act of 1889, in the National Insurance Funds which invest their surplus capital in this way. Down to 1906 the Boards of insurance had lent £8,650,000 to societies for building; the Imperial Government had lent £1,250,000, the Prussian Government £1,825,000, and the other states further large sums in addition to the municipalities. Money lent by the state is usually limited to building houses for state employees and Insurance Boards lend on condition that the houses are let to persons who come under the insurance laws. The development of building societies has been promoted by the formation of general building associations of which the earliest was established in Düsseldorf in 1897 for the Rhine provinces; under its influence one-fifth of the new housing provided in 1901 was erected by the societies. The example was followed at Frankfort, Münster and Wiesbaden. Housing by employers has also been carried out on a large scale in Germany. States and municipalities have to some extent built houses as employers, the former chiefly for railwaymen, besides lending money to societies for the purpose; but most housing of this kind has been done by private employers. Krupps, who had built 4274 dwellings housing nearly 27,000 persons down to 1901, are the most famous example; but they are only one among many. In Rhineland and Westphalia employers had in 1902 provided 22,269 houses containing 62,539 dwellings at a cost of £10,500,000; more than half the families so housed belonged to the mining industry, the rest to various manufactures. These two provinces, in which industrial development has been extremely rapid, are exceptional; but housing by employers is not confined to them. At Mannheim for instance over 1000 working-class households have been so provided. At Nuremberg the Siemens Schuckert Company have encouraged an interesting system of collective building among their employees, by which 722 dwellings have been provided.Holland.—In 1901 a Public Health and a Housing Act were passed, and these two embody most of the features of housing reform adopted in other countries. The first provides for a general sanitary service under the Ministry of the Interior. The second ordains that local authorities shall frame by-laws for building and for the maintenance and proper use of dwellings; that they shall inspect existing dwellings, order improvements or repairs or demolition; empowers them to take land compulsorily for the purposes of the act, to prohibit building or rebuilding on sites reserved for public purposes and to make grants or loans to societies or companies operating exclusively for the improvement of working-class dwellings. If they fail to make by-laws the provincial authorities may take action. Land buying with a view to extensions has been adopted by a number of municipalities including Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and other important towns, and the practice is increasing. Amsterdam has also begun the systematic planning of extensions. There has been a little municipal building in some small places, but it is on an insignificant scale; the tendency is rather to favour societies of public utility as in France, Germany and Belgium. The new laws are too recent to have had much effect and housing reform is as yet in an early stage. Rents are high in the large towns, namely, 1 room 1s. 8d. to 3s.; 2 rooms 2s. 6d. to 5s.; 3 rooms 3s. 6d. to 6s; 4 rooms 4s. 2d. to 7s.Italy.—A Housing of the Working Classes Act was passed in 1903, to promote the improvement and provision of workmen’s dwellings. Municipalities have the power to purchase land compulsorily for housing purposes and also to build workmen’s dwellings. A few towns, of which Milan is one, have done so. There are building regulations relating to the area and height of rooms and the thickness of walls. The antiquity of the Italian towns and the great quantity of old and insanitary building make housing improvement a very difficult matter.La Società Umanitaria, a benevolent trust founded by Prosper Loria of Milan in 1902, has taken up this subject among others and has built two model tenements, housing 2000 persons.United States.—Interest in the housing question in the United States is confined to a few of the largest cities and can only be said to be acute in New York, though there have been investigations by commissions elsewhere and Miss Octavia Hill’s work in London has found admirers and imitators in Philadelphia and Boston as well as in New York. The evils of housing in New York have been the subject of much sensational writing which has elevated them to the position of a world-wide scandal. It is not necessary to accept all the allegations made in order to see that several circumstances have combined to produce an exceptional state of things in this great city. The limited space—the island or peninsula of Manhattan—in which central New York is built has compelled the erection of large tenement blocks, otherwise rare in American towns; the incessant inrush of immigrants from the poorest parts of Europe has filled these tenements with immense numbers of persons of many nationalities accustomed to a low standard of living; the generally backward state of public sanitation in America, and the absence or evasion of regulations and supervision, have permitted the erection of bad dwellings, their deterioration into worse, and their misuse by excessive overcrowding. Other large cities in which bad housing conditions are known to exist are Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Pittsburg, Jersey City. There are doubtless many others, but bad housing conditions are not so general in the United States as in Europe. Outside the very large cities there is more space, more light and air, less crowding together, less darkness, dirt and dilapidation. Large houses, occupied by two or perhaps threefamilies, are common, but they have more room space than is usual in Europe. The 18th annual report (1903) of the Commissioner of Labour gives the result of a special inquiry embracing 23,447 families distributed in 33 states. The average number of rooms was 4.95 per family and 1.04 per individual. It is a fair inference that overcrowding is confined to a comparatively small number of exceptional places. A large number of the schedules were furnished by the eminently urbanized and manufacturing states of New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Ohio and Illinois; and in all these the average number of rooms to a family exceeded 4, ranging from 4.2 in Ohio to 5.5 in Massachusetts. The condition of homes as to sanitation and cleanliness was statistically stated thus: Sanitary condition—good 61.46%, fair 32,59%, bad 5.95%; Cleanliness—good 79.63%, fair 14.66 bad 5.71%. Other special inquiries have been carried out in particular towns. In 1891-1892 the tenements in Boston were investigated for the Massachusetts Labour Bureau, which found 3657 sleeping rooms without outside windows and about 8% of the population living in conditions objectionable from one cause or another. In 1892 Congress authorized a special inquiry into the slum population of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Baltimore, the results of which were published in the seventh special report (1894) of the United States Commissioner of Labour. It was estimated that the total “slum population” (presumably those living in unhealthy conditions) was—New York 360,000, Chicago 162,000, Philadelphia 35,000, Baltimore 25,000. In Baltimore 530 families, consisting of 1648 persons, were living in single rooms with an average of 3.15 persons to a room; in Philadelphia 401 families were so living with an average of 3.11 persons to a room. The proportion of 1-room dwellings was less in New York and Chicago. In New York 44.55% or nearly half the families investigated were found living in 2-roomed dwellings, in Baltimore 27.88%, in Philadelphia 19.41% and in Chicago 19.14%. These figures conclusively prove that European conditions reproduce themselves in American cities. Poverty was not the cause, as the average earnings per family ranged from £3, 4s. a week in Baltimore to £4, 6s. a week in Chicago. Another official investigation in New York was carried out in 1895 by the Tenement House Commission appointed by the State of New York. It reported “many houses in the city in an insanitary condition which absolutely unfits them for habitation.” Further details have been compiled from the census by the New York Federation of Churches, chiefly relating to density of population in the city. In 1900, out of a total of nearly 250,000 dwellings, 95,433 (38.2%) contained from 2 to 6 persons, 60,672 (24.2%) from 7 to 10 persons and 89,654 (35.9%) 11 persons or more. The density of population for the whole city as now constituted was 19 persons to the acre, in Manhattan 149; in the south-eastern district of Manhattan 382 and in one ward 735. Between 1900 and 1905 the density increased in every district, and in the latter year there were 12 blocks with from 1000 to 1400 persons to the acre. The number of persons to the acre in London (1901) is 60.6; in the most densely populated borough 182, and in the most densely populated district (a very small one) 396. This will give a measure of comparison. The large tenement blocks in New York have been constructed with far less regard to health than those in Berlin, and reproduce in an aggravated form the same evil of insufficient light and air. In place of the inadequate courts round which many are built in Berlin, the New York tenements have merely narrow air shafts. In 1904 there were reported to be 362,000 dark interior rooms, that is with no outside windows.If American cities have nothing to learn from other countries in regard to bad housing, they have nothing to teach in the way of reform. They are following Europe slowly and a long distance behind. There is no serious attempt to deal with insanitary areas as they have been dealt with in England, or to prevent the creation of new ones by regulation and planning of extensions as in Germany, or to promote the provision of superior houses by organized public effort as in several countries. A little has been done in New York to improve the worst housing. A Tenement House Act was passed after the report of the Commission of 1895 and a Department formed to give effect to it. Some cleansing and repairing and insertion of windows is carried out every year, but more attention seems to be paid to fire escapes. Societies for providing improved dwellings exist in New York, Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia. The oldest is one formed in Boston in 1871, called the Co-operative Building Company; it was followed in 1876 by an Improved Dwellings Company in Brooklyn, and in 1879 by a similar society in Manhattan, and in 1885 by another in Boston. The largest concern of the kind is the City and Suburban Houses Company in New York, formed in 1896 under the guidance of Dr E. R. L. Gould; it has built four groups of tenements housing 1238 families in the city and 112 houses on a suburban estate at Brooklyn; in all it has housed some 6000 persons. More recently Mr Henry Phipps has given £200,000 for the provision of model dwellings in New York, and a building has been erected on the plan of the Maison des Enfants in Paris. In Chicago the City Houses Association works at housing reforms in various ways. There are some other institutions of a like kind, but the aggregate results are inconsiderable. Two other building agencies have done far more in the United States than philanthropic societies; these are the building and loan associations and private employers. The former are co-operative provident societies; they are widely diffused throughout the United States and their operations are on a very large scale. They date from 1831, when the Oxford Provident Building Association was formed at Frankfort, near Philadelphia. Pennsylvania has still the largest number of associations, but from 1843 onwards the movement spread rapidly and continuously in other states. The high-water mark appears to have been reached in 1897, when the total assets of the associations amounted to about £133,000,000. In 1905 there were 5326 associations with an aggregate membership of 1,686,611 and assets of about £130,000,000. The states of Pennsylvania and Ohio head the list, but the movement is very strong in many others. It accounts for the comparatively large number of houses owned by working-class families in the United States. With regard to housing by employers, no comprehensive information is available, but the total amount is certainly considerable though probably not so large as in Germany or in France. Some of the better-known instances are the Pelzer Manufacturing Company at Pelzer in South Carolina, which has built about 1000 dwellings; the Maryland Steel Company at Sparrows Point, Maryland, 800 dwellings; Ludlow Manufacturing Associates at Ludlow, Mass., 500 dwellings; Whitin Machine Works at Whitinsville, Mass., 600 dwellings; Westinghouse Air Brake Co. at Wilmerding, Penn., 360 dwellings; Draper Co., Hopedale, Mass., 250 dwellings. These are all more or less “model” settlements, not in cities, but in outlying or country places, where works have been established, and that is generally true of housing by employers in the United States, whereas in Germany much has been provided by them in the large towns. Rents are very much higher in American cities than in European towns of comparable size and character.Authorities.—Board of TradeReports—“Cost of Living of the Working Classes (England)” (1908); “Cost of Living in German Towns” (1908); “Cost of Living in French Towns” (1909).Proceedings of International Housing Congress(London, 1907);The New Encyclopaedia of Social Reform; E. R. Dewsnup,The Housing Problem in England; T. C. Horsfall,The Example of Germany; J. S. Nettlefold,Practical Housing Reform; A. Shadwell,Industrial Efficiency, ch. xi. on “Housing”; W. Thompson,The Housing Handbook, Housing up to Date.
Austria.—An act for encouraging the building of cheap working-class dwellings was passed in 1902; it provides for exemption from taxes for 24 years of working-class dwellings which fulfil certain conditions including sanitary requirements, a minimum area per room, minimum height, minimum door and window spaces, thickness of walls, a maximum number of inhabitants (one to 4 sq. metres in sleeping rooms), prohibition of lodgers, fixed rent and maximum profit. The municipalities are the authority for administering sanitary and housing laws; they have no power of compulsory purchase of land without a special law. There is excessive overcrowding in the large towns; in Vienna (1900) 43% of the population live in dwellings of 1 room or 1 room and a kitchen; in 60 provincial towns the proportion is 63%. Overcrowding is reckoned at more than 5 persons to a room and more than 9 to two rooms; the proportion of overcrowded on this basis is nearly one-fifth in Vienna and one-fourth in the provincial towns (Thompson).
Belgium.—An act was passed in 1889 institutingComités de Patronage; since then other Acts relating to loan societies, and to inheritance and succession in the case of small properties. Comités de Patronage are semi-official bodies, but without legal power, whose function it is to study the subject of housing, to report to local authorities on existing conditions, to advise, to collect funds and promote the provision of good houses by any means in their power. They influence public opinion and stimulate the activity of local authorities which have the power to compel improvements and close dwellings unfit for habitation; they have led to the formation of numerous societies for erecting working-class dwellings. The latter are encouraged by the law in various ways; they are exempt from the payment of some government duties and partly exempt from others. Working men buying or building houses liable to registration fees up to from 72 to 171 francs are exempted from personal, provincial and communal taxes. The National Savings Bank of Belgium is empowered to lend money to working men for buying or building houses and to insure the lives of those doing so, to preserve the home for the family. In 1904 the number of workmen’s homes exempted from taxation was 164,387, and the amount of taxation remitted considerably exceeded 3 million francs; workmen had acquired lands and houses valued at nearly £4,000,000; there were 161 societies for building working-class dwellings; 30,000 workmen representing a population of 150,000 had become owners of property; and 70,000 representing a population of 350,000 had availed themselves of the law in obtaining exemptions and loans (O. Velghe). The foregoing results effected in 15 years are remarkable and indicate a great capacity for self-help on the part of Belgian workmen with suitable and well-considered assistance. But this movement, in common with those of a similar character in other countries, does not touch the problem of housing the very poor. No statistics of overcrowding are available, but the average number of persons to a dwelling is over 5 for the whole country and nearly 9 in Brussels. The communal administrations are the authorities for health and housing; they have power to abate nuisances but not to compel landowners to sell land for building, though they have the right to dispossession for “public purposes.” No town has constructed quarters devoted entirely to working-class dwellings and only one commune (St Giles) has built any. In towns the height of buildings is regulated by the width of streets; generally it is the width plus 6 metres. The height of rooms and thickness of walls are prescribed by local regulations but not the area of rooms. The housing difficulty has been lessened in a notable degree by cheap transport facilities, including railroads, light railroads and tramways; a large proportion of the workpeople travel long distances to and from work. One-quarter travel on the State railways alone; fares are 1s. 6d. a week for a daily double journey of 20 m., 2s. for 44 m. and 2s. 6d. for 66 m. The area of the labour market of Liége extends nearly to Ostend and out of 5830 workmen travelling over 1000 live more than 50 kilometres from Liége. Some journeys last 3 hours.
France.—The question of housing was publicly raised in France quite as early as in England on grounds of public health in connexion with the first visitation of cholera, and building societies were formed as early as 1851, but little was done until after 1889, when theSociété Française des Habitations à Bon Marchéwas founded under the inspiration of M. Siegfried. This led to the formation of several societies, which increased rapidly after the passage ofla loi Siegfriedin 1894, for promoting the provision of working-class dwellings. In 1902 a Public Health Act and in 1906 a Housing of the Working Classes Act were passed, and these three enactments with regulations made in 1907 govern the procedure. The act of 1906 embodies the Belgian system of Comités de Patronage, of which at least one was to be established in each department with grants in aid, and exemptions from certain taxes of working-class dwellings fulfilling specified conditions as to sanitation and rent. The law promotes the formation of Housing Societies by granting various facilities for the investment of money in building by public bodies and benevolent institutions by taking shares or by loans. Down to the end of 1906 there had been lent for this purpose £233,000 by savings banks, £258,000 by the Caisse des Dépôts, and £14,000 by charitable institutions. The law does not authorize municipalities to build houses and none of the communes have acquired land for this purpose. Under the Public Health Act of 1902 towns can purchase land compulsorily in connexion with unhealthy areas. The Public Health and Housing Acts are administered by the local authority, which makes regulations for building and for laying out building land. A minimum height of 2.6 metres and a minimum cubical content of 25 cubic metres are prescribed for rooms; there are no regulations for thickness of walls. Housing societies are under the Ministry of Works and a Superior Housing Council, which is a central advisory body. These societies are now numerous; there are 46 in Paris alone, but their operations are not on a large scale. One of them deserves special notice on account of its special object. It is called theSociété de logements pour familles nombreusesand it builds special flats calledmaisons des enfantswhich are let at low rents only to persons with large families. In 1907 it had housed 168 families, averaging 6.8 persons, in two blocks at Belleville and Montmartre. The great defect in France is the large quantity of old, bad, insanitary housing. Real slums exist in all the old towns and in some of them, such as Marseilles and Lyons, on an extensive scale. Very little has hitherto been done to grapple with this difficulty. The standard of sanitation is altogether lower in France than in England, as is shown by the death-rates, and this holds good of the housing. But conditions vary widely in different parts of the country. They are better, generally speaking, in the industrial towns of the north, which are largely Flemish and distinguished by the prevalence of small houses after the English fashion, than in the central or southern districts where tall old tenement houses of six and seven storeys abound. There are no statistics and no standard of overcrowding; but the careful inquiry carried out by the Board of Trade and published in 1909 shows the extraordinary prevalence of tenements consisting of 1, 2 or 3 rooms. In 16 towns for which information was obtained the average proportion of dwellings containing less than 4 rooms was 75% of the whole; in some it was as high as 89% and in none lower than 61%. In 8 towns, including Paris, the number of one-roomed dwellings was more than a quarter of the whole, and in two towns (Brest and Fougères) it was more than half. Some corresponding statistics for English and German towns are given below in the section on Germany. According to the same report, the general accuracy of which has been confirmed by personal inquiries, made in 1909 by the writer in a number of towns, rents are decidedly lower in France. If the London level be taken as 100 that of Paris is only 78 and the other French towns are considerably lower, 21 out of 29 being less than half the London standard. A general comparison between a number of English and French towns shows the average level of French rents to be less than three-fourths of English ones. A noticeable feature of housing in France is the large number of dwellings built by employers in recent years. The mining companies, particularly in the Pas de Calais, have built whole groups of villages; the railway companies and various manufacturers have also done a great deal, chiefly in rural areas. Among the manufacturers MM. Schneider at Le Creusot and the textile mill-owners in the Vosges are noticeable. The houses provided are of a charming type, white with red roofs; the rooms are of good size, the rents low, and a large garden is usually attached to every house.
Germany.—In no country is the problem of housing more acutethan in Germany, where the increase of population, the growth of manufacturing industry and the urbanization of the people have proceeded at an exceptionally rapid pace in recent years and have combined with increasing wealth and a rising standard of living to force the question into prominence. Up to 1909 no uniform legislation for the empire had been framed and no central authority existed for dealing with housing; but the several states have their own public health and housing laws, and great activity has been developed in various directions. The most general difficulty is deficiency of quantity consequent on the rapid change in the distribution of the population. The proportion of the whole population living in the great towns increased from 7.2% to 16.2%, or more than doubled between 1890 and 1900; in England it only increased by about one-tenth. Slums are a much less conspicuous feature than in England because of the comparatively recent development of German towns, but where old quarters exist on a large scale, as in Hamburg, the conditions are quite as bad as anything in English towns, and call for similar measures. Public sanitation in Germany is still as a whole less advanced than in England; but in some cases it is superior and in general it is coming up rapidly; the administration of sanitary laws, as of others, is more effective and uniform, and less subject to evasion. This also contributes to the comparative absence of slums. And there is a third factor which has perhaps the greatest influence of all, and that is the superior manner in which German homes are kept. But the pressure of inadequate quantity is urgent; it has caused high rents, overcrowding, and the development of large barrack or block dwellings which are becoming the prevailing type. At the same time it has led to many and varied efforts to meet the difficulty. Isolated attempts go back to an early date. For instance a building society was formed in Berlin in 1849, Alfred Krupp began to build his “colonies” at Essen in 1863, Barmen started a society in 1871 and there were other cases; but general attention seems first to have been drawn to the subject by the reforming efforts of Pastor Bodelschwingh at Bielefeld about 1884 in connexion with hisArbeiterheim. In short housing reform in Germany is really a matter of the last 20 years. The first efficient by-laws for regulating building in Berlin were not adopted till 1887; the previous regulations dating from 1853 permitted many abuses and under them a great deal of bad housing was constructed, especially after the establishment of the empire and the beginning of the great development of the capital.
The worst feature is the general prevalence of dwellings containing a very small number of rooms—from 1 to 3—and consequent overcrowding. The following figures are extracted from the Report to the Board of Trade on Rents, Housing, &c., in Germany (1908, Cd. 4032). They indicate the proportion of dwellings containing 1, 2 or 3 rooms, or (in a few cases) the proportion of the population living in such dwellings. The towns are those for which the information is given. They are not selected as particularly bad specimens but as representative, and they include most of the capitals and chief industrial centres. The figures relate to the year 1900, except in a few cases, in which they are taken from a municipal house census in 1905.
Percentage of Dwellings or Population living in Dwellings containing
The figures must be read with a certain amount of caution, as they are not in every case compiled on a precisely uniform method with regard to inclusion of kitchens and attics. For this reason the position of Bremen and Elberfeld is probably more unfavourable than it ought to be. But broadly the table shows that in most of the large towns in Germany more than half, and in some cases more than three-quarters of the dwellings have less than 4 rooms. Leipzig is the most striking exception. If working-class quarters alone are taken it is found that dwellings of more than 3 rooms are so few as to be negligible. In Stuttgart, where housing is very dear, the percentages for working-class quarters are—1 room 21.0, 2 rooms 51.8, 3 rooms 26.9; total under 4 rooms 98.7. Königshütte, the chief coal and iron centre in Silesia and a purely working-class town, shows the same state of things; 60% of the whole population live in dwellings of 2 rooms and 87% in less than four. It is interesting to compare English towns. The proportion of dwellings containing less than 4 rooms in London was (1901) 52.2%, in Berlin 75.8%; the proportion of the population living in such dwellings was—London 38.7%, Berlin 71.5%. Not only is the proportion of small dwellings very much higher in Berlin but the proportion of the population living in them shows a far greater discrepancy. This indicates a much higher degree of overcrowding. The only point in which Berlin has the advantage is the smaller number of single-room dwellings. The proportions are London 14.7%, Berlin 8.0%. But it is to be observed that overcrowding is not so common in 1-room dwellings, which are often occupied by a single person, as in those with 2 or 3 rooms, which are occupied by families, though probably the most extreme cases of overcrowding occur in particular 1-room dwellings. In the English county boroughs the proportion of dwellings with less than 4 rooms was 24.0%, in other urban districts 17.4, and in all urban areas including London 26.4%. When all allowance is made for minor errors and discrepancies it may be broadly concluded that the proportion of small dwellings containing less than 4 rooms is at least twice as great in German as in English towns, and that the conditions as to accommodation which in England prevail only in London are general in urban Germany. As a set-off German rooms are generally larger than English ones and in block dwellings there is often a little ante-room or landing which does not count but really increases the space.
The German census does not take cognisance of overcrowding and there is no general official standard; but some towns have adopted a standard of their own, namely, six or more persons to 1 room and ten or more to 2 rooms. In Breslau, which is one of the worst towns, 17.5% of the population (53,000) of the “city” or inner ring were overcrowded on this basis in 1900. In Barmen, which is not one of the worst, 20% of the 2-roomed and 17% of the 3-roomed dwellings (together housing more than half the population) were overcrowded according to the English standard. Overcrowding and other bad conditions are worst in the basement or cellar dwellings, of which some towns have a very large number. In Breslau 15,000 persons were living in 3853 such dwellings in 1900; in Berlin 91,426 persons were living in 24,088 basements. Some of these are free from objection, but 11,147, housing 38,663 persons, were situated in back buildings and unfit for habitation on account of darkness, damp, dilapidation and the like. “Back” houses are a feature of old towns; they are houses which do not give on the street but lie behind and are approached by a passage; they are what we call courts and quite as insanitary as anything of the kind in English towns.
With regard to rents the Board of Trade (London) Report gives the following figures for Berlin and a number of other towns:—
Rents are higher in Berlin than in any other town, though Stuttgart comes very near it. The following table of index numbers shows the relations of 32 towns to Berlin:—
Comparing rents in Germany and England, the Board of Trade Report gives the following table, to which the corresponding ratio of French towns has been added.
If the mean of the English and German figures be taken it shows a very slight difference in favour of Germany; the mean weekly rent per room being 1s. 5d. in England and 1s. 4¾d. in Germany. But in England rent usually includes local taxation (rates) whereas in Germany it does not; if this be added German rents are to English as 123 to 100, or nearly one-fourth more.
The statistics given above indicate a wide range of variation in the conditions prevailing in different towns in Germany; and that holds good with regard to improvements. The administration of the laws relating to public health and housing is in the hands of the local authorities. The public health service is generally efficient and sometimes very good. Increasing attention has been paid in recent years to the sanitary inspection of houses and in some towns it is now thorough and systematic, but active efforts to deal with old and insanitary quartersen masseare isolated and exceptional. Hamburg is an instance; scared by the visitation of cholera in 1892 the authorities put in hand an extensive improvement scheme on the English plan at a cost of half a million sterling. But demolition is exceptional; slums are usually subjected to supervision and are not allowed to be in a state of dilapidation, and sometimes, as at Mannheim, notices are served to abate overcrowding. In Munich a policy of gradually buying up insanitary houses has been adopted. But improvement has principally been promoted by new building and the reduction of the population in old insanitary quarters, to which cheap locomotive facilities have greatly contributed. The great bulk of urban Germany is new, and the most valuable contribution made by it to the housing question is the more effective control of new building and particularly the principle of town-planning, coupled with the purchase of neighbouring ground with a view to future extension. This policy is comparatively recent and still very partially applied, but it is now rapidly extending. A general act providing for the planning of streets was passed in Prussia in 1875 and still forms the basis of building legislation; but as noted above no effective by-laws were adopted even in Berlin until after 1887, and consequently a very faulty style of building was adopted, especially in large blocks which conceal grave defects behind an imposing exterior. The Saxon towns have been conspicuously successful in regard to housing. Leipzig stands alone among German towns in having 83.4% of its population living in dwellings of 4 rooms and upwards. Yet it is a great commercial city, the fifth in the empire, with a population of upwards of half a million. It also comes low on the rent table, having an index number little more than half that of Berlin. All the Saxon towns are low, Chemnitz and Zwickau particularly so, and the position of Dresden, being a capital, is remarkable. More than two-thirds of the population live in dwellings of 4 rooms or more, and the rent index number is only 54. In Saxony a general Building Act, especially providing for town planning, was passed in 1900; and the Grand Duchy of Hesse, which alone among the German states has a government Housing Department, adopted a Housing of the Working Classes Act in 1902. Other states have followed or are following and the air is full of movement. The distinctive features of urban housing reform in Germany are (1) the systematic planning of extensions, (2) purchase of ground by municipalities, (3) letting or sale of municipal land for building under prescribed conditions. Many of the great towns, including Berlin, Munich, Dresden, Leipzig, Cologne, Frankfort and Düsseldorf, are owners of land to a variable but sometimes large extent. This policy seems to have been originally adopted on economic grounds and those municipalities which bought or otherwise came into possession of town land at an early date derive a substantial revenue from it now, besides being in a position to promote housing improvement. There is comparatively little municipal building, and that as a rule only or principally for municipal servants, as at Düsseldorf, Mannheim and Nuremberg; but there seems to be a tendency to venture further in this direction and some towns have built houses for letting. The municipalities generally sell or let their land, and the building agencies which enjoy most official favour are the societies “of public utility”; they are encouraged in every way and have greatly developed, particularly in the Rhine province. Some are co-operative, others semi-philanthropic in that they aim at building good houses and limit their profits. In 1901 the Prussian Government issued an order urging municipalities to support these societies by remitting the cost of constructing streets and sewers, placing the assistance of building officials at their disposal, taking their shares, lending them money and becoming security for them. A great deal of public money has been advanced to building societies, and one very important source of supply has been developed, since the Old Age and Infirmity Insurance Act of 1889, in the National Insurance Funds which invest their surplus capital in this way. Down to 1906 the Boards of insurance had lent £8,650,000 to societies for building; the Imperial Government had lent £1,250,000, the Prussian Government £1,825,000, and the other states further large sums in addition to the municipalities. Money lent by the state is usually limited to building houses for state employees and Insurance Boards lend on condition that the houses are let to persons who come under the insurance laws. The development of building societies has been promoted by the formation of general building associations of which the earliest was established in Düsseldorf in 1897 for the Rhine provinces; under its influence one-fifth of the new housing provided in 1901 was erected by the societies. The example was followed at Frankfort, Münster and Wiesbaden. Housing by employers has also been carried out on a large scale in Germany. States and municipalities have to some extent built houses as employers, the former chiefly for railwaymen, besides lending money to societies for the purpose; but most housing of this kind has been done by private employers. Krupps, who had built 4274 dwellings housing nearly 27,000 persons down to 1901, are the most famous example; but they are only one among many. In Rhineland and Westphalia employers had in 1902 provided 22,269 houses containing 62,539 dwellings at a cost of £10,500,000; more than half the families so housed belonged to the mining industry, the rest to various manufactures. These two provinces, in which industrial development has been extremely rapid, are exceptional; but housing by employers is not confined to them. At Mannheim for instance over 1000 working-class households have been so provided. At Nuremberg the Siemens Schuckert Company have encouraged an interesting system of collective building among their employees, by which 722 dwellings have been provided.
Holland.—In 1901 a Public Health and a Housing Act were passed, and these two embody most of the features of housing reform adopted in other countries. The first provides for a general sanitary service under the Ministry of the Interior. The second ordains that local authorities shall frame by-laws for building and for the maintenance and proper use of dwellings; that they shall inspect existing dwellings, order improvements or repairs or demolition; empowers them to take land compulsorily for the purposes of the act, to prohibit building or rebuilding on sites reserved for public purposes and to make grants or loans to societies or companies operating exclusively for the improvement of working-class dwellings. If they fail to make by-laws the provincial authorities may take action. Land buying with a view to extensions has been adopted by a number of municipalities including Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and other important towns, and the practice is increasing. Amsterdam has also begun the systematic planning of extensions. There has been a little municipal building in some small places, but it is on an insignificant scale; the tendency is rather to favour societies of public utility as in France, Germany and Belgium. The new laws are too recent to have had much effect and housing reform is as yet in an early stage. Rents are high in the large towns, namely, 1 room 1s. 8d. to 3s.; 2 rooms 2s. 6d. to 5s.; 3 rooms 3s. 6d. to 6s; 4 rooms 4s. 2d. to 7s.
Italy.—A Housing of the Working Classes Act was passed in 1903, to promote the improvement and provision of workmen’s dwellings. Municipalities have the power to purchase land compulsorily for housing purposes and also to build workmen’s dwellings. A few towns, of which Milan is one, have done so. There are building regulations relating to the area and height of rooms and the thickness of walls. The antiquity of the Italian towns and the great quantity of old and insanitary building make housing improvement a very difficult matter.La Società Umanitaria, a benevolent trust founded by Prosper Loria of Milan in 1902, has taken up this subject among others and has built two model tenements, housing 2000 persons.
United States.—Interest in the housing question in the United States is confined to a few of the largest cities and can only be said to be acute in New York, though there have been investigations by commissions elsewhere and Miss Octavia Hill’s work in London has found admirers and imitators in Philadelphia and Boston as well as in New York. The evils of housing in New York have been the subject of much sensational writing which has elevated them to the position of a world-wide scandal. It is not necessary to accept all the allegations made in order to see that several circumstances have combined to produce an exceptional state of things in this great city. The limited space—the island or peninsula of Manhattan—in which central New York is built has compelled the erection of large tenement blocks, otherwise rare in American towns; the incessant inrush of immigrants from the poorest parts of Europe has filled these tenements with immense numbers of persons of many nationalities accustomed to a low standard of living; the generally backward state of public sanitation in America, and the absence or evasion of regulations and supervision, have permitted the erection of bad dwellings, their deterioration into worse, and their misuse by excessive overcrowding. Other large cities in which bad housing conditions are known to exist are Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Pittsburg, Jersey City. There are doubtless many others, but bad housing conditions are not so general in the United States as in Europe. Outside the very large cities there is more space, more light and air, less crowding together, less darkness, dirt and dilapidation. Large houses, occupied by two or perhaps threefamilies, are common, but they have more room space than is usual in Europe. The 18th annual report (1903) of the Commissioner of Labour gives the result of a special inquiry embracing 23,447 families distributed in 33 states. The average number of rooms was 4.95 per family and 1.04 per individual. It is a fair inference that overcrowding is confined to a comparatively small number of exceptional places. A large number of the schedules were furnished by the eminently urbanized and manufacturing states of New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Ohio and Illinois; and in all these the average number of rooms to a family exceeded 4, ranging from 4.2 in Ohio to 5.5 in Massachusetts. The condition of homes as to sanitation and cleanliness was statistically stated thus: Sanitary condition—good 61.46%, fair 32,59%, bad 5.95%; Cleanliness—good 79.63%, fair 14.66 bad 5.71%. Other special inquiries have been carried out in particular towns. In 1891-1892 the tenements in Boston were investigated for the Massachusetts Labour Bureau, which found 3657 sleeping rooms without outside windows and about 8% of the population living in conditions objectionable from one cause or another. In 1892 Congress authorized a special inquiry into the slum population of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Baltimore, the results of which were published in the seventh special report (1894) of the United States Commissioner of Labour. It was estimated that the total “slum population” (presumably those living in unhealthy conditions) was—New York 360,000, Chicago 162,000, Philadelphia 35,000, Baltimore 25,000. In Baltimore 530 families, consisting of 1648 persons, were living in single rooms with an average of 3.15 persons to a room; in Philadelphia 401 families were so living with an average of 3.11 persons to a room. The proportion of 1-room dwellings was less in New York and Chicago. In New York 44.55% or nearly half the families investigated were found living in 2-roomed dwellings, in Baltimore 27.88%, in Philadelphia 19.41% and in Chicago 19.14%. These figures conclusively prove that European conditions reproduce themselves in American cities. Poverty was not the cause, as the average earnings per family ranged from £3, 4s. a week in Baltimore to £4, 6s. a week in Chicago. Another official investigation in New York was carried out in 1895 by the Tenement House Commission appointed by the State of New York. It reported “many houses in the city in an insanitary condition which absolutely unfits them for habitation.” Further details have been compiled from the census by the New York Federation of Churches, chiefly relating to density of population in the city. In 1900, out of a total of nearly 250,000 dwellings, 95,433 (38.2%) contained from 2 to 6 persons, 60,672 (24.2%) from 7 to 10 persons and 89,654 (35.9%) 11 persons or more. The density of population for the whole city as now constituted was 19 persons to the acre, in Manhattan 149; in the south-eastern district of Manhattan 382 and in one ward 735. Between 1900 and 1905 the density increased in every district, and in the latter year there were 12 blocks with from 1000 to 1400 persons to the acre. The number of persons to the acre in London (1901) is 60.6; in the most densely populated borough 182, and in the most densely populated district (a very small one) 396. This will give a measure of comparison. The large tenement blocks in New York have been constructed with far less regard to health than those in Berlin, and reproduce in an aggravated form the same evil of insufficient light and air. In place of the inadequate courts round which many are built in Berlin, the New York tenements have merely narrow air shafts. In 1904 there were reported to be 362,000 dark interior rooms, that is with no outside windows.
If American cities have nothing to learn from other countries in regard to bad housing, they have nothing to teach in the way of reform. They are following Europe slowly and a long distance behind. There is no serious attempt to deal with insanitary areas as they have been dealt with in England, or to prevent the creation of new ones by regulation and planning of extensions as in Germany, or to promote the provision of superior houses by organized public effort as in several countries. A little has been done in New York to improve the worst housing. A Tenement House Act was passed after the report of the Commission of 1895 and a Department formed to give effect to it. Some cleansing and repairing and insertion of windows is carried out every year, but more attention seems to be paid to fire escapes. Societies for providing improved dwellings exist in New York, Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia. The oldest is one formed in Boston in 1871, called the Co-operative Building Company; it was followed in 1876 by an Improved Dwellings Company in Brooklyn, and in 1879 by a similar society in Manhattan, and in 1885 by another in Boston. The largest concern of the kind is the City and Suburban Houses Company in New York, formed in 1896 under the guidance of Dr E. R. L. Gould; it has built four groups of tenements housing 1238 families in the city and 112 houses on a suburban estate at Brooklyn; in all it has housed some 6000 persons. More recently Mr Henry Phipps has given £200,000 for the provision of model dwellings in New York, and a building has been erected on the plan of the Maison des Enfants in Paris. In Chicago the City Houses Association works at housing reforms in various ways. There are some other institutions of a like kind, but the aggregate results are inconsiderable. Two other building agencies have done far more in the United States than philanthropic societies; these are the building and loan associations and private employers. The former are co-operative provident societies; they are widely diffused throughout the United States and their operations are on a very large scale. They date from 1831, when the Oxford Provident Building Association was formed at Frankfort, near Philadelphia. Pennsylvania has still the largest number of associations, but from 1843 onwards the movement spread rapidly and continuously in other states. The high-water mark appears to have been reached in 1897, when the total assets of the associations amounted to about £133,000,000. In 1905 there were 5326 associations with an aggregate membership of 1,686,611 and assets of about £130,000,000. The states of Pennsylvania and Ohio head the list, but the movement is very strong in many others. It accounts for the comparatively large number of houses owned by working-class families in the United States. With regard to housing by employers, no comprehensive information is available, but the total amount is certainly considerable though probably not so large as in Germany or in France. Some of the better-known instances are the Pelzer Manufacturing Company at Pelzer in South Carolina, which has built about 1000 dwellings; the Maryland Steel Company at Sparrows Point, Maryland, 800 dwellings; Ludlow Manufacturing Associates at Ludlow, Mass., 500 dwellings; Whitin Machine Works at Whitinsville, Mass., 600 dwellings; Westinghouse Air Brake Co. at Wilmerding, Penn., 360 dwellings; Draper Co., Hopedale, Mass., 250 dwellings. These are all more or less “model” settlements, not in cities, but in outlying or country places, where works have been established, and that is generally true of housing by employers in the United States, whereas in Germany much has been provided by them in the large towns. Rents are very much higher in American cities than in European towns of comparable size and character.
Authorities.—Board of TradeReports—“Cost of Living of the Working Classes (England)” (1908); “Cost of Living in German Towns” (1908); “Cost of Living in French Towns” (1909).Proceedings of International Housing Congress(London, 1907);The New Encyclopaedia of Social Reform; E. R. Dewsnup,The Housing Problem in England; T. C. Horsfall,The Example of Germany; J. S. Nettlefold,Practical Housing Reform; A. Shadwell,Industrial Efficiency, ch. xi. on “Housing”; W. Thompson,The Housing Handbook, Housing up to Date.