this is the story of an average sort of bloke who lives in a nice average neighborhood in a nice average town every night he comes home to his nice average house and in due time he goes to sleep it possible for a neighborhood overnight to become a slum perhaps not quite although most of us have been asleep housing has become our number one social and economic problem absolutely and getting bigger all the time you might have known you had a stake in this a big stake one of our most profitable fields of operation and so easy to man i just check up people do all the work yes people think houses take care of themselves but they don't house is left to themselves go to pieces well maybe this kind of thing wouldn't happen if people understood the problem wouldn't make the slightest difference we disagree let's go back to the beginning suppose we get this fellow out here educate him a we're just checking on your house who are you you know the did is it relaxed i'm not him i'm just one of these projects supervisor division of urban destruction was urban destruction we don't need drain what are you talking about my house is the best in the whole block what's the use you haven't told him the whole story keep talking no good this is one of my favorite projects but wait do you see inside six people sleep in this one room eight in here seven in here cooking facilities plumbing thirty two children in the house and here is their playground this is one of your favorites  i can really claim credit for it people did it all do you remember how this looks forty years ago when it was a new development called paradise garden garden my grandmother and grandfather lived here gee it was a nice neighborhood they all started nice but ha that's when grandpa moved down the street cars a good many moved out about the the neighborhood began to change rest every step of the way right on schedule and i didn't lift a finger what's your interest in all this anyhow this kind of neighborhood is fine for our business juvenile delinquent alcoholism yep this is a great little neighborhood too bad it won't last why not there might be a fire why wait a minute is my neighborhood in that book jury as is my house in it ye you're on my schedule well that's one place your schedule is going to be wrong paradise garden most unfortunate i sent flowers this morning you hypocrite you probably started the fire why should i with all that overcrowding in violation of every safety code it was inevitable it was not a final when the fire was going to be i might have been able to prevent it impossible it's all right here in the book everything past present and future everything you said it didn't make any difference whether people knew or not that's right but i did but where is he going he's going to city hall to report the facts to the city official ridiculous there's city hall there is your boy now most of the facts are known to the official what can they do their hands are tied listen to the mayor god is our slum clearance programme if we can prevent disasters like paradise gardens we've got to do something do something now the expert will tell them what to do that's the city plan we're in the same difficulty as every other city in the united states slum clearance is not enough we've got to prevent slums being formed in the first place the most worthy object and what's to prevent it  see their barking why even if a planet tells them the exact trouble spots state street south street hogan's alley but we mustn't forget the public i've got some houses on state street just leave us alone so our street is ok too there you have it there's nothing to be done just a minute the city planner is absolutely right state street south street they're both in the book i can tell you exactly what's going to happen  oh we've got to prevent things like this happening from now on but we can't do it without public support we need a city wide group to study the whole problem right and the time to start it is right now ladies and gentlemen we need a citizen's committee on housing with representatives from every neighborhood  this is only the beginning really groups for organizations joining in and who do you think is the main spot i know we can win this battle because i know the fellow we've got to lick you all know school a traffic hazard alone in violation of violation of the building code that's sanitary code he's in every neighborhood maybe in your own house where ever well they've driven mom of one town but he may be on his way to your community right now he may be there already but you know how to handle him he can't stand organized groups where people work together if enough of us work together we can run him right out of the country