331.8:

Introduction to

HOUSING

Facts and Principles

By EDITH ELMER WOOD

FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY

UNITED STATES HOUSING AUTHORITY
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A trio of Uncle Sam's tenants. "Growing chicks . . . need comfortable houses . . . with plenty of fresh air and sunlight." Farmer's Bulletin No. 1554.
Introduction to

HOUSING

Facts and Principles

By EDITH ELMER WOOD

FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY

UNITED STATES HOUSING AUTHORITY

Washington, D. C.

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D. C. - - - - Price 30 cents
Reprinted May, 1940
Contents

Page

Introduction Why is the housing problem important? ix

I. A few basic facts about the American people ... 1 II. What sort of homes do the American people live in? 9

III. How did it come about? 20

IV. What are the present-day health requirements for housing? 28

V. How do health experts rate our housing? 35 VI. The cost of bad housing in preventable sickness and

death 42

VII. The cost of bad housing in juvenile delinquency

and crime 54

VIII. The cost of bad housing in excessive taxes .... 62

IX. Housing shortage in 1938 and probable needs to 1950

(nonfarm) 69

X. The housing market 84

XI. Effect of future changes in construction costs, in- come distribution, and cost of living, with a glance

at cost of land, financing, and taxes 97

XII. Division of the field of housing 113

XIII. Housing and planning neighborhood, city, State,

and national 127

APPENDIXES

A. Index of real property inventories, by States and

localities 143

B. Real property inventory summary tables 146

C. Status of public housing legislation, by States: Map 150

D. State court decisions concerning slum clearance and

low-rent housing by local housing authorities . . . . 151 E. Housing projects built by the Housing Division of

the PWA, now leased or operated by the USHA. . . 152

F. United States Housing Authority-assisted projects,

as of Nov. 30, 1939 154

G. Foreign housing experience 158

III

CHARTS

Page

I. Population growth and urbanization increase,

United States, 1790-1930 2

II. Family income in 1929 7

III. Urban housing conditions, by geographic area . 13 IV. Age and condition of dwellings, Des Moines,

Iowa 15 V. Disease and delinquency concentration in lowrental areas, Richmond, Va 44

V a. Rental map, 1934 44

V b. Tuberculosis cases active during 1934 . 44

V c. Juvenile delinquency convictions during 1934 45

V d. Adult delinquency convictions during

1933 45

VI. Estimated number of nonfarm dwelling units

constructed in the United States, 1915-38 ... 72

VII. Indexes of dwelling units built, 1919-37: United

States compared with England and Wales (1929=

100) 73 VIII. Number of dwellings built with public assistance

in England and Wales, 1919-37 74

IX. Urban dwelling units constructed per 100 families in United States, England and Wales,

and Sweden, 1920-29 and 1930-37 75

X. Estimated nonfarm housing needs in 1938 and

from 1938 to 1950 79

XL Residential vacancy in nonfarm areas in the

United States, 1930-37 82

XII. Nonfarm residential foreclosures and refinanced

mortgages in the United States, 1926-38 ... 86

XIII. Residential construction for families in the

United States, by income groups (data cover 28 cities) 90

XIV. Distribution of family income in the United

States, by income level, 1935-36 94
XV. Income distributions of nonrelief families of four i> age sizes, 1935-36 95

XVI. Distribution of nonfarm households by income

classes, 1929, 1933, and 1935-36 105

XVII. Cost of goods purchased by wage earners and

lower-salaried workers (average of 32 large cities of the United States, 1923-25=100) 108

XVIII. Annual costs of living at maintenance level, by

major budget groups, 4-person manual

worker's family, 59 cities, March 1935 .... 110

VI
Foreword

THIS BOOKLET is designed to present a simple and

yet authoritative discussion of basic housing facts

and principles which are of concern to every community determined to clear its slums and provide

decent homes for families of low income. Its contents should be of interest not only to those who

are actively associated with the housing movement

but also to the public at large. As Dr. Wood points

out in the opening pages, the housing problem is important to all of us: It affects the individual, the

family, the community, and the Nation.

Time was, of course, when the housing problem

seemed exclusively the property of professional

"housers," of social workers, architects, governmental officials, and a handful of civic-minded

citizens. Today, happily, that is no longer the case. As a result of an aroused public opinion, the housing

problem and the low-rent housing program have

become public property in a very profound sense. Today, organizations of every sort trade unions,

religious organizations, veterans' groups, educators,

women's clubs, welfare societies, parent-teachers'

associations, business and professional groups are making slum clearance and low-rent housing the

subjects of conventions, resolutions, studies, and

conferences.

Possibly no person is better equipped to discuss

the subject of this booklet than Dr. Edith Elmer

Wood. A veteran in the housing movement for

many years, she has known about the housing

VII
problem from the point of view of the housewife, the

alert citizen, and the social economist. As the

author of several important books on housing, as University lecturer on the economic and social aspects

of housing, and more recently as an adviser to the

Housing Division of the Public Works Administration, Dr. Wood speaks with authority on this

subject. Although Dr. Wood is a consultant to the

United States Housing Authority, it should be

pointed out that the opinions expressed in this

booklet are hers, and not necessarily those of the

United States Housing Authority.

NATHAN STRAUS,

Administrator.

FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY

UNITED STATES HOUSING AUTHORITY

DECEMBER, 1939

VIII
Introduction

Why is the housing problem important?

A. To the individual?

Because:

1. A man working 44 hours a week, SO weeks in

the year, 30 minutes distant from home, spends

from a minimum of one-third to a maximum of substantially over two-thirds of his time at home. Ill- ness or unemployment increases the fraction.

2. A homemaking woman spends from two-thirds

to nineteen-twentieths of her time at home.

3. A preschool child spends from two-thirds to

nineteen-twentieths of his time there.

4. A school child spends from half to more than

three-fourths of his time there.

B. To the family?

Because:

1. All its functions, biological, social, and administrative, center in the home eating, sleeping, procreation, child nurture, preparation of food, and care

of clothing.

2. Its health, comfort, social and civic life, in

short its degree of civilization, depend very largely

on qualities inherent in the structural plant which

forms its shelter.

IX
C. To the community?

Not only because:

1. More of its area is used for housing than for

any other purpose.

2. Residential property contributes about half of

its real-property-tax income.

3. Services for residential areas (including schools)

consume somewhat more than half of the community

income from real-property taxes.

But also because:

4. The most important function of any community

is to build, maintain, and protect its homes and the

families within them. Industry, business, and government are means toward this end.

D. To the Nation?

Not only because:

1. Residential construction is one of its major industries and one worst hit by the depression of the

early 1930's.

2. Past cycles of activity and inactivity in residential construction have preceded eras of national

prosperity and hard times with a rhythm suggestive

of some causal relationship.

But also because:

3. The fundamental purpose of organized society

is to produce a better crop of children 1 by teamwork

1 U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE, ANIMAL HUSBANDRY DIVISION, Farmers'

Bulletin No. 1350, Beef Cattle Barns: "There are three elements which are

essential to animal life, namely, feed, water, and air, and upon the quantity and

quality of all three depends the physical welfare of the animal ... In order

that they may be productive they must . . . have an abundance of fresh

air."Farmers' Bulletin No. 1393, Principles of Dairy Barn Ventilation: "The

stablirig of animals in dark, poorly ventilated, damp barns affects their health
and technology than was attainable through the

rugged individualism of the stone-age hunter.

4. Homemaking women, raising children, are the

largest occupational group in the population. They

are producing, by all odds, the most important

national asset. Their working places should con- form at least to the requirements of industrial

hygiene.

2 and helps to spread tuberculosis among the stock whenever the germs are present." Farmers' Bulletin No. 1419, Cart and Management of Farm Work Horses: "Abundance of light and proper ventilation of the stables are essential for complete sanitation and the health of the horse." Farmers' Bulletin No. 810, Equipment for Farm Sheep Raising: "Dryness,

good ventilation, and freedom from drafts are the first requisites of buildings

for sheep." Farmers' Bulletin No. 1487, Practical Hog Houses: "Proper housing is an

important factor in the successful raising of hogs. If little pigs are to get the

right kind of a start in life, they must have plenty of sunshine." Farmers' Bulletin No. 1554, Poultry Houses and Fixtures: "Growing chicks and

laying hens need comfortable houses that are dry and roomy, with plenty of

fresh air and sunlight. It never pays to overcrowd them. The houses in which

chicks are brooded and reared should be so constructed as to promote the most

efficient growth in the chicks."

* U. S. DEFT. OF LABOR, BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, Minimum Standards

or the Safety and Health of Workers in Manufacturing Industries, 1935: These

cover provisions for lighting, natural and artificial; ventilation, temperature, humidity, air space; number, type, and location of toilet facilities; cleanliness of premises and provisions for waste disposal; protection against fire; and

prevention of accidents.

XI

CHAPTER I A Few Basic Facts About

the American People

To UNDERSTAND the housing problem requires a

bird's-eye view of the American people and their

incomes in a relatively normal year. Against this

static picture later fluctuations may be measured.

In addition, we must sense the processes of accelerating change which have operated throughout our

history.

Once in 10 years the American people count noses. Population of continental United States in 1930

was 122,775,046.

Private families, 29,904,663.

About 2% million private families consisted of one

person.

About 3 million persons not classed among private

families lived in hotels, boarding houses, and institutions.

The median size of an American private family

was only 3.4, foreign-born white families being a fraction larger and Negro families a fraction smaller.

The "median," remember, is the middle one of a

series. The average obtained by dividing total family

population by total number of families is somewhat higher.

The change from rural to urban.

In 1920, for the first time, urban population ex- ceeded rural. In 1930 the number of urban families,

17,372,524, exceeded the number of rural families,

1
12,532,139, by a larger proportion than the excess

of urban population over rural, because farm families

average larger. An incorporated community with

only 2,500 inhabitants counts as "urban" by census

definition, although in its social aspects it is not es- pecially so. On the other hand, only about half

the rural population live on farms. Many live in

villages of less than 2,500 people which serve as shopping centers for surrounding farms. And many

are suburbanites who have sought fresh air and

elbow room outside the crowded cities where they

earn their daily bread. Economically and socially,

they have more in common with the urban than with

the agricultural group.

CHART I. POPULATION GROWTH AND URBANIZATION INCREASE, UNITED STATES, 1790-1930

1790 1830 I860 1930

o

5.8 8.4 28.6 56.2 PERCENT URBAN

3.929.214 12.866.020 50.155.783 122.775.046 TOTAL POPULATION

URBAN POPULATION

I I RURAL POPULATION FEDERAL WORKS AGHNCY RESEARCH AND STATISTICS DIVISION UNITED STATES HOUSING AUTHORITY RESEARCH SECTION AUGUST 1, 1939 Source: U. S. Bureau of the Census. At least two-thirds of our people make their living in

cities if we include the technically rural householders

who are suburbanites. Some idea of the central-
ization involved may be gained from reflecting that

of the more than 3,000 counties in the United States,

the 155 containing the larger industrial cities in 1929

included 74 percent of all industrial wage earners and 81 percent of all salaried employees, and were

responsible for 80 percent of the value added to

manufactured products.

TABLE 1. GROWTH OF CITIES 1790 TO 1930

POPULATION
Popular fallacy No. 2. That room overcrowding

is peculiar to cities or increases with the size of a city.

Contrary to the general impression, it is more

prevalent in rural districts of our South and Southwest than in our big cities. This matter of room

crowding is one point, however, in which American

standards are definitely higher than European, with

the possible exception of English and Dutch. Our

lack of complete statistics makes exact comparison

impossible. (See tables 8 and 9 in ch. V in this

connection.)

Three out of four American families still live in

single-family houses. Our census definition of a "dwelling" does not correspond to that of any other

country in the world. Many useful housing facts

may nevertheless be learned from the 1930 census. For instance, 76.4 percent of our families in 1930

still lived in one-family houses, even 63.3 percent of

urban families.1 As 16.5 percent of urban families

lived in two-family houses, that left only 20.2 percent

of urban families (12.1 percent of all families) living

in multifamily houses. This makes some problems

simpler than they otherwise would be. (Fifteenth

Census of the United States, 1930, Population Volume

VI, Families, table 13.)

Home ownership and tenancy.

The census tells us how many families are home

owners and how many are tenants. It has been

telling us that since 1890. Taking the country as a whole, it is surprising how little the proportions have

changed. Just over half were renters throughout the

period S2.2 percent in 1890 and 51.2 percent in

1930. But it is somewhat disquieting that farm

1 New York City, in 1930, with the lowest percentage in the country, had

17.1 percent of its families living in one-family houses. The Borough of ^Manhattan had only 3 percent.
tenancy, which is undesirable, has increased, especially during the 1920 decade, while the sharp increase

in urban home ownership during the same period,

amounting to 3,500,000 dwellings, was followed by

an avalanche of foreclosures. (See chapter X.)

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the in- crease in nonfarm home ownership during the 1920's,

far from being a symptom of prosperity and healthy

social advance, was fundamentally unsound, however we divide the responsibility between over- optimism on the buyers' part and high-pressure salesmanship on the venders'.

Rents and values in 1930.

The 1930 census, for the first time, gave the rental

of all rented dwellings and the valuation of those

owner-occupied. The figures refer to 1930, not to today.

But it is useful to get some idea of how matters stood

at that time. We can relate these rents and values

to the income distribution figures (estimates only,

but careful ones) offered by Brookings Institution for

1929. We can relate them also to such large-scale

surveys of the physical condition of homes as the

Real Property Inventory and the Farm Housing

Survey.

TABLE 2. RENTED NONFARM HOMES, 1930 PERCENT

DISTRIBUTION

Rent
The class renting under $20 per month, or 34 percent of all rented homes, were substandard under

average American rental conditions at that date.2 In the South the boundary would be at a lower figure,

in many parts of the North at a higher one. Owner-occupied houses were, as would be expected,

of a better grade. Their median value was 34,778

(urban 35,743 and rural nonfarm 32,661). Counting

the equivalent rental at 1 percent a month, as is cus- tomary, only 18.1 percent of all owned nonfarm

homes were comparable in poor quality to the 34 percent of rented nonfarm homes at the bottom of the

list. Together, they count up to 6,093,314, or slightly more than a quarter of all nonfarm homes.

We shall find that rents fell during the depression

along with incomes and have been rising with them

again.

Geographic variations in house rents and values

are great. Differences in climate account for only a

part. Urban-rural variations are also great. These

reflect not only differences in land cost, absence of

sewers, water, pavements, and other urban improvements, but also distance from work and cost of commuting.

Distribution of family income in 1929.

Aside from its usefulness in association with the census year figures to establish a starting point, the

income distribution of this, our most prosperous

year in history, is important as indicating the best

attainable under a system of laissez faire. In chapter

XI will be found the most recent estimates of national

income distribution (table 22).

8 This estimate from census rentals, which may appear arbitrary, checks

well with figures in the Financial Survey of Urban Housing, Department of Commerce, 1937, from which it appears that 35.2 percent of tenant families

in the 22 representative cities studied lived in substandard houses. 6
More than one-fifth of all families had incomes under $1,000, which in most parts of the country was

below the subsistence standard. Slightly more than

another fifth had incomes between $1,000 and $1,500,

a range covering what was considered a fair wage for

the support of two adults and two children. Nearly

60 percent had incomes under $2,000, the point where

appreciable savings first become possible. More than

71 percent had incomes under $2,500, which is what

many competent economists think our natural re- sources and our technology could and should earn for

every self-supporting family, if they were wisely directed toward that end.

CHART II FAMILY 1 INCOME IN 1929

FAMILIES .NCOME CLASSES INCOMES

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EACH IAAAA

EQUALS 500.000 FAMILIES

UNDER $1000

I POO- 1,500

1,500 - 2000

2000-2,500

2^00- SjOOO 5000 S OVER

EACH EQUALS $3.000.000,000 DERAL WORKS AGENCY RESEARCH AND STATISTICS DIVISION NITED STATES HOUSING AUTHORITY RESEARCH SECTION AUGUST 1, 1939

1 Excludes one-person families and families with "under incomes."

Source: America's Capacity to Consume, Brookings Institution, 1934. If the problem of distribution of income were

solved, the housing problem would become only an

educational one concerned with standards.

Various recent progressive measures social insurance, wage-and-hour legislation, wider collective bar-
gaining are moving slowly in the direction of such a

solution. Subsidized public housing for the lower

income groups, advancing simultaneously, provides

(at a point where it is especially needed) an immediate means of increasing real wages, as distinguished

from money wages, by giving tenants worth-while

homes instead of slum shelter for their same rent

dollars.

TABLE 3. NUMBER AND PERCENT OF FAMILIES

CLASSES IN 1929 BY INCOME
CHAPTER II What Sort of Homes Do the

American People Live In?

One-third good

One-third fair

One-third bad

THE REAL PROPERTY INVENTORY has been among the

most useful byproducts of the depression. The need

of projects for white-collar unemployed made possible the very large-scale housing market survey

known as the Real Property Inventory. It was

planned by a hardheaded, mortgage-financing, real

estate and operative builder group, wholly unconnected with housing reform. The work was carried

out under the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic

Commerce of the Department of Commerce. Sixtyfour cities were chosen in 48 States, ranging in

population from Cleveland, just under a million, to

Santa Fe, N. Mex., with 11,000, a cross section of our urban communities, omitting only the largest

and the smallest.

Every residential structure in each city was

visited and a large body of information about it was

recorded. The field work was done by local people,

but the schedules came from Washington, as did the

instructors who trained the local staffs. Tabulating

and editorial work were done in Washington.

Failure to consult the housing group while the

schedule was in the making led to the omission of

such important data as the number of dark rooms,
the presence of lot overcrowding, the occupation of

cellars or basements as dwellings. Such points have

a close connection with health.

It has been an advantage, however, to have had the

Real Property Inventory conducted by business men

instead of reformers, not because the job was necessarily any better done, but because no one could accuse those who did it of a sentimental bias.

The 64 cities of the Department of Commerce

Real Property Inventory (1934) had a population in

1930 of 7,711,170, and contained something like 12

percent of all urban dwellings in the United States, a sample of highly respectable size. TABLE 4. REAL PROPERTY INVENTORIES

Item Original 64

cities (1934) 1 139 other urban areas (1934-36)

RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURES

Total number. 1, 491, 223 Percent of total: In good condition Needing minor repairs. Needing major repairs. Unfit for use. _

37.0

44.9

15.8

2.3 100.0

3, 612, 242

39.8 44.7

13.2

2.3 100.0 DWELLING UNITS

Total number. 2, 102, 776

Percent of total: Crowded or worse (occupied dwellings only)2 Without private indoor flush toilet Without bathtub (or shower)

16.8

13.5 20.2

6, 272, 621

15.9

14.9

19.7

1 Cities proper, excluding suburban zones.

2 Includes the classes "crowded" (with more persons than rooms, but not more than twice as many), "overcrowded" (more than twice as many persons

as rooms, but not more than three times as many), and "greatly overcrowded"

(more than three times as many persons as rooms), as defined in the Real

Property Inventory summary volume.10
Since that time, many more Real Property Inventories have been carried out under State and local

auspices, using the schedules (items of information)

and instructions originally set up (with minor modifications in certain cases), so that we now have rea- sonably comparable data concerning nearly four

times as many dwelling units, which is a very large

sample indeed. According to a summary volume,

Urban Housing, (Works Progress Administration,

1938), the coverage is 44 percent of urban United

States. The degree of correspondence between the

more recent surveys and those of the original 64 cities

is striking. (See table 4.)

The designation "unfit for use" was very conservatively applied in R. P. I. practice, so that it was

nearly equivalent to the building code term "structurally unsafe" that is, liable to collapse. If it was physically possible to repair a dwelling, whether

it appeared to be worth repair or not, it went into

the "major repairs" class. These two groups, making

a combined 16.2 percent of all structures surveyed, are

clearly substandard and in most cases unredeemable

except by demolition and replacement. For where

roofs leak, foundations are cracked, plaster is falling,

stairs are rickety, bricks need repointing, wood is rotting, repairs seldom justify their cost. Moreover, these structurally neglected dwellings

are usually (though not always) the same ones which

have also been neglected in the matter of modern

improvements. To a large extent they fall in the

class without bathtubs, without sewer-connected

toilets, without modern heating. Sometimes they

also lack electric lights and running water.

Crowding is a matter of occupancy, not of structure. But most of it is apt to take place in these

substandard houses.

11
GEOGRAPHIC DIFFERENCES IN

HOUSING CONDITIONS

So far we have dealt with national averages. It would be a serious mistake, however, to suppose that

every city or most cities conform to them. In the

first place, there are wide geographic differences, as is clear from table 5. Within the same general region,

moreover, there are often sharp individual differ- ences between city and city.

The 203 real property inventories analysed in the

convenient summary already quoted, Urban Housing,

have been grouped geographically into unequal quadrants bounded roughly by the Mississippi and Ohio

Rivers and their imaginary extensions, along nearest

State lines. New York City and California were

considered sufficiently different for separate classification. New York City contains almost as many

dwelling units as the original 64 cities combined.

It would, therefore, tend to throw any regional

picture out of focus.

This table suggests that the highest standard of

housing for the working classes will be found in

California and the next highest in the Northeastern

States, with New York City included. The lowest

standards are unquestionably in the Southeast and

Southwest. If the R. P. I. had shown dark rooms

and overcrowded building lots, however, the Northeastern cities, and especially New York, would have

lost some of their lead.

The inclusion of the items "more than 40 years old"

and "containing one, two, or three rooms" is not meant

to imply that either necessarily involves bad housing.

There is a perfectly legitimate demand for one- and

two-room dwellings for single persons and childless

couples, and three rooms may serve for parents and

12
CHART III. URBAN HOUSING CONDITIONS, BY GEOGRAPHIC AREA

PERCENT OF PERCENT OF

TOTAL DWELLING UNITS TOTAL DWELLING UNITS 40

20

40

20

40

20

40

20

WITH MORE THAN ONE PERSON PER ROOM

40

20

WITHOUT ELECTRIC OR GAS LIGHT

20

N.WEST S.WEST8 S.EAST WITHOUT PRIVATE INDOOR FLUSH TOILET

40

CAL N.Y. S.WEST8 S.EAST WITHOUT BATHTUB OR SHOWER

YCITY N.EASTA N.WEST S.WEST S.EAS

20

WITHOUT RUNNING WATER

40

20

5TA N.WEST S.WEST8 S.EAST FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY RESEARCH AND STATISTICS DIVISION UNITED STATES HOUSING AUTHORITY RESEARCH SECTION AUGUST 1, 1939 Notes: A Excludes New York City. B Excludes California. Source: Urban Housing, 1934-36, Works Progress Administration, 1938. 13

one young child. Certain carefully preserved homes

built in Colonial times are still among our most

treasured examples of domestic architecture. But

where extremely small dwellings are provided systematically for small incomes, without regard to size

of family, or where old houses are also neglected

houses, we encounter bad conditions.

CHART IV. AGE AND CONDITION OF DWELLINGS,

DES MOINES, IOWA

PERCENT

STRUCTURAL REPAIRS NEEDED

AGE IN YEARS FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY RESEARCH AND STATISTICS DIVISION UNITED STATES HOUSING AUTHORITY RESEARCH SECTION AUGUST 1, 1939 Source: Report on Housing, 1935, Iowa State Planning Board. Chart IV illustrates how rapidly the proportion of

houses in bad structural condition increases with the

age of the house. Note how the unfit for use class

shoots up to 60 percent of dwellings 70 years old,

whereas it is less than 10 percent of those between IS

and 25 years old. The rise to something over 15

percent among dwellings only S years old looks contradictory at first sight, but is explained in the text

IS
of the Iowa State Planning Board's Report on Housing, 1935. It represents an outbreak of shacks built

by depression victims in outlying districts of Des

Moines, which were unfit from the start. In the PWA Housing Division bulletin, Slums and

Blighted Areas in the United States (1935), the present

writer assembled, for ready comparison, the most

socially revealing items in the original 64-city Real

Property Inventory.

1 No single city has the best

score or the worst under every head, but Binghamton, N. Y., makes the highest general average and

Charleston, S. C., the lowest Charleston, with its great historic charm and some of the most beautiful

old residences in the country. Fortunately, Charleston has an active housing authority and a slum

clearance program already well under way.

The difference in working class standard of living

shown by the following figures is very striking.

TABLE 6. PERCENT OF DWELLING UNITS

City
TABLE 7. FARM HOUSING SURVEY, 1934

State
The lack of modern improvements in farm homes

emerges clearly, and also the wide differences between

geographic sections.

Among the farm homes studied, the average

number of rooms was 5 A and the average number of

occupants per room 0.86. That sounds well, but

does not tell the story. State averages begin to suggest it, because they vary from 3.3 rooms in Arizona

to 10.4 in Massachusetts, and from 1.27 occupants

per room to 0.46 in the same States. In 12 Southern

and Southwestern States the average room density

is more than one, a degree of congestion already risky

to health. But since many families in those States

do have ample space, many others must be grossly

overcrowded to produce such an average.

Schedules carried a column for farm homes needing

complete replacement in the judgment of the occupant, while an adjoining column recorded the opinion

of the enumerator. The results were not considered

sufficiently objective to include in the published

report. Evidently higher standards were used in

some States than in others. On the assumption that

such variations would tend to cancel each other,

national totals are not without interest. Replacement was desired by 9.4 percent of the occupants,

while enumerators thought that 11.5 percent should

be replaced. Both estimates are conservative.

A social research report on Disadvantaged Classes

in American Agriculture, (Department of Agriculture,

1938) states that: "It is a conservative estimate

that one-third of the farm families of the Nation

are living on standards of living so low as to make

them slum families."

Many farm houses, however, are sturdily built and

need repairs and modernization, rather than demolition.

18
ONE-THIRD OF THE NATION

If the Real Property Inventory offers a fair sample

of urban housing and the Farm-Housing Survey of

farm housing, and if nonfarm rural homes average

the same as urban homes, we should be leaning over backward to be conservative in saying that onefourth of nonfarm homes and two-thirds of farm

homes are substandard.

The United States total line in table 7 shows that

nearly 89 percent of farm homes lack bathtubs, more

than 82 percent lack modern lighting, in nearly 70

percent water must be carried in from outdoors.

Modern toilet facilities are lacking in 91 percent of

all farm homes. By rights, we should call 80 percent

of farm homes substandard. And instead of classing

nonfarm rural housing with urban housing, it should

be placed about midway between farm and urban,

for its lack of such modern improvements as depend

on public utilities is known to be great.

Look back at table 5. The largest substandard

class consists of dwellings without bathtubs nearly

20 percent. Next come the dwellings needing major

repair and unfit for use, together more than 16 percent, and those without proper toilet facilities, nearly

15 percent. While these groups are not mutually

exclusive, neither are they coincidental. Remember,

too, that dark rooms and overcrowded lots have not

been recorded.

Two-thirds of farm homes would be more than 4

million. One-fourth of nonfarm homes would be

more than 6 million.

The two together account for the homes of over 10

million families that one-third of the Nation so often

described as ill-housed.

19
CHAPTER III How Did it Come About?

1. By permitting supposedly temporary, makeshift shelter to be put up, usually by the occupant

himself, and never requiring its removal. Certain

sod houses, dugouts, and prospectors' cabins in the

Rocky Mountain States have remained in occupancy

for more than a generation. Fringes of shacks occupied by Mexican and Chinese laborers surround

prosperous California towns, with every prospect of

permanent toleration. Oklahoma City has within

its borders municipally owned camp sites, where

homeless families are allowed to throw together any

sort of hovel without benefit of water or sewer.

2. By permitting speculative builders to turn out

quantities of shoddy houses for quick sale during

periods of rapid expansion which deteriorate so

fast that their owners cannot keep them in decent

repair and eventually give up trying.

3. By assuming that Negroes, or foreigners, or

miners, or factory workers, or any other class of

human beings, do not rate either plumbing or

privacy, and erecting for their use long rows of

extremely cheap and small wooden shells of houses

in damp or smoky or otherwise unpleasant locations

where land costs little. At their best many of these

houses would not have qualified for farm animals

under the Bureau of Animal Husbandry's specifications. But, in addition, many of them are old and

dilapidated.

20
Typical New York City street of old-law tenements: The buildings cover as much as 90 percent of the lots. Many rooms are entirely

windowless.
"Company housing" for workers in a sugar mill in Franklin, La. One room to a family no gas, water, electricity, or plumbing.

Two-story brick alley dwellings, Washington, D. C. Built at the

back of pleasant streets.
Outdoor toilets in Cincinnati's Basin District "city conveniences."

This was part of the slum site cleared for Laurel Homes.

Jacksonville, Fla. Clutter of frame houses and privies in small

southern city. A health and fire hazard.
T

Pittsburgh: Conditions typical of an eastern mill city. Homes

straggle down the barren hills, blanketed in smoke from the works

in the valley.

A Mexican family's shack, Austin, Tex.: Eight people living in two

rooms on $38 a month.
4. By the action of time, coupled with neglect, on

originally good houses.

5. By permitting the continued use of houses

whose design violates health requirements unknown

at the time they were built. The old-law tenements

of New York, with their windowless interior rooms,

were considered sanitary when they were built.

Everybody at that period shut his windows tight at

night and fastened his shutters. So why not make

bedrooms cozy and tight to start with by having

them windowless? Incidentally, this permitted a

thriftier coverage of long narrow lots.

6. Because changes in the character of a neighborhood making it less desirable as a place of residence

noise, dirt, smoke, traffic, invasions of business or industry caused old residents to move outward to

more agreeable sites on the city's outskirts and

families of lower income to come in. That usually

meant dividing up a one-family house for two or

three families. Often this was done without the

structural changes necessary for privacy or sanitation. As rents per family went down with the progressive deterioration of the neighborhood, more

families were crowded in to maintain profits. Additions were built at the side or the rear of the houses.

Gardens disappeared. More and more of the land

was covered. Tax assessments rose because of con- gested use, and more intensive use followed because

of increased taxes. It may be that the area is still assumed to be in a transition stage between residence

and business or industry. But it is a transition that

shows no sign of being completed under its own

momentum. On the contrary, utter stagnation seems to have been achieved and nothing is active

except the forces of decay. This is the typical

21

170336 40 3
"near-in" slum, the ring of dry rot surrounding the

central business district.

What is a slum?

This used to be a subject of much debate. Since

the passage of the United States Housing Act of

1937, there is a legal definition:

"The term 'slum' means any area where dwellings

predominate which, by reason of dilapidation, over- crowding, faulty arrangement or design, lack of ventilation, light or sanitation facilities, or any combination of these factors, are detrimental to safety,

health, or morals."(C/. S. Housing Act of 1937, Sec.

2 (5).)

"Blight" is a broader, but also a milder term. It may apply to an area wholly commercial or industrial, which slum cannot. A blighted area is one on

the down grade, though not necessarily all the way

down.

V*T Popular fallacy No. 4. That slums are made by

the people who live in them.

This is a favorite alibi of owners and agents for

not repairing their property and of the general

public to excuse its indifference. Such convenient

phrases as "They use bathtubs to store coal in," or "They would turn model housing into slums in

6 months," die hard.

Obviously, tenants cannot be responsible for

defects inherent in the plan of the building for too

great coverage of the lot by the building, for interior

rooms, for lack of toilets or bathtubs, or for firetrap

construction. What the tenants are really being ac- cused of are destructiveness and bad housekeeping.

Both, of course, exist and are not confined'to the

22
slums, though it is quite possible that slums contain

more than their quota.

British and Dutch experience indicates that

approximately 90 percent of transplanted slum

residents respond satisfactorily to their new environment occasionally 95 percent. In general, the

quickness and completeness of response varies inversely with the age of the individual. Old people

do not change their habits easily, but children

adapt themselves promptly to new environment.

Could the development of slums

have been prevented?

If communities had had the forethought to plan

their development in advance, setting aside appropriate areas for business, industry, and residence,

reserving sufficient space for parks and playgrounds

and public buildings; if they had adopted building

codes and health codes before they started building;

if they had prevented the over-intensive use of land

before it created vested interests, and had made

speculation in real estate impossible, our vast,

dreary, sprawling slums never could have developed.

But we should still need to find some nonprofit

method of supplying homes to low-income families

whose rent-paying capacity offers no inducement

to private industry to build for them.

EW" Popular fallacy No. 5. That the enforcement of

existing or procurable restrictive legislation would

eliminate slums by exercise of the police power without

the use of public funds.

Police power, in the language of constitutional

law, is the power to promote the public welfare by

restraining and regulating the use of property in the

interest of public health, safety, and morals.

23
Restrictive legislation includes health, fire, and

building codes, tenement house and multiple-dwelling laws, zoning ordinances, and official, enforceable

city plans.

Such measures are absolutely necessary for civilized urban life. But it is a fallacy to suppose that

any amount of regulation with any amount of

enforcement would ever, of itself, solve our housing

problems. Such action is negative. It prevents the

bad. It cannot create the good.

Every compulsory rise of standard means an

increase in the cost of construction, and every

increase in the cost of construction means higher

rents or purchase price for new housing. That in

turn is followed by higher rents in old housing all the way along the line. Unless some method

outside the profit system is operating to supply

satisfactory housing to low-income families, housing

improvement by exercise of the police power soon

reaches an impasse.

No restrictive law can be enforced to the point where

it would leave a section of the population homeless.

Only if public housing is available for families with

incomes too low to set in motion the wheels of private

enterprise, can the police power be energetically exercised against unfit houses.

Popular fallacy No. 6. That raising the legal minimum requirements for light, air, plumbing, or fire protection in new buildings automatically outlaws the

mass of existing buildings which do not conform to

them.

It is hard enough to raise legal requirements for

future building, as it is. It would be impossible if the requirements were retroactive.

The double standard in structural requirements.

24
When the New York Tenement House Law was

passed in 1901 and the Multiple Dwellings Act in

1928, the important advances achieved were found

in the sections dealing with buildings "hereafter

erected." Some mild improvements were ordered

for old buildings, but not such as to involve serious

structural changes or dislocate rents. Laymen keep

talking about the old tenements that have been "out~

lawed" in New York since 1901. They were never outlawed at all. It was the building of more like

them which became illegal.

Builders and landlords.

Those who make a living by supplying, whether

more or less acceptably, the shelter needs of the

community, fall into two distinct groups, builders

and landlords, whose interests are by no means always identical, though they are always ready to

combine to repress any stirrings of consumer revolt.

A housing shortage spells heaven to both groups:

To the landlord, because he can increase rents, spend

a minimum on repairs, pick and choose his tenants,

and still have no vacancies; to the builder, because

people are being harried by the landlords into wanting to buy houses, and it will soon pay him to start

building them. He is slow about beginning, be- cause he has to take considerable risk if he is one

of the first. He would prefer watching how things

go with other builders and so would they. "After

you, my dear Alphonse." Anyhow, the longer they

wait, the more shortage there will be and the more

eager and less critical the buyers. At last, however,

to the regret of the landlord, the building boom gets

going. Once launched, it keeps on going until the

effective demand is oversupplied. Then the builders

must hibernate until the surplus has been absorbed.

25
The landlord's happy days were over sooner. He

had vacancies, found tenants fussier, had to redecorate and eventually to lower rents. The sun had set for him too. Together the landlord and the builder

await the dawn of a new day the appearance of a new shortage.

Real estate speculation.

One part of the real-estate business is acting as agent or manager for the owner. That is not speculative. It is the real-estate operator who makes

fortunes or doesn't. The real-estate "deal" is the

lineal descendant of the horse trade. Its motto is caveat emptor. It is highly speculative and highly

predatory. The horse trader was embalmed in that

best seller of a generation ago, David Harum. The

"realtor" earned a Nobel prize for his laureate more

recently. Long before, Dickens had pilloried an

extreme brand of real-estate promotion in Martin

Ckuzzlewit, and Upton Sinclair's Jungle hinged as much on a vicious home-purchase and foreclosure

system as on the stockyards. Henry George built a whole system of economics around recapturing for

the people the "unearned increment" which the

speculator in real estate had absorbed. The lure of

getting something for nothing is still exceedingly

strong.

Most of the owners of near-5n slum property ac- quired it and have held on to it because of their faith

that sooner or later it would be in demand for skyscraper office buildings at Broadway frontage prices.

Most of them would have been doomed to disappoint

ment even if American cities had continued to grow

at the miraculous rate of the past century. But a few of them would have drawn a grand prix, and the

rest would have kept hoping. It used to be part of

26
the weird local loyalty we cultivated for every inhabitant of every village to believe it was on the way

to become a large city, and for every inhabitant of a

city to be sure it would one day be the biggest city

in the world. The depression punctured some of

that. And then perhaps we are growing up.

It was not only the owners who were over-optimistic

about slum property values. Banks and insurance

and trust companies, which ought to have known better, invested in first mortgages on slum property scaled

to hypothetical future values which far exceeded

actual present worth. Much of it they now own, to

their regret. City tax assessors were naturally glad

to concur with the owners and bankers in setting a high valuation on these worn-out properties. Of late

years, however, their collections have been small.

The halt in immigration dramatized the close of our period of rapid population growth. A falling

birth rate accentuates the trend. The vogue for

vertical building in central business districts has

diminished what horizontal spreading there might

otherwise have been.

When people find they have bought worthless

stocks, they write off their losses and do not expect

the community to reimburse them. Where fictitious

values have been attached to slum sites, should they

not be written off in the same way? Otherwise our

cities are headed for bankruptcy. With an era of

stabilized population rapidly approaching, with very

little need to expand business districts, and with some

tendency for industry to decentralize, private enterprise builds new home districts peripherally or along

lines of transportation. The population moves ever

farther from the center, and the concentric rings of

rot grow wider and emptier. The disease will not

cure itself. It needs surgery.

27
CHAPTER IV

What Are the Present -Day Health

Requirements for Housing?

HEALTH REQUIREMENTS advance with the advance

of knowledge.

Popular fallacy No. 7. That because even the

wealthy and powerful among our great-grandparents

got on without plumbing, it is no hardship for working

people to do without it today.

The ancestral death rate was three or four times

what ours is. If democracy means anything, it means equal opportunity in the matter of human

life. Public health means everybody's health.

The Committee on the Hygiene of Housing of the

American Public Health Association 1 recognizes

that

"Shelter is one of the three fundamental needs of

human existence"

and that

"No housing program can be sound unless the shelter it provides is healthful."

It recognizes that health is something positive,

something more than the absence of disease. Mental

health is as important as physical health. Accidents,

as well as contagion, are health hazards.

Highly condensed and admittedly awaiting further

1 Basic Principles of Healthful Housing, Preliminary Report of the Committee

on the Hygiene of Housing, C.-E. A. Winslow, Chairman, Journal of the American Public Health Association, March 1938. Also Second Edition, Appendix

A, Practical Standards for Modern Housing, National Association of Housing

Officials, March 1939. 28
research at certain points, the committee's logical

and illuminating formulation of principles has immediate importance for the consumer public in guiding

its selection of a home, as well as for those concerned

with supplying shelter.

The only way to give any idea of its scope is to

quote the 30 requirements which it lists under 4 heads,

attempting only the briefest running comments. The

requirements are in italics.

1. Fundamental physiological needs:

(1) Maintenance of a thermal environment which

will avoid undue heat loss from the human body.

This calls for reasonable nonconductivity of walls,

ceiling, and floor, and an appropriate means of

supplying the amount of artificial heat in winter

which local climate demands.

(2) Maintenance of a thermal environment which

will permit adequate heat loss from the human body.

This converse requirement is for keeping cool in

summer. Adequate ventilation, specifically cross- ventilation, is the method advised.

(3) Reasonably pure air for breathing purposes.

This means not only fresh air, but air containing a minimum of dust and smoke, and free from noxious

fumes. The replacement of stale air by fresh is made

possible by sufficient window space in relation to floor

space. Freedom from smoke, dust, and fumes depends on neighborhood conditions outside the house.

(4) Adequate daylight illumination. Again we meet

window area in relation to floor area and room depth.

But adequate daylight illumination also depends on

the open space outside on the distance of the

nearest building in relation to its height above the

window admitting the daylight.

29
(5) Direct sunlight. This is a matter of orientation

(placement of buildings with regard to the points

of the compass) and also of outside open space in

relation to height of buildings. To permit the

entrance of direct sunlight through street-floor

windows in the temperate zone during the winter

requires roughly that the width of such open space

should equal the height of the obstructing building.

Sunlight is the greatest of germicides. Its ultraviolet rays help to prevent rickets in young children.

Its stimulating and cheering effect on morale would

qualify it for listing as a psychological need.

(6) Adequate artificial illumination. Badly placed

lights result in glare. Inadequate lights produce eye

strain. School children need good light for their

home work, the housewife needs it for cooking and

dishwashing, all members of the family for reading,

writing, or sewing.

(7) Protection against excessive noise. It is only

recently that noise has been recognized as something

more than an annoyance. Careful scientific studies

have shown the damage it can do to the human

nervous system. The child in the noisy tenement

may sleep, but does not rest completely. Street

noises or boiler-shop noises age the arteries prematurely. We are again on the border line of the

psychological.

(8) Provision of adequate space for exercise and for

the play of children. This is a requirement of farreaching importance. No one disputes that play is necessary for the normal development of children, or that play requires space, which should be available

both indoors and out. That older persons also

derive great benefit from an adjacent bit of outdoors,

is hardly questionable.

30
2. Fundamental psychological needs:

(9) Provision of adequate privacy for the individual. Room overcrowding and the elementary decencies come in here. The current English legal standards as to "person-per-room density" are commended,

not more than two persons occupying one sleeping

room, with children under 10 counting as half-persons

and infants under one not counted. The question

is raised whether the age for separation of the sexes should not be lower than ten years. Entirely apart

from decency, all human beings need some opportunity to be alone from time to time. A goldfish

bowl is not an ideal home even for goldfish.

(10) Provision of opportunities for normal family

life. On the other hand, there can be no real family

life without the opportunity to be together. Mealtime is a natural meeting time. But being together

at meals implies sufficient space and sufficient furniture. Many low-income families do not have

enough chairs or a large enough table for all the

family to sit down to a meal at once, nor space

enough to contain the chairs and table if they owned

them. Similarly, being together for leisure time

activities requires something more than enough

cubage to prevent asphyxiation. And well-rounded

family life cannot exist without space enough for

occasional hospitality to outside friends.

(11) Opportunities for normal community life. This implies living in a normal, which is to say a

socially wholesome neighborhood, with educational

and recreational opportunities for all members of the

family.

(12) Facilities for the performance of household

tasks without undue physical or mental fatigue. We

have been accustomed to think of conveniences and

31
labor savers as nice if you can afford them, but a bit

of a luxury. Our grandmothers did not have them,

so we can do without. So we can if we have to. But

it is time we learned to think of them in terms of

health. Excessive hours, unnecessary fatigue, unnecessary nervous strain, are just as bad for the

housewife as for the factory worker. If the housewife is also a mother, the interest of society in her

welfare is even greater.

(13) Facilities for maintenance of cleanliness of the

dwelling and of the person. Presumably cleanliness

of clothing and household linen are intended to be

included. It is interesting that this item should come

here rather than under protection against contagion.

Twenty gallons of water per day per person, hot and

cold, and a bathtub or shower for each family are

stipulated.

(14) Possibility of reasonable esthetic satisfaction in

the home and its surroundings. There is much in this

item which hooks up with mental health and successful family life, which obviously should be attainable

at all income levels.

(15) Concordance with prevailing social standards

of the local community. This is the only one of the

30 points on which the commentator entertains

doubts. It sounds too much like "keeping up with

the Joneses."

3. Protection against contagion : (16) Provision of a water supply of safe, sanitary

quality, available to the dwelling.

(17) Protection of the water supply system against

pollution within the dwelling.

(18) Toilet facilities of such a character as to minimize the danger of transmitting disease. A private

32
toilet for every family is the first requirement, with

sewer connection where sewers exist.

(19) Protection against sewage contamination of the

interior surfaces of the dwelling.

(20) No insanitary conditions in the vicinity of the

dwelling. These include conditions on the premises,

as uncovered garbage or overflowing cesspool. They

may also include neighborhood conditions over which

the householder has no control.

(21) Exclusion of vermin which may play a part in

the transmission of disease. Screening keeps out flies and mosquitoes. Solid construction and tight joints are required to make a house ratproof. Freedom

from bedbugs requires continued vigilance.

(22) Provision for keeping milk and other food undecomposed. It is noteworthy that the means by

which the objective is obtained are not stipulated. If a ventilated larder serves the purpose in a cold

climate during the winter months, well and good.

But it will not be safe in summer.

(23) Sufficient space in sleeping rooms to minimize

contact infection. Experience in barracks and institutions has shown the danger of contagion by mouth

spray where beds are not at least three feet apart.

A sleeping room should have a minimum of SO square

feet floor space per occupant. Double-decker beds

are disapproved.

4. Protection against accidents:

(24) Use of such building materials and construction

methods as will minimize the danger of structural collapse.

(25) Control of conditions likely to cause fires or promote their spread.

(26) Adequate facilities for escape in case of fire.

33
(27) Protection from electrical shocks or burns.

(28) Protection from gas poisoning.

(29) Protection against falls and other mechanical

injuries in the home.

(30) Protection of the neighborhood against the hazards of automobile traffic. This is another instance of

the impossibility of really good home conditions

without good neighborhood conditions. Automobile

traffic should be routed around, not through, a

residential area. The Radburn superblock, with its

interior park safe for children and other pedestrians

is one solution of this problem. If urban life is to

endure, it must find a way to recapture some of the

nerve-relaxing security of the countryside.

Out of the fullness of living, which is health, comes

the joy of living. Out of it also comes efficiency

whether in school, factory, office, or home. The individual has a right to his health and joy in life. The

Nation has need of his efficiency.

"What is prudence in the conduct of every private

family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom."

So wrote Adam Smith, father of orthodox economics,

in The Wealth of Nations.

Every prudent private family seeks a home con- ducive to the mental and physical health of all its

members, but especially of its children. It can

scarce be folly for the Commonwealth to pursue the

same objective.

34
MfftfS

Chicago: Four families live in these two houses seven people on the

top floor of the house at the left. Note the broken steps: From these

houses and others like them, as well as from Trumbull Park Homes

(see next picture) come workers for neighboring factories.

Trumbull Park Homes, PWA Housing Division development, managed by the Chicago Housing Authority under lease agreement with

the USHA.
OHO

J-H

<u 2

-C fcb

4-1 O

M-H b? o ^

<u <^ 51

PQ
CHAPTER V

How Do Health Experts Rate

Our Housing?

Adequacy of Urban Housing in the United States, as Measured by the Degree of Crowding and the Type >ryL

Sanitary Facilities, is the title of Bulletin 5 of the

preliminary reports of the National Health Survey.

It was published in May 1938.

The National Health Survey was conducted during

the winter of 1935-36 by the United States Public

Health Service, with financial grants from the Works

Progress Administration.

It involved a house-to-house canvass of 800,000

families, including 2,800,000 persons in 84 cities and

23 rural areas in 19 States. The sample was not quite

5 percent of the urban population of the United

States, less than half the size of that covered by the

original Real Property Inventory of 64 cities. But

as the cities were carefully picked to afford a cross section of the Nation, there is no reason to doubt that

the Health Survey is representative. The rural

areas, on the other hand, were merely special studies.

In cities of over 100,000 inhabitants, random samples

of census enumeration districts were covered 100 percent. In all smaller communities the coverage was

complete for each city.

Data obtained from the families surveyed include:

1. A great deal of personal information (covering

race, family make-up, occupation), income, rent,

number of rooms, and type of toilet facility.

35
2. A record of illness or disability of every member of the family on the day of the visit, and of disabling illnesses lasting 7 days or more during the preceding 12 months, as well as serious permanent physical impairments.

3. Facts about kind and amount of medical care, nursing service, and hospitalization during the preceding 12 months.

The two important housing items included in the

study show (1) the extent of room congestion,

(2) the extent of substandard types of toilet.

It was explicitly recognized that many other health

hazards are found in deficient housing, such as lack

of light, lack of ventilation, dilapidation to name

only a few. If it had been possible to record them

all, the percentage of deficient housing indicated

would have been substantially higher.

The bulletin affords a useful preliminary analysis

of these two categories of substandard housing by

geographic area,

1 size of city,2 family income,8 and

color, as well as by individual city and by rural area. CROWDING

The definition adopted in respect to "crowding" is the same as that used in Real Property Inventory 1934

(Summary and 64 Cities Combined).4 Room crowding begins when there are more persons than rooms

(e. g., 5 adults to a 4-room home). For higher

degrees of congestion, the classification is different.

The Health Survey, quite understandably, introduces the class "more than one and one-half persons

1 East, Central, West, and South.

8 Population of 500,000 and over, 100,000 to 500,000, 25,000 to 100,000, and

under 25,000.

1 Relief families; nonrelief families with incomes under 31,000, 31,000 to $2,000, 32,000 and over. For the individual cities, the income class 32,000 to 33,000 is also distinguished.

4 See footnote 2, table 4, p. 10. 36
per room" (as 7 persons in 4 rooms), which the

R. P. I. lacks. It does not go beyond "two or more persons per room," whereas the R. P. I. has

a class "more than three persons."

There is no important difference between the two

surveys in classification of sanitary facilities.

WPopularfallacy No. 8. That the criteria of crowding

refer to individual bedrooms.

The critic asks sarcastically whether a bedroom

occupied by a husband and wife, or by two brothers

or two sisters is to be called "crowded" and therefore

substandard ? The layman should understand clearly

that person-per-room density means the average in a given household obtained by dividing all the persons

in the family by all the rooms in the house (not

counting bathrooms, halls, or storage spaces). In

counting persons, children between 1 and 10 years

are usually counted one-half and infants under a year old are not counted at all. On the assumption that the sample studied is representative, the report concludes that:

"3,000,000 urban families in the United States

have fewer rooms in their homes than there

are persons.

"1,000,000 live in dwellings with more than one and one half times as many persons as rooms. "700,000 live in dwellings with at least twice as many persons as rooms."

Of the urban households visited, 16.1 percent were

found to contain more persons than rooms. This

corresponds very closely to the percentage recorded

for the 64 cities of the original Real Property Inventory, which was 16.8 percent.

1 All degrees of crowding are very much worse in the

i See ch. II, table 4. 37

176336 40 4
South than in the other geographic sections. The

West makes the best showing and the distinction

between East and Central is slightly in favor of the

East. As here used, the South includes South

Atlantic and Gulf States. The West includes the

West Coast States and Utah.

The following table taken from the report makes

these relationships very clear:

TABLE 8. PERCENTAGE OF HOUSEHOLDS SHOWING VARIOUS

DEGREES OF CROWDING, BY GEOGRAPHIC AREA

Geographic area
TABLE 10. PERCENTAGE OF FAMILIES SHOWING VARIOUS DEGREES OF CROWDING, BY FAMILY INCOME AND RELIEF

STATUS

Annual family income and relief status
SANITARY FACILITIES

Thirteen percent of the urban households from

which information was secured either had no indoor

flush toilet or had to share one with other households. (Compare 13.5 percent in the original Real

Property Inventory.) Of these, approximately half

were for the exclusive use of one family, but were

substandard in location or type. The shared ones were in part objectionable only because shared; in

part, on all counts.

As in the case of room crowding, the South makes

the worst showing and the West the best. More

strikingly than in crowding, the small communities

are the worst offenders in respect to sanitary facilities

and the large cities have done best.

TABLE 12. PERCENTAGE OF HOUSEHOLDS WHICH EITHER DO

NOT HAVE PRIVATE INDOOR FLUSH TOILETS, OR SHARE THEM,

BY GEOGRAPHIC AREA AND SIZE OF CITY
they should show a large percentage of outdoor

privies was to be expected. The 16 rural counties

of Georgia, however, include a still more backward

category no toilet facilities of any sort. The Georgia counties also showed a high degree

of crowding, 43.6 percent of households having more

persons than rooms, 24.7 percent being in the over- crowded and 18 percent in the greatly overcrowded

groups. This bears out earlier investigations by the

Children's Bureau and others as to rural room congestion in certain localities.

41
CHAPTER VI

The Cost of Bad Housing

in Preventable Sickness and Death

Spot maps and rate maps.

Many studies have been made in recent years of

the relative frequency in the several sections of a community of death, reportable illness, juvenile delinquency, crime, fires, illegitimacy, and other phenomena of which city records are kept. This type of

study has the advantage of requiring no field work,

and the merit of portraying results to the eye very

dramatically in spot maps and, for some purposes

more accurately, in rate maps. Interpreted with

proper caution, such studies are immensely valuable.

The study may be of all deaths, or of deaths of

children under 1 year of age. It may relate to deaths

from some special cause, as tuberculosis. It may be

concerned with living cases reported, as of typhoid

fever or venereal disease. Whatever the subject, the

home address of each case is represented by a dot on

the city map. The study is either for 1 calendar

year, or, if greater accuracy is desired, or the number

of cases is small, for 2, 3, or 5 years, from which an

average may be obtained.

In general, spot maps show a striking concentration of such cases in slum areas. The first caution to be observed is that slum areas are usually also congested areas. One reason why

they have more deaths and illnesses is because they

have more people per acre. To get around that

42
difficulty, we calculate rates in relation to census

population. The general death rate of any area is the number of deaths occurring during the year per

1,000 of population in the area. An infant mortality

rate is the number of deaths under 1 year of age per

1,000 live births.

Substitution of area rates for spots on the city map

will usually modify the picture, but the death rates

and some sickness rates in slum areas will still be very

much higher than in good residential areas often

twice as high, sometimes more.

Respiratory diseases communicated by spray in

coughing and sneezing, and in general all diseases re- sulting from contact infection will find more victims

where room congestion, and above all bed congestion,

is prevalent.

A point to be taken into account is relative racial

immunity. Negroes and American Indians present

low immunity to tuberculosis infection as compared

with the white race, who have been subjected to it for a much longer time. (On the other hand, the

Negro race has a high degree of immunity to the

effects of hook-worm infection, an African affliction

which is very damaging to whites.)

Diphtheria, though doubtless its spread is increased by congested living, is much more affected

by the use of antitoxin. The relative thoroughness

of immunization of children in one district as compared with another has more effect on the diphtheria

rate than the quality of housing or the degree of room

congestion.

Popular fallacy No. 9. That moving slum population into good housing immediately reduces sickness

and death rates to a minimumfigure.

43
CHART V. DISEASE AND DELINQUENCY CONCENTRATION IN LOW-RENTAL AREAS, RICHMOND, VA.

Average Monthly

Residential Rate for Each Census Tract shown as follows Less than $15. 15 24.99 25-34.99H

35

V a. Rental map, 1934

V b. Tuberculosis cases active during 1934 44
V c. Juvenile delinquency convictions during 1934

V d. Adult delinquency convictions during 1933 FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY RESEARCH AND STATISTICS DIVISION UNITED STATES HOUSING AUTHORITY RESEARCH SECTION AUGUST I. 1939 Source: Richmond City Planning Commission, Statistical Data Relative to Housing, 1935. 45
Many factors are involved besides housing, such

as poverty, ignorance, lack of medical care, and sometimes hereditary handicaps. All we know is that

better environment helps. Improvement which can be measured statistically requires several years to

develop fully. In the long run, the health of transplanted slum families does approach the city average.

It is the children who show the most marked improvement soonest.

Cleveland. Before the Real Property Inventory

got under way Howard Whipple Green had spent

years plotting and analyzing health data by census

tracts for the Cleveland Health Council. He grouped

the census tracts into 14 economic areas on the basis

of rents and rent-equivalents derived from value of

owned homes. In the lowest, rents averaged under

$15 per month, in the highest, over $100. The two

highest rent areas combined had a population just over 100,000 and a general death rate of 7.2. The

two areas of lowest rent (under $20) had a population

of similar size and a death rate of IS more than

twice as high. The average for the city was 11.

The infant mortality rate varied from 26 to 110 per

1,000 live births, in accordance with economic area, and as compared with 53.2 for the city.

Tuberculosis death rates Mr. Green first adjusted

for age and sex, since the disease is not equally dangerous at all ages or for both sexes. Then he classified by race. Here we see the rate per 100,000 of

white population dropping from 127 in the two lowest

rental areas to 19 in the two highest. The rate per

100,000 of colored population is 550 in the two lowest

economic areas and 221 in the highest having sufficient Negro population to tabulate. This is the

seventh from the bottom, where the white rate is 45.

46
These figures show a much greater variability in

tuberculosis death rates than in general death rates. The Negro death rate from tuberculosis is seen to

be roughly four times as high in Cleveland as the

white. But it also is seen to diminish along a

fairly parallel line as rents rise.

Similar studies, though few so elaborate, have been

made more recently in a large number of cities, among

them Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Wilmington,

Richmond, Birmingham, Chicago, Indianapolis, Detroit, Milwaukee.

Detroit. A Detroit survey of the East Side slum

area of SO blocks, in which the PWA housing project,

Brewster, has been located, showed a tuberculosis

rate 6% times the city average and a pneumonia rate

8 times the average. It is a predominantly Negro

area. New York. New York City figures show general

and infant death rates highest and tuberculosis

and venereal disease most prevalent in the substandard areas of Negro Harlem, with East Harlem

and the lower East Side, and considerable sections

of the middle East Side, Yorkville, the middle and

lower West Side, and what remains of the tenement

district south of Canal Street following. Altogether,

in spite of its luxury housing and its considerable

volume that is decidedly high grade, the Borough of

Manhattan, with its masses of unredeemable old-law

tenements, runs a general death rate about twice as high as the moderate income Boroughs of the Bronx

and Queens. The latter, each with more than a

million inhabitants, have been built up largely since

1920 and contain very little housing which antedates

the tenement-house law of 1901. Their general

death rates in recent years run between 7 and 8 per

47
1,000, and Manhattan's, about 14, with the city

average between 11 and 12. Brooklyn and Staten

Island furnish intermediate conditions and intermediate rates. New Zealand and Holland. The two nations with

the lowest general and infant death rates in the

world are New Zealand and Holland. One is old,

densely populated, highly urbanized, and industrialized. The other is new, sparsely settled, and predominantly agricultural. Both have been outstanding in their attention to housing conditions since the

turn of the century.

It is not suggested that housing is the only reason why their people are so much healthier than those

of the United States. It is undoubtedly one reason.

TABLE 13. AVERAGE ANNUAL DEATH RATE AND INFANT MORTALITY RATES: UNITED STATES, HOLLAND, AND NEW

ZEALAND i

Country
TABLE 14. DEATH RATES: AVERAGES FOR 5 YEARS 1

Place
bury, Quaker cocoa manufacturer and philanthropist,

just outside of Birmingham, for his own workers and

others. Living conditions are admirable. The

Floodgate Street area in Birmingham was an insanitary working-class section.

Before-and-after statistics.

What evidence do we have that improving people's

housing, without changing anything else in their

circumstances, will make them healthier? Our American experience is still in the making. The volume

of recorded experience from abroad is not particularly impressive. A number of countries which have

carried out extensive subsidized public housing programs have not done any appreciable amount of slum

clearance. Where it has occurred, the families moving into the new houses have not always been the ones displaced by the clearance. The only countries

which habitually rehouse the families displaced are Great Britain and Holland. Even Great Britain

started only recently, except in the case of Liverpool,

which adopted the policy in 1897.

Holland has statistics on many subjects but not

on this. Her women housing inspectors know well

enough that in general the family health improves in

better surroundings. Her teachers know the children

are healthier and cleaner. But they write no dissertations about it. Liverpool statistics are worn almost threadbare in

this country (nobody bothers about them any more

in England), but they are still interesting. Take

two unhealthy areas which were picked by the health

officer in 1902 for clearance, because they had a general death rate ranging from 40 to 60 per 1,000

and a tuberculosis death rate around 400 per 100,000.

SO
The two areas had a population just over 10,000.

In one of them, 79 percent and in the other 94 percent of the displaced families were rehoused. It was several years before the work was completed.

During the 4-year period 1909-12, the health officer

reported that the general death rate had fallen more

than one-half, and the tuberculosis rate had dropped

to 120. 1 There are a number of similar Liverpool statistics,

covering a period of about IS years. They did not

take account of reduction in the general death rate

and tuberculosis rate of the city during the interval,

but otherwise they seem to be a pretty fair approach

to that isolation of the housing factor which is so

difficult to secure. Dr. M'Gonigle's Study at Stockton-on-Tees.

IW Popular fallacy No. 10. That the most recent and

scientific British investigations have proved that families left in slums are healthier than those moved to

model housing estates. It is sometimes added that, in consequence, the

British are abandoning further plans for slum

clearance.

This is, of course, sheer nonsense. The British

work in slum clearance continues at full speed. The

kernel of fact under the pyramid of fiction was a very

sensible little study made by the health officer of a coal-mining town in Durham with about 50,000 population Stockton-on-Tees. In 1927 it was hit so hard by the depression in the coal extraction industry

that the town council decided it could not afford to

complete a slum clearance and rehousing scheme

which it had under way. It was halted at the point

1 Source: Local Government [Board of Great Britain, 42d Annual Report, 1912-13. 51
where 152 families in the Housewife Lane Area on

one side of Smithfield Street had been moved to a new cottage estate built for them on vacant land,

Mount Pleasant, while 289 families on the other side

of Smithfield Street were left in their slum homes.

This gave the health officer, Dr. M'Gonigle, the

opportunity to use the families which had remained

in the slum area as a control and to compare their

vital statistics with those of the transplanted families

during the next 5 years. As is the English practice

where slum clearance is contemplated, statistics for

the previous 5 years were already available.

TABLB 16. GENERAL DEATH RATE PER 1,000 POPULATION:

S-YEAR AVERAGES 1923-27 AND 1928-32 *

District
families living at a bare subsistence level to double

their outgo for rent, they necessarily reduce their

expenditures for food, and malnutrition can easily

damage them more than good housing can help them.

Ninety percent of the Mount Pleasant families had

an unemployed head "on the dole." In their slum

homes they had paid an average of 4 shillings 8 pence

a week. At Mount Pleasant they had to pay an

average of 9 shillings almost twice as much as before. Studies of individual family budgets showed

the effect on food purchases.

Dr. M'Gonigle says: "There appeared to be coming into being a tendency to stereotype practical hygiene on an environmental basis." He thought it time to bring nutrition into the picture, which is just

what his study does. In the United States, the re- verse situation exists. It may be permitted to hope

that in both countries hereafter both subjects will be

given the weight that belongs to them. Few will

cavil at the conclusion that no family should be

forced to secure good housing at the cost of going

without adequate food.

53

1 7683640 5
CHAPTER VII

The Cost of Bad Housing in Juvenile

Delinquency and Crime

SPOT AND RATE MAPS of juvenile delinquency and

adult crime show patterns similar to death and dis- ease maps, but with sharper contrasts. Ideological

contact contagion seems to be more virulent than

physical.

Roughly, it is typical to find a fourth of the delinquency cases in a city occurring among an eighth of

the population who live on a sixteenth of the area. As these areas are of mixed usage, the relative congestion of the part used for residence is even greater.

Where rate maps with smaller subdivisions are used,

the spread is wider. Clifford R. Shaw, in his Delinquency Areas, Series //, "Alleged delinquent boys in

Chicago dealt with by the probation officer in 1926,"

shows variations from in certain outlying residential areas to 26.6 percent just south of the Loop.

Shaw's classic study, which appeared in 1929, re- mains the most important contribution in this field.

He called it, "A study of the geographic distribution

of school truants, juvenile delinquents, and adult

offenders in Chicago," and plotted on maps of the

city more than 60,000 home addresses, distributed in

10 series, extending over nearly 30 years.

Throughout the long period, whether a series

dealt with adults or juveniles, male or female, the

heaviest concentration of cases was in the downtown

area of bad housing around the Loop, the next great54
est concentration being near the stockyards and steel

mills. The housing story of these areas may be

followed in a series of surveys by university students

recorded in The Tenements of Chicago, 1908 to 1935t by Edith Abbott.

Popular fallacy No. 11. That the prevalence of

crime and delinquency in certain districts is due to the

inherently criminal tendencies of racial groups living

there.

Shaw's maps showing 30-year permanence of high

delinquency rates in the same localities ought to dispose of this fallacy, because during that period the

racial make-up of the population changed several

times. At first it was predominantly Irish and German, then Polish, Jewish, and Italian. Last of all,

Negroes from the South came in, and a few Mexicans.

The last comers get the worst housing and show the

highest crime and delinquency rates. As they move

into better neighborhoods, they adopt better standards of behavior.

Maladjustment due to ignorance of language or customs accounts for some of the troubles of newcomers. Popular fallacy No. 12. That substandard housing is the direct cause of delinquency and crime and

that its elimination would result in a crimeless world.

Probably no responsible person would defend that

thesis, but elaborate studies have been undertaken

to disprove it. Shaw, who is not especially interested in housing,

said in a paper on Housing and Delinquency at the

President's Conference on Home Building and Home

Ownership in 1931:

"The conclusion . . .is that delinquency is con- 55
centrated in the areas of bad housing and is associated

with a complex of conditions, of which bad housing is only one. ... A reduction in delinquency rates is most likely to result from a program which combines

improvements in housing with modifications in other

elements in the complex ... at the least, the development of improved housing in neighborhood units."

[Italics ours.]

Neither steam heat nor a bathtub prevents delinquency. Abraham Goldfeld, manager of Lavanburg

Homes, New York, has made a statistical study of the

277 delinquency cases recorded in 1934 from 196

city blocks in East Harlem and of certain physical

features of the delinquents' homes in comparison

with the homes of the more than 31,000 nondelinquent

children of the same age in the area. The population

contained Italians, Jews, Negroes, Puerto Ricans, and

others. There was the usual admixture of business

and industry with tenement houses of varying age

and degree of undesirability. Goldfeld concludes

that "there is no relationship between bad housing in

its physical aspects and juvenile delinquency as re- vealed by court records," but that "juvenile delinquency is correlated positively to some degree with

social factors in housing." Regrettably, it was not

found possible to tabulate room crowding.

Like the M'Gonigle study, Goldfeld's study is open

to criticism as dealing with too few cases for statistical validity. By the time 217 boy and 60 girl

delinquents are distributed among Goldfeld's four

grades of tenements, with classifications for presence

or absence of steam heat, bathtub, or private toilet,

the numbers are not impressive. But as with the

M'Gonigle study, there is no reason to question the

validity of the conclusions.

56
A bad neighborhood counts for more than a bad house

as a factor in delinquency. Probably. But what do

we mean by neighborhood ? City planners and architects think of surrounding buildings and open spaces.

Sociologists and psychologists mean available human

society. Much muddled discussion has resulted

from failure to distinguish between the two. Both

are important. But a child is vastly more affected

by the company he keeps than by bricks, mortar, or plumbing.

The slum is a social catch-all. Human society in a slum area is extremely mixed. A majority of the

adults are self-respecting, law-abiding workingmen

and women in low-paid or irregular occupations, who

want to bring their children up right and have

them get on in the world. A smaller group has

been pushed down from a higher income level by

illness, accident, or incompetence. But in inescapably close physical proximity to the others, next door,

upstairs, across the hall, are the still smaller minority

that does the damage the underworld of vice and

crime and corrupt politics. Cleveland maps of homicides and of houses of prostitution follow the same

pattern as tuberculosis and lowest rents. "Big

shots," formerly local boys, who come back to attend

mysterious meetings in the room behind the saloon,

are pointed out to admiring boys by older youths and

possess the glamour of romantic adventure and

material success. School and church, settlement

house and parents present other ideals, and the

majority of the children do not become criminals;

but the casualty rate is high.

57
It does not pay to buck nature.

For a hundred million years, mammalian mothers,

from opossum to man, have guarded their young

until they could fend for themselves, teaching them

by example and occasional castigation the techniques to follow and the dangers to avoid. As

higher and higher types of animals appeared, the

period of immaturity lengthened, presumably be- cause there was survival value in longer protection

and education. It remained for the urban tenement district to create a physical setting, indoors

and out, where it is impossible for a present-day

working-class mother to obey her age-old instinct to

watch over her young. Children must play. If

there is no room to play indoors, they must go

outdoors. If there is no house yard, mere infants are forced into the street and out of their mother's

sight. She may not be a particularly enlightened

mother, but she is well intentioned. Her censorship

of her child's playmates, could she exert it, would

protect him from the grosser forms of moral contagion. As it is, he imitates what catches his

attention, and bad behavior is more striking than

good. The worst damage is done before he is old

enough to go to school.

The proportion of delinquent girls is always much

lower than of boys, whether because they are better

guarded, more docile, or simply less enterprising.

There is similar sex difference in adult crime.

Indirect influence of physical environment.

Most of the offenses which bring children before

the juvenile court are not serious in themselves or

in intent. They inconvenience their elders because

of neighborhood congestion. Playing ball does not

58
get a boy into trouble in a surburban district.

There is nothing sinful about tag. But if youngsters racing along the sidewalk knock fruit from the

grocer's stand, he may call the policeman. If the

idea takes root that merchant and policeman are natural enemies of childhood, an unfortunate

attitude results.

Lack of repair encourages destructiveness. Few

are the small boys who can resist the temptation to

pick a little more plaster from a hole in the wall.

Roofs and fire escapes instead of trees for climbing,

vacant lots full of rubbish, vacant premises easily

broken into, supply adventure and hide-aways for

secret meetings, perfectly normal in child life, but

with unwholesome possibilities in the slums.

Overcrowding within the home, obtruding sights

from uncurtained windows across narrow^ courts,

obtruding sounds through thin partitions, thrust

sex in its unloveliest aspects on the attention of

young children. Dark halls and stairways, toilets

without privacy, create hazards for young children

as serious as the traffic hazards of the street. The loss of hope.

So long as immigrants poured in and cities grew

rapidly, there was movement of population out of

the slums as well as into them, as the Chicago

studies show. It was a cruel ordeal, lasting for years,

through which newcomers must pass. Many fell by

the way, but many, perhaps the majority, won through

to something better. The atmosphere was one of

hope. Now all that is changed. The last comers

are caught in the slums and no natural current draws

them out. The way is still open to the exceptionally

gifted. But most people are not exceptionally gifted.

59
Unfortunately, in addition to the road of exceptional

achievement, there is another much easier path to

material comfort, a short cut glaringly visible in the

worst slums the way of the underworld.

A recent writer, Harry Manuel Shulman, in Slums

of New York, 1938, based on case studies over a period of years, accuses the slum of being "not only

a grimy mass of brick and mortar that can be torn

down and demolished; it is also a way of living a whole series of habits, attitudes and sentiments. . . . The slum is imprinted in the minds that occupy it, both

adults and children. . . . The homes were usually

physically clean, but barren and overcrowded. There

was no privacy, no consequent possibility for any

individual to have scope for his own activities and

interests and no possibility of a systematic and organized family life. . . . The growth of a social class

who are content with inferior housing, inferior living

standards and inferior ethical control over the

younger generation constitutes a menace to urban

community life. The political enslavement of slum

population by corrupt political machines and excessive contributions of slum areas to juvenile delinquency and crime, constitute social problems of the

first magnitude."

What Shulman calls "content" is the apathy that

accompanies hopelessness. Like the stoical accept- ance of an incurable disease, it vanishes if an available remedy is discovered.

"The Training of the Human Plant."

A little book with that title appeared in 1907 by

Luther Burbank, the California naturalist who developed new and better varieties of fruits, vegetables,

and potatoes on his experimental farms. He felt 60
Slums were cleared to provide light, air, space, safe places for children

to play in the center of a crowded city. A balcony for every family.

A PWA Housing Division development, managed by the Cleveland

Housing Authority under lease agreement with the USHA.

Dark and airless: Living room and bedroom in a Cincinnati slum

cleared to give way to the Laurel Homes project.
Light, airy, sanitary community laundry in a PWA Housing Division

development: Techwood Homes, managed by the Atlanta Housing

Authority under lease agreement with the USHA.

Doing his best to help mother who is doing her best to make a home in a Washington, D. C., alley dwelling.
Jane Addams Houses, Chicago. PWA Housing Division development managed by the Chicago Housing Authority under lease agreement with the USHA. Sprays furnish the safest kind of water

play. Stone animals by WPA sculptors were designed for climbing.

Play space in a Brooklyn, N. Y. C, slum fire escapes for trees. Typical of large cities, North, East, South, and West.
Reading under the trees, Parklawn, Milwaukee, Wis., PWA Housing

Division project managed by the USHA. Public park and playground, planned as part of the project, are maintained by the city.

Sidewalk loafing, Chicago, near Jane Addams Houses. Bodies and

minds are dulled by this sort of "recreation." Compare this with

the picture above.
that our melting pot had made us more "crossed"

than any other nation in the history of the world,

with enormous resulting possibilities both good and

evil. When he crossed varieties of plants, that was

only the beginning. Next came "selective environment.'

"I give the plants upon which I am at work in a

test, whether a single one or a hundred thousand,

the best possible environment. So should it be with

a child if you want to develop it in right ways. . . . Plants should be given sun and air and the blue sky;

give them to your boys and girls. . . . All animal life

is sensitive to environment, but of all living things

the child is the most sensitive. Surroundings act

upon it as the outside world acts upon the plate of

the camera. . . . A child absorbs environment. . . . Where shall we begin ? Just where we begin with the

plant, at the very beginning. ... In child rearing,

environment is equally essential with heredity."

61
CHAPTER VIII

The Cost of Bad Housing

In Excessive Taxes

IN ADDITION to the social costs of bad housing discussed in the last two chapters in terms of broken

human lives, there are crushing economic losses to

the individuals concerned. There are also serious

economic losses to industry through irregular attend- ance due to preventable illness and through lowered

general efficiency.

1 But there is in addition the more

readily measurable economic cost of slums in dollars

and cents to the taxpayers.

Indianapolis.

The earliest significant study dealing with the

economic cost of slums to appear was made by

R. Clyde White, director of the bureau of social

research of Indiana University, in the summer of

1933. It dealt with slum census tracts of deteriorated housing near the center of Indianapolis, selected

as probable areas of high economic drain.

Containing 10.4 percent of the population, they

absorbed approximately 30 percent of city hospital

service during the year 1932 and furnished 24 percent

of cases at the venereal-disease clinic and 19.1 percent of patients at the hospital for the insane. The

cost of extinguishing fires was 16.7 percent of the

total for the city. Almost 25 percent of what it

1 Reports by London manufacturers who have moved their plants to the Garden Cities, LetcWorth and Welwyn, refer to the gain in per capita output

and the great reduction in absences due to illness. 62
cost the city to arrest, try, and imprison misdemeanants, and 36 percent in the case of felons, was spent

on residents of the district.

Within the district a small area with a population

of 1,500 was selected for intensive study. An income

and expense statement was drawn up. Assessed valuations for the area, multiplied by the tax rate, gave

the theoretical income, from which was deducted the

32.55-percent tax delinquency to show actual income.

The total cost of the area to Indianapolis taxpayers

was $92,775, its total contribution in taxes $11,312.30,

leaving a deficit of $81,462.70. The average per

capita cost of government in Indianapolis was $38.56.

Within the area, it was $61.85.

Cleveland.

An Analysis of a Slum Area in Cleveland by the

Rev. R. B. Navin and others, under the general

supervision of Howard Whipple Green, appeared

early in 1934. A deteriorated central area was

chosen, containing 2.5 percent of the population

occupying only three-fourths of 1 percent of the city

area. Negroes and Italians were predominant.

Administrative expenses are assumed to be evenly

distributed. Direct service is the sort that can be

allocated to an address or an area, whether the service comes from city, county, or board of education.

Anticipated income from all sources, without deduction for tax delinquency, was contrasted with

expenditures.

The cost of direct services in the area to Cleveland

taxpayers in 1932 was $1,356,988, against which the

taxes assessed (not all collected, by any means) were

$225,035, leaving a deficit of $1,131,953. The per

capita cost to the city of operating this slum area 63
was $61.22, or a deficit above the revenue receivable

from it of 351.10 per capita.

Private welfare societies spent a large amount in

this area. The fact, however, has no direct bearing

on the subject of this chapter.

A number of other cities have since made similar

studies, which corroborate the Cleveland and Indianapolis results in a general way, without any important

new contribution either in method or fact.

Meanwhile, since all were based on selected areas

of bad housing, the objection was raised that probably

all residential districts run in the red, depending on

business and industrial districts to make up their

deficits.

Boston.

For this reason the city-wide study made in Boston

in 1935 under the supervision of the city planning

board, following a small-sample experimental study

of the previous year, has been extremely useful.

The inquiry presented many difficulties. For all- city purposes, expenses and receipts had to be allocated by area on a per acre basis. For many

purposes, including comparisons with other cities, calculations had to be per capita, but that method can

only be applied to residential districts. Five groups

of residential tracts were recognized as having common characteristics likely to be reflected in municipal

balance sheets. Altogether, there were eight groups : (1) Predominantly business; (2) predominantly industrial; (3) high rent (or value) housing; (4) miscellaneous residential (apartment houses and high density) ; (5) suburban residential (detached houses with

lawns and low density); (6) three-decker residential

(largely frame construction, relatively high density,

64
and extensive blight) ; (7) low rental, or central slum

districts; (8) unclassified districts and those where

more than 70 percent of the area is tax exempt (water,

parks, streets, institutions, and public buildings).

The Boston study was conducted in an extremely

conservative spirit, so that the differences shown between its various types of residential area are consistently understated.2 Findings were that the downtown business districts

and high-rent residential districts gave the city a handsome surplus of income over expenditure. Some

industrial areas showed a surplus, while others

showed a loss, the net result of all industrial areas being a small deficit. Miscellaneous housing had a small surplus, suburban housing a small deficit,

three-decker housing a larger deficit, and low-rent

housing much the largest deficit of all. It would be unwarranted to assume that all properly conducted census tracts show a balance between

taxes paid and services received, or that those in the

red are ipso facto parasitic. It is perfectly normal

for taxes from business districts to pay for schools in

residential districts. Incomes are earned in business

and industry for the express purpose of maintaining

homes and families. Similarly, if there are more

children in low-rent areas than in high-rent areas,

it is logical for their schools to cost more per acre or per capita. Moderate excess cost in the suburban

areas may be fully justified by the better health and

social conditions secured. T^ie situation becomes

pathological when low-rent areas are shown to be

more costly than others because of their high disease

and delinquency rates, or because of frequent fires.

J A very brief discussion of the methods employed will be found in "The

Costs of Bad Housing", Edith Elmer Wood, dnnals of the American Academy of

Political and Social Science, March 1937. 65
"About 7% percent of the net taxable area or 8 percent of the gross area of the city pays the

deficit incurred by the balance of the area available

for private use. In other words, the business area downtown and about 10 percent of the residential areas make up the loss from the industrial areas and

the suburban, three-decker, and low-rental residential areas. "The business area (2 percent of the total area of

the city) pays 72 percent of the deficit and the high

rental residential and the miscellaneous residential

tracts pay the balance, 28 percent ....

"About 22% percent of the population live in the

suburban areas, which cover 45 percent of the city's

total acreage and are responsible for about 18 percent

of the deficit. About 29 percent of the population

live in the three-decker areas, which cover over

11 percent and are responsible for 41 % percent of the

deficit. About 9 percent of the population live in the

low rental areas, which cover nearly 2 percent of the

area and are responsible for over 21 percent of the

deficit." 8 The Boston study establishes for Boston at the

period of the survey (and it will probably hold true

at other dates and for other cities) that some residential areas pay more taxes than they consume, but

more do not. All residential areas combined, except

the low-rent or definite slum area, show an average

per capita deficit of 310.81. The low-rent area has a per capita deficit of 348.24. It would be conservative

to interpret this as meaning that a deficit of 310.81

is due to normal residential characteristics, while the

difference between 348.24 and 310.81, or 337.43, is due to abnormal or slum-induced characteristics.

8 Report on the Income and Cost Survey of the City of Boston, 1935, City Planning Board. 66
In the Annals article already cited, the surprising

similarity of per capita deficits in slum sections of

Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Boston was pointed

out: 351.10 in Cleveland; 350.64 in Indianapolis

(after crediting delinquent taxes to correspond with

the others); 348.24 in Boston (in spite of methods

involving understatements).

Popular fallacy No. 13. That all the high tax ex- penditures in slum areas would automatically disappear

on the demolition of the slum buildings and the

rehousing of the population.

Certain purely material wastes do stop with their causes. Excess fire alarms due to rickety stoves,

unsafe chimneys, tinderbox roofs and stair halls, are an example. Excess cost of garbage and ash collection due to a multitude of unstandardized family

receptacles cluttering the sidewalk is another.4 Health, crime, and delinquency rates improve

gradually, but require several years, as many as

five, to show a striking change. A man with an advanced case of tuberculosis, a child deformed by

rickets, is not cured by moving into model housing.

A youth, whose coterie supply themselves with

spending money by selling lead pipes stolen from

empty houses, does not become, all at once, a Horatio Alger hero.

As mentioned in chapter VI, such British reports

as we have show that, over a period of years, transplanted slum populations approach the city average

* A city official in New York kept tab for a month on the amount of refuse removed from Knickerbocker Village, two city blocks of apartments, equipped

with incinerators, housing 4,338 people, and on collections from the same number of persons in adjacent old law tenements, with the following result: Residue from Knickerbocker Village, 46 cubic yards, or 4% loads; refuse from

old law tenements, 537 cubic yards, or 53J4 loads. The volume was almost 12 times as great in the old tenements, and it must have taken considerably more

time to collect each load from them. 67
in health and behavior. But it is idle to expect

such changes to take place overnight.

It is also idle to expect the rehousing of slum

populations, in and of itself, to abolish poverty or to

end public expenditures for unemployment and relief except to the extent that building new houses

furnishes employment and that improvement of

health and morale restores earning power.

Statistics are not a substitute for common sense.

68
CHAPTER IX

Housing Shortage in 1938 and

Probable Needs to 1950 (Nonfarm)

WHATEVER SURPLUS of housing was produced by

overbuilding during the 1920's and temporarily increased by the doubling up of unemployed families

during the worst of the depression has long since

disappeared through the combined effect of undoubling, increased number of families, and prolonged

underbuilding.

Local variations are considerable, but the country

as a whole is suffering from a housing shortage comparable to the one at the close of the World War.

In many places the shortage is acute, especially at

the lower rent levels, a fact which makes the demolition of unfit dwellings increasingly difficult. Cities

which have been active in that line have had to call a halt except to the extent that they are able to secure subsidized public housing to take its place.

Farm houses, though badly enough needed, are excluded from consideration here because of the lack

of building statistics in respect to them, because of

the difficulty of considering them apart from other

farm problems, and because their construction has never been a function of the building industry.

Economic factors of supply and effective demand,

incomes, and construction costs, will be taken up in

the next chapter. Here we deal only with present

and anticipated needs.

It has become the entirely logical fashion to speak

of quantitative and qualitative housing shortage.

69

176336 40 6
But the terms sound "highbrow" to the average busi- nessman. What is meant by the first is a numerical

shortage caused by the excess of families over dwellings. What is meant by the second is the number

of completely worn-out dwellings which ought to

have been demolished and replaced sometime ago.

It does not imply that they are going to be demolished immediately, or indeed at any particular time,

only that they ought to be.

As will presently appear, we have an actual numerical shortage of over 1% million dwelling units, which

is likely to increase between now and 1950, at the

rate of nearly 400,000 units per year, less any net

increase which takes place.

On the ultraconservative assumption that only

10 percent of American nonfarm housing had outlived its usefulness in 1938, that would mean about

2% million units ripe for junking. (The number of

nonfarm dwellings in 1938 was estimated by subtracting the shortage of that date from the number

of nonfarm families, as given in table 19.)

More than 300,000 other old houses will reach a

similar condition each year.

Population changes.

Our population is again increasing by excess of

immigration over emigration as well as by excess of

births over deaths, though in both respects much

more slowly than formerly, and at a progressively

diminishing rate. It is, however, not the population, but the number

of families which determines the demand for dwellings. Because the number of persons per family is decreasing, the number of families is increasing at a higher rate than the population.

70
Predictions for the future are based on an assumption of the continuance of present trends, which may

or may not prove to be justified. TABLE 17. ESTIMATED INCREASE IN NUMBER OF FAMILIES IN

THE UNITED STATES

Year
Besides giving us the number of new family units

built to compare with the net increase of families,

this table tells a dramatic story of a basic industry

in boom and depression. The chart is clearer still,

for it shows the high and low years of the previous

cycle, 440,000 units built in 1915 and 200,000 in 1918.

Note carefully that the earlier crest of the wave

was not nearly so high as in 1925, nor was the subsequent trough anywhere nearly so low nor so prolonged. There are reasons for that, and there are implications which we cannot afford to miss.

CHART VI. ESTIMATED NUMBER OF NONFARM

DWELLING UNITS CONSTRUCTED IN THE

UNITED STATES, 1915-38

OF DWELLIHC UNITS of O*EL!JNG uwrre JWOQOOO

ll

19 SO 1 'ZZ 35 3 37 FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY RESEARCH AND STATISTICS DIVISION UNITED STATES HOUSING AUTHORITY RESEARCH SECTION AUGUST 1, 1939 Sources: Construction Activity in the United States, 1915-37 and Construction Trends in the United States, 1937-38, U. S. Department of Commerce. During the World War years, labor had been

diverted into other activities than building houses,

and at the end of the war, the increase in building

costs introduced elements of uncertainty. Would

72
the new scale of prices last? Would people pay

them? There was, therefore, hesitancy about building, in spite of the admitted shortage of a million

dwelling units at the close of 1920, the pinch of rising

rents, and the very real demand.

Thinking in terms of the industry, it is obvious

that the army of skilled mechanics necessary for the

production rate of the middle twenties must have

exhausted all possible savings and become an army

of destitute unemployed during the middle thirties,

except as they abandoned their trade and found

other occupation. Employment in the building

trades has not reached the halfway mark even yet.

CHART VII. INDEXES OF DWELLING UNITS BUILT,

1919-37: UNITED STATES COMPARED WITH ENGLAND AND WALES (1929=100)

INDEX INDEX

1919 fcO '21 '22 '23 '24 '25 '26 '27 "28 '29 '30 '31 '32 '33 '34 '35 '36 1937 FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY RESEARCH AND STATISTICS DIVISION UNITED STATES HOUSING AUTHORITY RESEARCH SECTION AUGUST 1, 1939 Sources: Housing Policy in Europe, 1930, International Labor Office. Report of the British Ministry of Health, 1938; Serial No. R-694, Bureau of Labor Statistics. 73
It is obvious that human bodies are not so constituted that they can hibernate for a decade consuming

their accumulated fat. The building industry, a

basic one, needs to be rationalized or socialized or both until it operates with some degree of uniformity.

That building cycles do not necessarily follow similar patterns is shown by chart VII which compares

the indexes of dwelling units constructed in England

and Wales and in the United States from 1919 to

1937, the 1929 level being used as 100 in both cases. Both indexes were low at the close of the World War,

that of the United States rose steeply in a run-away

boom and fell with equal suddenness to a catastrophic

low. That of England and Wales rose more gradually, ran fairly level for some years, then rose again

CHART VIIL NUMBER OF DWELLINGS BUILT WITH

PUBLIC ASSISTANCE IN ENGLAND AND WALES,

1919-37

NUMBER OF DWELLING UNITS NUMBER OF DWELLING UNITS

180,000 I SOpOO

1919 '20 '21 '22 '23 '24 '25 '26 '27 '28 '29 '30 '31 '32 '33 '34 '35 '36 1937 FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY RESEARCH AND STATISTICS DIVISION UNITED STATES HOUSING AUTHORITY RESEARCH SECTION AUGUST 1, 1939 Sources: 1919-29, Housing Policy in Europe, 1930, International Labor

Office; 1930-37, British Ministry of Health. 74
and is going along now on a level nearly as high as our peak, with no sign of collapse. Why?

One reason might be that they had large-scale

public housing carrying most of the load when

private enterprise was weakest and dropping to

second place when private enterprise got its stride.

(See chart VIII.)

CHART IX. URBAN DWELLING UNITS CONSTRUCTED PER 100 FAMILIES IN UNITED STATES,

ENGLAND AND WALES, AND SWEDEN, 1920-29 AND

1930-37

WITHOUT PUBLIC ASSISTANCE WITH PUBLIC ASSISTANCE

1920-1929 1930-1937 UNITED STATES

1920-1929 1930-1937 ENGLAND ft WALES

1920-1929 1930-1937 SWEDEN FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY RESEARCH AND STATISTICS DIVISION UNITED STATES HOUSING AUTHORITY RESEARCH SECTION AUGUST 1, 1939 Sources: United States Statistics of Building Construction, 1920-37, U. S. Dept. of Labor, 1938. Families, U. S. Census, 1930. England and Wales Housing, British Ministry of Health, 1938, and unpublished data. Families, 1931 Census. Sweden Swedish Royal Social Board, Unpublished Data. Families, 1930

Census. 75
Another might be that private enterprise was wise

enough to concentrate on the low-rent and lowpriced sales market just above where the local

authorities operate.

Still another point was that neither the price of

materials nor other costs were permitted to rise

freely. (See chapter XL)

If these measures constitute partial socialization,

the British building industry has found the result

worth any unpalatable taste the medicine may have

had.

Chart IX adds the Swedish record for comparison.

If you were giving advice to a boy on choosing

a means of livelihood, could you conscientiously steer

him toward anything with such a record of feast or famine as residential construction in the United

States?

Conversions.

The conversion of a single-family house to use by

two or more families, or the cutting up of large

apartments into smaller ones may reflect the deterioration of a neighborhood or the changing demand

due to smaller families, or both. Obviously it is practised only on older buildings.

In only a few cities have adequate records of conversions been kept, so that we must make our

estimates from samples, which are not necessarily

representative. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has

unpublished data concerning 20 cities of varying

size and location. The largest and smallest seem to

have the highest conversion rates. Calculations

made in the Division of Research and Statistics of

the USHA arrive at 225,400 as the probable approximate number of additional family units created by

76
Stockholm: Cooperative apartments built on land rented from the

city on a 60-year lease. Simply designed, pleasant, and modern.
Workers' cottages, for large families, Vreewijk, Rotterdam. Built

by a limited-dividend society, financed by the Government.

jr

Children's playground, municipal housing estate, Liverpool. England.
this process for nonfarm families during the period

1930-38. During the 1920's the number may have

been somewhat larger.

Demolition and destruction.

Planned demolitions have been somewhat more

regularly recorded by building departments than

conversions. Dwelling units destroyed by fire, flood, or tornado have to be estimated from money losses

listed by insurance underwriters. The Construction

and Real Property Section of the Department of

Commerce estimates them at an average of 30,000

units per year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has

published demolition permit data from 149 cities in

Bulletin No. 650, Statistics of Building Construction,

1920 to 1937. It has also unpublished data for 24

smaller cities. A combination of their material with

calculations for total nonfarm population permits an

estimate which should be fairly reliable.

Nonfarm demolition, 1930-38 (building permit data) . 372,000

Nonfarm destruction due to fire, flood or tornado,

1930-38 240,000

Total 612,000

Rate of obsolescence.

We now have the elements for calculating numerical shortage. But what about the number of units

which may be expected to wear out year by year,

the so-called rate of obsolescence?

If only 1 percent of all dwellings wore out yearly, an average life of 100 years would be implied, which

admittedly is too long. In 1931 the Bureau of

Internal Revenue issued a report prepared at its request by the National Association of Real Estate

Boards, which put the annual depreciation rate of

77
frame single-family dwellings at 3 percent and their

average useful economic life at 33% years, with 2 percent and 50 years for brick or concrete construction.

For two-family or multi-family houses, the depreciation rate was higher. This table was prepared for

income tax purposes. There is no evidence that the

National Association of Real Estate Boards has ever used it as a guide in establishing selling prices.

On the other hand, a figure of 1% percent for

annual obsolescence would be considered conservative in business circles and is here adopted.

Tabulation of 725,526 dwellings by 5-year age

groups and structural condition shows that obsoles- cence (i. e., being in need of major repairs or unfit

TABLE 19. ESTIMATED NONFARM HOUSING NEEDS IN 1938, AND

ESTIMATED NEEDS 1938-50

1. Census number of nonfarm families, 1930 23, 028, 000

2. Estimated number of nonfarm families, 1938 1 . 25, 716, 000

3. Increase in number of nonfarm families, 1930-38 2, 688, 000

4. Estimated number of new dwellings constructed, 1930-38 1, 479, 000

5. Estimated increase in number of dwellings by conversion, 1930-38..._ 225,000

6. Increase in total supply of dwellings 1, 704, 000

7. Estimated number of dwellings demolished or otherwise destroyed, 1930-38 612,000

8. Net increase in supply of dwellings, 1930-38 1, 092, 000

9. Accumulated shortage as of 1938 (item 3 minus item 8) 1, 596, 000

10. Replacement needs as of 1938 (estimated at 10 percent of total dwellings) 2, 412, 000

11. TOTAL, NEW NONFARM DWELLINGS NEEDED IN 1938 4,008,000

12. Estimated number of nonfarm families, 1938 1 25, 716, 000

13. Estimated number of nonfarm families, 1950 31, 080, 000

14. Increase in number of nonfarm families, 1938-50 5, 364, 000

15. Replacement housing needed on the basis of 1% percent

yearly 3,907,000

16. TOTAL, CURRENT NEEDS, 1938-50 9, 271, 000

17. Grand total (item 11 plus item 16) 13,279.000

1 Estimates made by the Division of Economic Research, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, U. S. Dept. of Commerce. 78
for use) varies directly with age, as might have been

anticipated. It will be recalled that this also

showed in chart IV, giving the age and condition of

dwellings surveyed at Des Moines, Iowa.

So, after subtracting that conservative 10 percent

CHART X. ESTIMATED NONFARM HOUSING NEEDS

IN 1938 AND FROM 1938 TO 1950

ACCUMULATED HOUSING NEEDS, 1930-1938

INCREASE IN NUMBER

OF FAMILIES

INCREASE IN NUMBER

OF DWELLING UNITS

SHORTAGE

AS OF 1938

ACCUMULATED

REPLACEMENT NEEDS

TOTAL HOUSING NEEDS, 1938-1950

INCREASE IN NUMBER

OF FAMILIES

ADDITIONAL DWELLING

UNITS NEEDED FOR THEM

REPLACEMENT NEEDS

TOTAL TOTAL NONFARM HOUSING NEEDS BY OR BEFORE I960

TO MAKE UP ACCUMULATED

SHORTAGE AND REPLACE- MENT NEEDS AS OF 19 38 AND TO PROVIDE FOR ADDI- TIONAL HOUSING AND

REPLACEMENTS NEEDED BETWEEN 1938 AND 1950 EACH SYMBOL REPRESENTS 1,000,000 FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY RESEARCH AND STATISTICS DIVISION UNITED STATES HOUSING AUTHORITY RESEARCH SECTION AUGUST 1, 1939 79
of existing dwellings now ripe for demolition from

the 1938 supply, we may reckon that about 325,000

others (1% percent) will cease to render useful service annually, or 3,900,000 during the 12-year period.

Popular fallacy No. 14. That "substandard housing/' "insanitary housing," and "housing needing to

be demolished" are interchangeable terms.

Insanitary housing is, indeed, by definition substandard. Overcrowding renders any housing insanitary, but the appropriate remedy is the removal of

the too-large family to larger quarters and the substitution of a smaller family, not tearing down the

house. Under urban conditions, the lack of sewer- connected inside toilets, and lack of city water are highly insanitary and substandard. Yet if a city

has permitted otherwise unobjectionable houses to

be built in outlying sections ahead of the installation

of sewers and water mains, common sense suggests

speeding such installation rather than demolishing

the houses. Moreover, a considerable body of substandard housing can be made acceptable by repairs

and modernization.

For these reasons and others, the volume of substandard housing is much greater than the volume

reasonably recommended for demolition. On the

other hand, any slum clearance scheme will involve

the demolition of some houses which if located elsewhere, would not need to be demolished. No

locality large enough for neighborhood development

is made up 100 percent of housing unfit for use. One is tempted at this point to make a couple of

observations on the devotion to euphemisms of the

real estate vocabulary. (1) "Obsolescent" Memories of Latin verbs remind one that this word means

80
"becoming" or "beginning to be" obsolete. Yet the

very worst class of building encountered in the real

property inventories the Philadelphia bandbox

houses which collapsed and killed their inhabitants,

the New York rear tenement which horrified churchgoers when transported to the nave of St. John the

Divine are only "obsolescent." An obsolete house

is still to be discovered. (2) Everything made by the

hand of man, no matter how badly made, how completely worn out, how inappropriate to the location, or how defacing to the landscape, is politely and

forever referred to as an "improvement."

Vacancies.

We have so far said nothing about vacancies.

The Census of 1930 did not record them, nor did it show the number of extra or "doubled-up" families.

Our 1938 needs were therefore calculated on the

basis of restoring the 1930 status in that respect,

which is generally regarded as not far from normal.

The Real Property Inventories presented both

vacancies and extra families for the dates at which

they were made. From 20 to 34 cities, geographically

scattered, have kept fairly comparable records of

vacancies for some or all of the years 1930 to 1938.

By combining them, the following median vacancy

rates are obtained:

Year
There are wide variations among the individual

cities. But all had their high-vacancy points during

the trough of the depression, where, as we know

from the Real Property Inventory, it was balanced

by the doubling up of unemployed families with

relatives or friends. With returning jobs, the extra

families sought separate quarters and vacancies

fell in many places, to the danger point.

CHART XL RESIDENTIAL VACANCY IN NONFARM

AREAS IN THE UNITED STATES, 1930-37

UNITS VACANT

10

PERCENT OF

UNITS VACANT

10

1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY RESEARCH AND STATISTICS DIVISION UNITED STATES HOUSING AUTHORITY RESEARCH SECTION AUGUST 1, 1939 Source: Residential Building, Housing Monograph Series No. 1, 1939, by

Lowell J. Chawner, National Resources Committee.

Something like 5-percent vacancy is necessary to

give tenants freedom of choice, and anything below

3 percent is definitely a landlord's market. Houses

unfit for use form a disproportionate part of all vacancies. Inconveniently located dwellings also

figure largely in the list. And, of course, for a given

family, a vacancy beyond its income capacity has

no practical value.

82
To meet the housing needs indicated in table 19

and chart X would require an average annual building

output of 1,107,000 dwelling units.

Of the total 13,279,000 units which will be needed

by 1950, 6,960,000 (580,000 per year) would be

additional housing for increased population, which

has always been the field of private enterprise.

The somewhat smaller replacement needs, 6,319,000

(527,000 per year), would be the utmost range

within which public housing would operate. If even half of this need is met during the period, it will be a noteworthy achievement.

It should be clear that private enterprise will

have at least as large a field as it ever had, and that

the extensive no man's land between the two fields

should stimulate the inventive genius of both

camps.

83
CHAPTER X

The Housing Market

Supply and demand.

Under our present economic system, supply is supposed to flow in response to the stimulus of effective

demand. Effective demand for an article is the desire for it, coupled with the ability to pay its market

price. In the last chapter, we considered only needs,

which are quite a different matter. And on the

supply side we considered only dwelling units constructed, without reference to their cost. The next step is to study contemporary income

distribution and the selling or renting prices of the

new housing to see how well they correspond.

A hundred new houses built do not meet the needs

of 100 homeseekers if 80 of the houses are too expensive for 70 of the homeseekers. At most SO families

get what they need, while perhaps 25, attempting to

pay more than they are able, go the foreclosure road

to disaster, and 25 dwellings stand vacant for a long

time, suggesting overbuilding, and are eventually

disposed of at a loss. That is the sort of thing that

happened during the 1920's, when there came to be an oversupply of houses which only the top economic

third of the population could afford to live in. The

slums got progressively slummier. No one tore them

down. Families in the middle economic third wanted new housing, but went without or tried to buy

and lost their savings.

84
Foreclosures.

Home Loan Bank Board figures

1 justify an estimate of 1,850,000 nonfarm residential foreclosures

during the 13-year period 1926-38, inclusive. In that

count, a two-family or multifamily house would only

figure as one. We also know that approximately

1,000,000 additional homes would have been lost if the

Home Owners' Loan Corporation had not been established to rescue them. What would have become of

the lending institutions without that aid is a question

which must some day be faced without blinking if we

want to profit by the lesson.

If we add up the estimated nonfarm residential

units built from 1926-38, (table 18) we find they total

4,660,000 for the 13 years. We have no means of

knowing the number of residential structures that

represents, but in view of the substantial volume of

construction of two-family and multifamily houses,

the more than 2,860,000 actual and threatened foreclosures come unpleasantly close to balancing them.

It is not a healthy situation from any angle. It has

been disastrous for the industry and disastrous for

the families affected. There is no way of telling, of

course, how many of the foreclosed and threatened

houses were newly built and how many were older

ones. Nor is there any way of disentangling cause and effect. To what extent were the later foreclos- ures and near foreclosures brought about by the stock

market crash and following depression and unemployment? And to what extent did the widespread

disaster to home buyers, investors, and builders, already under way, help to precipitate the stock mar1 Source: Nonfarm Real Estate Foreclosures, published monthly, Federal Home

Loan Bank Board. From the total figures, 15 percent has been deducted as probably commercial foreclosures, in accordance with estimates of the Federal Home

Loan Bank Board. 85

17633640 7
ket crash and the depression and to prolong its

effects?

We can calculate the number of foreclosures from

the beginning of 1926 to the stockmarket crash, but

regrettably we have no national foreclosure figures

earlier than 1926. Such local records as we have,

CHARTXII NONFARM RESIDENTIAL FORECLOSURES1 AND REFINANCED MORTGAGES2 IN THE UNITED

STATES, 1926-38

NUMBER IN THOUSANDS

1,000

900

800

700 -

600

500

400

300

200

100

NUMBER IN THOUSANDS

1.000 900

800

700

600

REFINANCED MORTGAGES

FORECLOSURES

1926 '27 '28 '29 '30 '31 '32 '33 '34 '35 '36 '37 1938 FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY RESEARCH AND STATISTICS DIVISION UNITED STATES HOUSING AUTHORITY RESEARCH SECTION AUGUST 1, 1939

1 Estimated number.

a Loans made by Home Owners' Loan Corporation, June 12, 1933 June 12, 1936. Source: Federal Home Loan Bank Board. 86
notably those preserved by the Philadelphia Housing

Association, make it appear probable that the upward

jump started several years earlier.

The record until the appearance of the Home Owners' Loan Corporation in the role of rescuer was one of

undisturbed supply and demand and untrammeled

private enterprise. The disaster would seem to have

come from misjudging the market and misleading the

home purchasers. The former was no doubt unintentional, and -the latter may have been so to some

extent. The better type of salesman believes what

he says, which does not necessarily make it true. And of course not all salesmen are of that "better

type."

The prosperity era. American business during the 1920's believed in

permanent prosperity. Its mood was one of uncritical optimism. The most fantastic ideas were

held as to the standard of living of the American

workingman and the distribution of income in the

United States. The custom was to divide the national income by the population to arrive at the per

capita income, as if this meant something (beside

what would result from the highly unreal supposition

of its being evenly divided). It was generally as- sumed that the average family contained five persons,

which it did not. The per capita would then be

multiplied by 5, and the result ($3,750 at its highest) triumphantly claimed to be the income of

the "average American family."

This was muddle-headedness. What they were

averaging was incomes, not families. The big incomes at the top exerted all the influence. If, in a community of 100 households, 1 of them has an

income of $100,000 and 99 have incomes of $1,000,

87
the average income in that place is $1,990, but it does

not help the standard of living of the 99 one particle.

What the man on the street really thinks of when

he hears the loose term "average family" is probably

the "median family" or the middle one. The median

income is the one that counts in studying standard of

living. Brookings Institution estimated the median

family income in 1929 at $1,700, and the estimate was

probably somewhat high.

It was in 1926 that the New York World, to use its own words, "employed the Bureau of Business Research of New York University to make a city-wide,

house-to-house study of the families reading New

York's newspapers." As a result, it published a chart classifying the 1,317,794 families of New York

by their annual expenditures as well as their news- paper preferences. The "high" group, spending over

$7,500 a year, contained 79,321 families, or 6 percent

of the total. The "medium" group, spending from

$3,000 to $7,500 a year, contained 807,266 families, or 61.3 percent of the total, while the "low" group,

containing precisely 431,207 families, and spending

less than $3,000, constituted only 32.7 percent of

the total. Happy city!

If you read the whole report carefully, you dis- cover that instead of all the families in New York

being visited, a l-in-100 sample was used. If you

study the questionnaire employed in the field work,

you find nothing either about income or about ex- penditures. The present writer learned from a personal visit to the director of the Bureau of Business

Research that he had assumed income to be five times

rent and that neighborhood rents were inferred from

some particular rent incidentally learned by the field

worker. . . . And then people quoted this "scien-
tific" study to prove how prosperous the masses were

in New York!

During the same period a favorite way to arrive

at working-class income was to take hourly wage,

multiply it by 8 and then by 365.

Along with this easy optimism as to other peoples'

income came more easy optimism as to what a family

with a given income could afford to pay in buying a house. "Two and a half" "three times" "three

and a half times your income, economists tell us,"

the salesman would recite glibly, according to circumstances. And John and Mary, who had never bought a house before, believed that the agent must

know because that was his business and he was a very

pleasant person who drove them around in a new

car. Carrying charges, compared with rent, were

often described as only the payments on the mortgage. Taxes, insurance, repairs, or the special as- sessments which would come when the streets were

paved were frequently ignored. Lost interest on

the down payment was never mentioned. But John

and Mary were told they could spend rent plus

savings, because home ownership was the safest investment in the world. And what if sickness came?

Or a new baby? Or the job was lost? One didn't

discuss such things. It would be "selling America

short."

Housing market studies.

The residential construction industry now knows

that it overbuilt in the higher price ranges. Some

of it knows that second mortgages were a racket.

Much talk about quantity production and "automobilizing" the residential construction industry has

done little to reduce costs. Practically all the new

building is still for the top economic third of the

population.

89
Chart XIII, "Residential Construction for Families in the United States", illustrates this point. The

completely inverse relation of supply to need is graphically shown. Since all families must have

CHART XIIL RESIDENTIAL CONSTRUCTION FOR

FAMILIES IN THE UNITED STATES, BY INCOME

GROUPS (Data cover 28 cities) INCOME OF FAMIUES FAMILIES 8 HOUSING UNITS BUILT

UNDER $1,000

$1,000- 1,499

$1,500 - 1,999

$2,000 & OVER

EACH

EACH

REPRESENTS 200,000 FAMILIES REPRESENTS 20,000 UNITS FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY RESEARCH AND STATISTICS DIVISION UNITED STATES HOUSING AUTHORITY RESEARCH SECTION AUGUST 1, 1939 Sources: Family Income Distribution Derived from Health Survey, 1935-

36, U. S. Public Health Service, Sample Coverage.

Housing Units Built Derived from Building Permit Survey, 1929-35, Bureau

of Labor Statistics. 90
shelter, an ideal market system would produce it at

various prices in proportion to the number of families

whose incomes correspond to such prices. But the

picture shows at one end over 80 percent of the new

units built are of a price which only 18 percent of the

families could pay.

Ratio of income to cost of home.

The cost-income relationship is based on an as- sumption that a family can, on an average, afford

to live in a house costing twice its annual income.

No such relationship can, of course, be universally

valid. But in the interest of the small-income family

no larger ratio should be substituted. The Federal

Home Loan Bank Board uses 2% times income.

(The 3 and 3% times so often used by salesmen during the 1920's, never had any responsible authority

behind them.) As a maximum beyond which mortgage lenders should not make a loan, the Federal

Home Loan Bank figure is authoritative. But it should not be quoted to prove that any family can

safely purchase a house costing 2% times its annual

income.

Back in 1923, when Herbert Hoover was Secretary

of Commerce, an admirable little handbook for prospective home owners, How To Own Your Own Home,

was prepared by John M. Gries and James S. Taylor

and issued by the Division of Building and Housing

of the Bureau of Standards. Its advice is still good.

"The following table recognizes the fact that

families having the same annual income may not be

able to devote the same amount to the purchase of a home. For example, a family of two without dependents, situated in a village where living costs are

low, can pay out more annually for a home than can

91
a family with children and other dependents living

in a large city. . . . No rule can be set up that

will apply in all cases. It is assumed, however, in

this table, that the value of the house and lot will

lie between 1% and 2% times one's annual income,

the ordinary proportion being around 2 times."

[Italics ours.] Family budget experts would be in

accord with this.

Building permits.

Users of building permit statistics should bear in

mind that these represent the builder's advance estimate of construction costs. Land and its improvements are not included, nor is the anticipated profit.

To arrive at an estimate of the cost to the purchaser,

it has therefore become customary to add 50 percent

to permit value, which various studies have indicated

to be close to the actual average.

Building permit statistics published by the Bureau

of Labor Statistics1 show some effort to meet market

demand since 1929 but not even remotely enough.

Thus, in 257 identical cities, average building permit

cost per dwelling unit dropped about $550 during

the period 1929-37 (4,565 to $4,006, and probable

selling price to the consumer $6,850 to $6,000).

On the other hand, although the average reduction

in unit cost exceeds the drop in construction cost

shown by the index of wholesale prices of building

materials and hourly building-trades wage rates, it

is by no means so great as the reduction in family

purchasing power during the same interval. The

most one can say is that it suggests some consciousness on the part of builders that they would do well

to keep prices on the moderate side. By way of

1 Bureau of Labor Statistics, Statistics of Building Construction, 1920 to 1937

Bui. 650, 193,8, tables A2 and A6. 92
being magnanimous, attention is not being drawn

here as sharply as it might be to their ill-starred lapse

into price boosting during 1937 and the resulting

temporary collapse in house building, closely followed by the painful set-back in general recovery

known as the regression, out of which we are still slowly climbing.

It is worthy of note that residential building on

the Pacific coast has a better record than in any

other part of the country in the post-depression

years, both in quantity and in moderate price in

relation to the market.

Income distribution in 1935-36.

The report on Consumer Incomes in the United

States for the year 1935-36, issued by the National

Resources Committee in August 1938, gives much

valuable information not otherwise available. A con- densation of its basic table on family income distribution will be found in the next chapter. For immediate reference chart XIV is reproduced on page 94.

The median income of all families in the United

States in 1935-36 is given as 1,160. That of the

families who received any form of relief at any time

during the year was $685 and that of nonrelief families

31,285.

TABLE 20. MEDIAN INCOME PER FAMILY '

Geographic region
In view of what has already been said of the value

of median income figures in studying standard of

living, it will be understood why it is chosen here to

demonstrate differences connected with geographic

region and with size of community. The median

income figure has great social-economic importance,

as well, because the whole middle economic third of

the population are clustered so closely above and

below it. CHART XIV. DISTRIBUTION OF FAMILY INCOME IN

THE UNITED STATES, BY INCOME LEVEL, 1935-36

1935-36

INCOME LEVEL AGGREGATE INCOME

20

BASED ON TABU 3 FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY RESEARCH AND STATISTICS DIVISION UNITED STATES HOUSING AUTHORITY RESEARCH SECTION AUGUST 1, 1939 Source: Consumer Incomes in the United States, 1938, National Resources Committee.

Finally we will reproduce an informative chart

(p. 95), which shows how little tendency there is for

income to increase in proportion to size of family.

The lower percentage of large families with incomes

under $500 is undoubtedly because at that income

level the large families are forced onto relief.

94
TABLE 21. MEDIAN INCOME OF NONRELIEF FAMILIES, BY TYPE

OF COMMUNITY^

Type of community

Median

income

Metropolises (1,500,000 population and over) Large cities (100,000 to 1,500,000 population) Middle-sized cities (25,000 to 100,000 population). Small cities (2,500 to 25,000 population)

31,730

1,560

1,360

1,290

All urban communities. Rural nonfarm communities. Farms __

1,475

1,210

965

All rural communities

All communities

i Source: Derived from Consumer Incomes in the United States, National Resources Committee, 1938. CHART XV. INCOME DISTRIBUTIONS OF

LIEF FAMILIES OF FOUR SIZES, 1935

o

NONRE-

-36

INCOME LEVEL

$ 2. 500 - 3.000 $3.000-4.000

$4,000 - 5.000

$5, 000 ft OVER

O IO 20 3O O 10 2O 30 6 10 20 3O 10 20 30

PCRCCNT or TAMILUS FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY RESEARCH AND STATISTICS DIVISION UNITED STATES HOUSING AUTHORITY RESEARCH SECTION AUGUST 1. 1939 Source: Consumer Incomes in the United States, 1938, National Resources Committee.

95
The standard of living is as much a function of the

size of family as of the dollar income. A little figuring will show that, in a city, at least, the standard

attainable for a 7-person family with 32,000 is no

higher than that which a two-person family may

achieve at 31,000. Similarly a 31,500 income for seven spells poverty as much as 3750 for two. And

the children must be very young for it to be no worse. One has to translate them into "equivalent adult

males" to reach so favorable a showing.

96
CHAPTER XI

Effect of Future Changes

in Construction Costs, Income

Distribution, and Cost of Living

WITH A GLANCE AT COST OF LAND,

FINANCING, AND TAXES

THE HOUSING PROBLEM never stands still. The extent

and difficulty of the job to be done depends upon the

interaction of a number of variables, among which

construction cost, income distribution, and the cost

of living are outstanding.

Cost of land, interest and amortization rates, and

taxes are other fundamental factors.

LAND

Excessive land costs make low-rent housing impossible without excessive subsidy.

Fine. But in either case, what is "excessive"?

Where speculative values have been placed on

land, it should be shunned for purposes of public

housing until deflation has taken place. If it has

really high value for other purposes, it should be used

for those other purposes. All would agree that land

at $15 a square foot is out of the picture for public

housing. On the other hand, a fixed policy that

public housing authorities should always build on

peripheral land at 10 cents a square foot and never on

close-in sites at a dollar might actually lead in a particular case to increased costs both to taxpayers and

to tenants aside from the fact that it would mean

97
missing the chance to clean up a slum. The public

housing authority should be free to vary its policy

according to circumstances, and the public should

learn to follow the game intelligently. The authority

will be abused by those with selfish interests whatever it does. So it may as well cultivate equanimity.

Since there is a tendency to exaggerate the effect

of land costs on rent, it may help to keep in mind the

rule of thumb that a normal ratio for raw land is about one-tenth and for improved land (with paved

streets, utilities, and landscaping) about one-fifth of

the total capital cost of a family dwelling unit.

INTEREST, AMORTIZATION, AND

MORTGAGE STRUCTURE

If housing is to be financed by mortgage loans, the

impossibility of low rentals without low interest rates

must be by now pretty well understood. Debt

charges come directly out of rents.

Interest rates vary at different periods and places.

But the rate at which a solvent government can borrow from its people is always lower than commercial lending rates. Passing on this low interest rate

is, therefore, one of the simplest and soundest ways

in which a government may aid the housing of lowincome families. Naturally, when the policy is new,

savings banks, insurance companies, building and

loan societies and other lenders view it with suspicion

as unfair competition in their field, just as public

housing is eyed askance by landlords. In both cases

its fairness depends on limiting beneficiaries to lowincome groups whom private enterprise does not

serve. A reasonably long period for amortization of the

mortgage is as important to low rent as is interest

98
rate. In the case of an individual purchasing a

house, an upper limit is put on the amortization

period by the probable number of earning years

ahead of him. In the case of a large-scale corporately

owned development, it is the useful life of the houses

which sets the limit, though the law of diminishing

returns may make it advisable to have the period

end sooner. Few apologists are found today for the system of

junior financing practised before the depression or

for the system of short-term mortgages without

amortization, which had to be renewed every few

years. The Federal Home Loan Bank system has

worked quietly but effectively to extend, safeguard,

and unify the building-and-loan societies' plan of a

single mortgage with regular payments to extinguish

the loan. The Federal Housing Administration, in a

different field, has used its mortgage insurance to rule

out second mortgages and keep the rate of interest

moderate.

TAXATION

This is another complicated and controversial subject which touches housing at several points. Nobody loves taxes, but it is generally conceded that

they are a necessary part of civilized life. National,

State and local governments perform their respective

services, for which we all pay Federal, State and local

taxes, direct or indirect. The real property tax on

land and buildings is the mainstay of local government. It pays for schools, courts, police, fire protection, public health protection, streets, parks, li- braries and other services which we could not do

without and have no intention of doing without.

No workable substitute has ever been devised for it. There is general agreement that our methods of

99
assessment lack uniformity and scientific basis. But

many criticisms strike deeper. We base our real es- tate tax on an estimate of the capital value of a property (assessed valuation). The British base theirs

on its rental value, which is much easier to ascertain

and seems more logical if one regards the ownership

of real estate as an investment rather than a

speculation.

Another frequent criticism is that our equal tax

rate on land and buildings tends to discourage investment in new buildings or improvement of those we

have.

The differential tax is the remedy usually proposed,

Pittsburgh being given as the chief example. There the

tax rate on land is twice as high as that on buildings.

This is claimed to discourage holding land idle and to

reduce the taxes of the small home owner. The disadvantage is that it stimulates over-intensive use of

land. There is a proposal before the City Council of

New York to make taxes on land nine times as high

as on buildings. It is not likely to be adopted.

mr Popular fallacy No. 15. That since British public

housing pays full local taxes, ours could and should

do the same. As indicated, what British public housing pays is a percentage of the low subsidized rent, not of the capital value. To make the procedure comparable, our

public housing projects should pay service charges

equal to the taxes received from the houses previously

occupied by the tenants. But then our city fathers

would also have to follow the British example of

voting hard cash in the city budget to pay the local

share of subsidy. The method has its advantages,

but are our cities ready for it?

100
Philadelphia, Hill Creek, PWA Housing Division project managed by

the Philadelphia Housing Authority under lease agreement with the

USHA. The project was planned so that the fine old trees on the

site could be preserved.

Play area in Williamsburg Homes, PWA Housing Division project,

managed by the New York City Housing Authority under lease agreement with the USHA.
Dining room in a Detroit slum the home of a family which later moved into a Parkside home. (See opposite page.) The dark

kitchen in the rear is a rough lean-to built onto the house.

The privy for the same family as shown above was in a corner of the barn behind the house. The only running water in the house was one cold-water faucet in the kitchen.
The same Detroit family after moving into Parkside Homes, PWA

Housing Division project, managed by the Detroit Housing Commission under lease agreement with the USHA. Modern kitchen

conveniences simplify the housewife's work, improve health conditions.

Same child as on opposite page enjoying modern bathing facilities of Parkside.
g

3

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CONSTRUCTION COSTS l Construction costs and income distribution are

likely to undergo substantial changes in the next few

years, and cost of living may. Construction costs

may either increase or decrease. If the homebuilding industry is ever put on a mass production

basis and the unit cost of homes is reduced in relation

to the then-prevailing income distribution, by so much will the market for profitable private enterprise

be widened and the task facing public housing

simplified.

We hear a great deal about mass production, prefabricated houses, packaged houses and new building

materials. Not much has resulted, but it would be

a rash person who would assert that nothing ever will.

Chickens should not be counted before they are hatched, and some hens are pretty dumb. Still, persistent setting on a nest of eggs raises a presumption

that some chicks will eventually emerge.

One reason why progress has been slow is that the

groups concerned other than labor real estate,

builders, makers and distributors of building materials, lending institutions have not yet given up

hope of passing the buck to labor. They are beautifully unanimous on the iniquity of high hourly wages

in the building trades. "If labor would exchange its high hourly rates for a guaranteed annual income"

And who would furnish the guaranty? That

question has not been answered yet.

&rPopular fallacy No. 16. That it is economically

unsound for a workingman to live in a house built

by workers receiving higher wages than he gets himself.

1 Much pertinent material bearing on the subject matter of this section will be found in testimony before the Temporary National Economic Committee,

especially in that of Assistant Attorney General Thurman W. Arnold on

July 7, 1939, and in the summary by Dr. Krebs on July 14. 101

176336 40 8
So? And I suppose no one should have his

appendix removed by a surgeon whose income is larger than his own?

Instead of decreasing, construction costs may in- crease. Indeed, the tendency for them to do so when

and if a building boom develops is almost irresistible.

In the early part of 1937, when recovery seemed to be

well under way and home building started out

briskly, up went construction costs, especially materials, and down fell the boomlet, carrying with it the delicate new fabrics of recovery. Did those con- cerned learn the lesson?

The British Government had the right idea in 1924

when it secured a simultaneous "gentlemen's agreement" from the building trades, the contractors, and

the makers and distributors of building materials not

to raise prices (with certain safeguards) during its 15-year program of building 2% million houses for

workingmen. The Government was willing to pledge

taxes for subsidies if they would produce low rents,

but not if the low rents were liable to be wiped out

by rising costs. The Government's part in the

agreement was in assuring volume and continuity of

work. In proportion to population, it was as though

our United States Housing Act provided for 7,500,000

dwelling units instead of a scant 160,000.

The Belgians had a good idea when their national

housing authority set up an office to standardize and

pool the orders for building materials which their

local housing authorities were going to need, in order

to obtain reductions in cost based on quantity orders.

After the World War, many European governmentsubsidized housing projects saved on materials cost

and transportation by making their own bricks or cinder blocks on the site.

102
At various times Vienna and Bergen and Stockholm have permitted impecunious families to contribute their own labor in lieu of cash toward the

building of small suburban homes. That does not

seem very different in essence from the way our American pioneers acquired theirs.

INCOME DISTRIBUTION

During the 1920's, the American man in the street

was unreasonably optimistic about the national income and its distribution. During the 1930's the

pendulum has swung just as far in the other direction, and unreasoning gloom prevails.

National estimates of the distribution of family

incomes were made for 1929, 1933, and 1935-36.

There have been no later ones. All three studies are worthy of respectful consideration. They are in a wholly different category from

the newspaper-business-school survey cited in the

last chapter. But no national family income study

anywhere at any time has done more than afford a basis for intelligent estimating. Collection in the

field of accurate figures presents peculiar difficulties.

Wage earners seldom know what their annual family

income has been. Business and professional men

seldom tell. Persons on known fixed salaries without other resources present the only easy group.

It is not intended here to minimize either our ur- gent need for income distribution information, or the value of the better studies made. This is merely

a caution not to impute to them the degree of ac- curacy obtainable by the census in enumerating

population or by a health department in recording

the year's births and deaths.

Moreover, even if the 1935-36 figures had been

100 percent accurate, which we know they were not,

103
they would not be true for 1938-39 because of changes

which have taken place, and the net effect of all changes would be a more favorable picture.

TABLE 22. DISTRIBUTION OF FAMILIES BY INCOME LEVEL,

1935-36 *
CHART XVI. DISTRIBUTION OF NONFARM HOUSEHOLDS BY INCOME CLASSES, 1929, 1933, AND 1935-36

MILLIONS OF HOUSEHOLDS 6

Jl

1933 (BASED ON FINANCIAL SURVEY OF URBAN HOUSING, STATISTICS OF

INCOME AND OTHER DATA.)

1935 -36 (BASED ON DISTRIBUTION OF CON- SUMER INCOME- NATIONAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE)

o ^" ' ' ' ' ' o

-300 o ipoo apoo apoo 4poo apoo epoo 7,000 apoo apoo lopoo INCOME PER HOUSEHOLD DOLLARS FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY RESEARCH AND STATISTICS DIVISION UNITED^STATES HOUSING AUTHORITY RESEARCH SECTION AUGUST 1, 1939 Source rfResidential Building, Housing Monograph Series No. 1, 1939, by

Lowell J. Chawner, National Resources Committee.

105
For changes since 1935-36, we must have recourse

to national income figures. If we assume that

national income paid out for the fiscal year July 1,

1935, to June 30, 1936, corresponding to the family

income study, was midway between those of the two

calendar years, it would have been 358,862,000. It

will be observed that the 1937 figure had traveled

more than half the distance between that sum and

the 1929 income. The 1938 set-back did not wipe

out all of this gain and preliminary estimates for

1939 indicate a national income between 68 and 69

billion dollars, which will nearly restore the 1937

level. Chart XVI illustrates the extent to which

national income changes are reflected in the lower

brackets.

TABLE 23. NATIONAL INCOME PAID OUT

[In millions of dollars]
better distribution of the national income toward the

lower levels. The rate at which these events will take

place or the set-backs they will doubtless encounter,

we cannot predict. But the one thing we can be

perfectly sure of is that the present situation is not

a permanent one. It will be better or it will be worse. The world, as Galileo is reputed to have said, does

move.

COST OF LIVING

The cost of living varies with both time and place.

At a given place, it varies from year to year. At a given date, it varies between different geographic

sections, between urban and rural areas, and also between larger and smaller urban communities. It

varies even more between different nations.

Chart XVII shows how the index of the cost of

living (based on a workingman's standardized budget)

has fluctuated since 1913 and how much more stable

one of its component items, the rent index, has been.

Fuel and light have also been relatively stable. Food

costs are responsible for the big highs and lows.

Clothing prices have fluctuated even more, but exert

less influence because of their less important place

in the workingman's budget.

A valuable study, Intercity Differences in Costs of

Living in March 1935, 59 Cities, by Margaret Loomis

Stecker, was published in 1937 by the Division of

Social Research, Works Progress Administration.

This study is based on the needs of a 4-person

family assumed to consist of parents and 2 children

of 13 and 8 years. Variations up or down in number

or age would affect the total and proportionate ex- penditures, especially for food, but not the geographic

or size-of-city comparison.

The purpose of the study was to ascertain the an- 107
nual costs of self-support in 59 cities of various sizes

(but all over 25,000 population), in various geographic

sections, at two levels of living, designated as maintenance and emergency. The maintenance level is intermediate between what the Bureau of Labor

CHART XVII. COST OF GOODS PURCHASED BY WAGE

EARNERS AND LOWER-SALARIED WORKERS

(Average of 32 large cities of the United States, 1923-25 = 100)

50

'19 '20 '21 '28 '23 '84 "8 '26 '27 '28 '29 '30 '31 '32 '33 '34 '35 '36 '37 1936

60

50 FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY RESEARCH AND STATISTICS DIVISION UNITED STATES HOUSING AUTHORITY RESEARCH SECTION AUGUST 1, 1939 Source: Monthly Labor Review, December 1938, U. S. Bureau of Labor

Statistics, p. 1348. Statistics and collective bargaining committees call

the health and decency standard and what they call

the minimum subsistence standard. The emergency

level is lower than either. It is what should be used

by relief agencies, though the majority of them in

practice fall below it. Neither represents a desirable

level. Neither is what anyone would be willing to

call the American standard of living. As the report

states : "Those forced to exist at the emergency level

for an extended period may be subjected to serious

health hazards."

108
TABLE 24. AVERAGE ANNUAL EXPENDITURES OF FOUR-PERSON

FAMILY IN 59 CITIES, MARCH 1935

Item
CHART XVIIL ANNUAL COSTS OF LIVING AT MAINTENANCE LEVEL, BY MAJOR BUDGET GROUPS,

4-PERSON MANUAL WORKER'S FAMILY, 59 CITIES,

MARCH 1935

Wwhington. O.C. 14 1 4.54

Son.Fronc.ico.Colif. 138987

Minneapolis, Minn. 1387.79 New York, N.Y. 1375.13

Chicogo.lll. Boston, Moss.

Cievelond. Ohio

St. Louis. Mo.

Detroit. Mich. Scronton, Po.

Cincinnati. Ohio

Pittsburgh. Po. Los Angeles, Calif. k.N J. Baltimore, Md.

Albuquerque, N MM.

Philadelphia. Po. Bridgeport. Conn. Sioux Falls, S Oak.

Rochester, N. Y. Tucson, Arix. Butte. Mont.

Portland. Maine

Peorio.lll

Fall River, Moss.

Atlanta. Go. Richmond. Vo.

Buffalo. N.Y.

Average, 59 citlts

Manchester, N.H.

Norfolk. Vo. Denver. Colo. Kansas City. Mo.

Providence. R.I. Binghamton.N.Y.

Salt Lake City. Utah

Seattle, Wash. New Orleans. La. Spokane. Wash.

Winston- Salem, NC

Portland, Of eg Memphis, Term.

Louisville, Ky. Oklahoma City, Oklo. Jocksonville. Flo. Houston, Tex.

1

Columbia, S.C.

Clarksburg. W.Vo.

Dallas. Tex. Cedar Rap.ds, 1 0*0

Columbus, Ohio Birmingham, Ala. Knoiville, Term. El Paso. Tex

Little Rock, Ark. Wichita, Kans.

1400

Food Clothing, Housing Household Miscel- clothmg upkeep, operation loneous ond personal core FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY Rp;SEARCH AND STATISTICS DIVISION UNITED STATES HOUSING AUTHORITY RESEARCH SECTION AUGUST 1. 1939 Source: Intercity Differences in Costs of Living in March, 1935, 59 Cities, WPA Division of Social Research.

110
The maintenance standard in housing for this hypothetical four-person manual worker's family calls for a dwelling in fair repair, without serious fire hazard,

containing a private indoor bath and toilet and

four or five rooms of normal size. For such housing,

the rent in Washington, D. C., is seen to be considerably more than twice as high as in Portland,

Oregon 3342 per year against 2158.40.

Insofar as geographic differences in incomes (see

table 20 for instance) are not matched by corresponding differences in cost of living, they represent differences in standard of living. That one geographic

section of a nation should have a lower standard of

living than the others is obviously undesirable.

It is interesting to check the calculated average

maintenance level cost just discussed with the actual

annual expenditures of low-income self-supporting

white families (wage earners and lower salaried clerical workers) as gathered by the United States Bureau

of Labor Statistics in 10 of the cities during the period

1933-36. The average family size in these cities

was found to be larger than that of the hypothetical

family 4.75 persons. The average expenditure was

almost identical, 31,257.

2 Another check is afforded by a study of the National Industrial Conference Board on the outlay

necessary to purchase a synthetic budget for a wage

earner's family of four persons in 69 cities during February 1935. Such expenditures averaged 324.43 per

week, or 19 cents more than the 324.24 of the Works

Progress Administration study. The inference is justified that all these figures, independently reached,

possess a high degree of validity.

The future cost of living in the United States will

1 Source: Intercity Differences in Cost of Living, pp. XXV and XXVI.

ill
tend to increase as wages and salaries increase. It

will tend to be reduced by improved machines,

greater efficiency, mass production. One may hope

that the second will at least balance the first, but

there is no assurance.

If such balance does not obtain, it is always possible that the American people may belatedly interest

themselves in developing consumers' cooperatives, as other democratic peoples, notably the British and

Scandinavian, have done under similar circumstances

with marked success.

112
CHAPTER XII

Division of the Field of Housing

NEW HOUSING for self-supporting urban families,

under existing cost and income conditions, may be

produced as follows:

1. For the top economic third by private enterprise for profit.

2. For the middle third by limited dividend or cooperative companies at cost.

3. For the lowest third by public authorities with

subsidy. "May" implies economic suitability. No

prophecy is involved as to what is going to happen.

During the centuries when this country was being

settled along an ever-receding frontier, the pioneers

cut down trees and built their own shelter with their

own hands. The next step was to employ a carpenter.

Farm houses and rural homes are still built in both

these ways, as needed. In cities only the well-to-do can afford the luxury of a home built to order. The

great majority who acquire new homes at all get them

ready-made.

PRIVATE ENTERPRISE

Real estate subdividers and speculative builders,

operating almost always peripherally, whether inside or outside city limits, have come to represent what is meant by private enterprise in urban residential

building, along with the makers and dealers in building materials, with whom the public comes less

113
directly in contact. They have no connection with

early American housing habits.

While the feverish activities of this section of the

business world have played a conspicuous part in the

rapid growth of our cities, it has been neither an en- lightened nor a helpful part. The Babbitt fraternity

have been responsible for a large share of our present city planning problems, housing problems and

blighted area problems. On the other hand, in a

larger sense the community itself is responsible for

having allowed them such leeway for so long.

The highly speculative and correspondingly irresponsible character of a considerable section of real

estate and building operations in the residential field

has tended to discourage good construction and

conservative investment. It may be hoped that a corner has been turned in this respect.

The top economic third of urban nonrelief families,

according to the figures in Consumer Incomes in the

United States number about 4,720,000, which is a

fairly large market.

Using table 8 of the same publication as the basis

of calculation, we find that the boundary between

top and middle third incomes, in 1935-36, was

around $2,200 in metropolises of over 1,500,000

population. In cities between 100,000 and 1,500,000

it was about $2,000; in cities of middle size about

$1,750, and in small cities about $1,700. National

income was 10% percent higher in 1938 than at the

earlier date. So the boundary may or may not

be a little higher now. Multiply it by two for a sound

ratio to price of a home (cf. ch. X) and it will be seen that $4,500 in the big towns and $3,500 in the small ones is all the trade will bear at the lower end of its market.

114
These are not building permit figures or construction costs, but selling prices.

It is to be hoped that the industry will not try to

enlarge its market, as it did during the 1920's, by the

anti-social method of persuading people to undertake

the purchase of homes they cannot afford. The

more responsible section of the industry may exert a restraining influence over the less responsible.

The encouragement of housing built for rent to

borderline income groups as well as to the increasing

class whose work involves a shifting residence, is thoroughly sound.

Beyond this, if private enterprise wishes to enlarge

its field in a downward direction, it must find ways

to reduce the cost of its product.

LIMITED DIVIDEND AND

COOPERATIVE HOUSING

These types of development, which have been so

extensively used in European countries, are known

here only by small experimental samples. The

middle field with us is nearly empty of new housing.

The urban groups whose incomes put them within it habitually live in houses no longer new in neighborhoods which have ceased to be desirable blighted

areas in distinction to slums. Those who own homes

own old ones. From the Consumer Income study it is possible

to derive a table showing the family income range

of the middle third, by size of community in 1935-36:

Incomes of Nonrelief Urban Families Middle Economic Third

In metropolises over 1,500,000 population 31, 300-S2, 200

Large cities, 100,000 to 1,500,000 - - 1,200- 2,000

Middle-sized cities, 25,000 to 100,000 _ 1, 100- 1, 750

Small cities, 2,500 to 25,000 1,000- 1,700

115
Insofar as these figures may be regarded as rough

but serviceable markers, they must be understood as applying to families of average size, i.e., two adults

and two children. Variations due to size of family

will be considered in the next section.

Variations connected with climate further affect

both the cost of house construction and the cost of

living.

At present, in the United States, the provision of

new housing for this middle third is no man's land.

It can be occupied by private enterprise only on the

basis of low returns on a long-time investment. If

approached in this spirit, the more done the better.

Logically enough, this is often claimed to be the

section of the population which should receive public

assistance, because a comparatively small boost is all these people need to get them into really desirable

living conditions. Large-scale operations, loans at

low interest, long amortization period, elimination

of speculative profit, are enough to bring new housing

within their means without subsidy. Insofar as the

middle-income families are supplied in this manner,

the fair-to-middling houses they vacate can be

turned over to the inhabitants of slums and the unfit

slum houses demolished. This is the process known

as "filtering up".

Unfortunately, the "filtering up" process is rather

theoretical than actual. The owner of a middleincome house, which has been vacated, does not

willingly or promptly lower his rent, or accept

tenants from the slums. The only slum houses

which can be demolished without compensation are the very worst ones, in which the poorest families

live. It would be a borderline family which would

eventually move into the vacated middle-income

116
house, or some other middle-income house vacated

by a family who had moved to the first. And only

after a long series of moves would the wholly bad

slum house be empty and ready for demolition.

Never, at any time or any place, has "filtering up"

by itself solved the slum problem.

On the other hand, there is lack of equity in a

situation where new housing is produced for those at

the bottom and for those at the top, while those in

the middle must stay all their lives in drab, inconvenient, outmoded housing which has started downhill.The answer seems to be that in framing a national

housing program, the needs of all economic groups

should be taken into account and appropriate

mechanisms provided for meeting them. If the

various parts of the program are encouraged to

advance simultaneously, they will probably help

each other. If the effort is made to complete one

section before allowing another to start, the result is likely to be obstruction and slowing-up.

In this country we have had a scattering series of

experiments, on the part of civic-minded persons,

with voluntarily limited profits. But during more

than 40 years, barely 20,000 family units have been

produced by variations of this idea. The hope of

early enthusiasts that this would become a favorite

form of investment because of combined safety and

usefulness has not, so far, been fulfilled. Its inherent reasonableness remains.

The first appearance in this country of legally

limited dividend housing came with the New York

State Housing Act of 1926. The State Board of Housing set the standards and furnished the supervision.

The statute itself set maximum rents. The benefits

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offered investors were partial tax exemption and the

board's good offices in obtaining a first-mortgage

loan. Second mortgages were not permitted. Returns on the equity were limited to 6 percent.

European limited dividend housing societies (called

"public utility" in several languages) receive loans at

low interest rates sometimes from government

sources, sometimes with partial tax exemption, sometimes with the right to build on publicly owned land

in return for accepting limited profits, limited rents,

and public supervision. Sometimes the incorporators

are actuated wholly by civic motives, as in the case

of many efforts to assist large families. More often

they are conservative investors willing to accept a moderate return accompanied by safety.

Housing cooperatives are composed of tenants.

Genuine cooperatives, involving cooperative ownership, are particularly well represented in the Scandinavian countries, where large experience has developed technical and administrative ability to

handle them as efficiently as any other form of big

business.

In Holland, on the other hand, the cooperative

housing societies or at least the working-class

societies although they take the initiative in planning and promoting a project, are responsible for its management and enjoy a monopoly on its occupancy,

never actually own it. At the end of the amortization period the city housing department will hold

the title. Real cooperative housing along the Swedish lines

we cannot have in this country unless or until we

develop a cooperative frame of mind and acquire

cooperative experience. But something on the

Netherlands model could be fitted into our existing

118
system at any time. If the lending policy followed

the Dutch lines, it ought to serve an economic group

immediately above that in the subsidized public

projects and definitely lower than that in the New

York State projects which in turn serve a lowerincome group than that generally reached through

the Federal Housing Administration.

SUBSIDIZED PUBLIC HOUSING

Under existing conditions, however, only subsidized public housing can help the lowest third.

On the other hand, it is the duty of relief agencies,

not of housing agencies, to provide the rent for

families which are not self-supporting. As already

stated, it is not to be anticipated that the problem

of relief will remain indefinitely at its present

magnitude. But it will never completely disappear.

So the mechanism for dealing with it should be

worked out.

Not all families in the top economic third choose

to provide themselves with new housing. Some of

them prefer to take the pick of the older houses in

good repair, and so the cream has been skimmed

from the used-house supply before the families

in the middle third get their chance. Almost no

new housing reaches them, but they outbid the lowest

third for the less undesirable of the old. Those near

the bottom get what no one else wants.

Dollar income means nothing unless related to the size

of the family. A few extra children will drag the

better paid worker right down to slum housing

also. Those boundary incomes we considered a while

ago are for families of average size. The fourperson family is as near as we can come to that

without vivisection. If a housing authority wishes

119
the top tenant incomes it sets to follow a line of

similar living standards, it must vary them with

the size of the family.

This is why it would be so very unwise to set a stat- utory limit on the dollar incomes of the public housing

tenants. Whatever the figure, it would be grossly

unfair to big families in comparison with small.

The British, after the war, built nearly a million

working class cottages with three bedrooms each

(some with more) before they began devoting attention to the needs of smaller families and old persons.

It was a case of "children first." This policy is of

far-reaching social importance. The Dutch, Belgians, French, and Norwegians have at least tried to

follow the same objective. But Sweden, Germany,

Austria, and Italy, and various other countries, have

economized on bedrooms, offering, however unintentionally, the alternative of race suicide or over- crowding. Sweden has recently become worried

about her falling birth rate and the plight of large

families and has devised a plan (1936) to subsidize

their rents in larger quarters. Whether or not that

is as wise a method as subsidizing the houses themselves is open to argument.

Furnishing a healthful type of housing to families

of wage earners in the lower paid occupations, below

cost, with the taxpayers footing the bill for the difference, is a particularly useful way of redistributing

part of the national income and giving the taxpayers

their money's worth in terms of public health and

good citizenship. It is not a substitute for higher

wages, but a very useful supplement. It upsets the

national economy less than any other measure producing comparably important results. For the kind

of home one lives in is one of the big facts of life.

120
UNITED STATES HOUSING ACT OF 1937

In contrast to European countries with their long

experience in government-aided public housing, and

the systematic effort, especially in Great Britain and

Holland, to clear slums and rehouse the families living

in them, our experience in this country dates only

from July 1933, and as a permanent policy only from

the President's signing of the Wagner-Steagall Housing Act on September 1, 1937, and the establishment

of the United States Housing Authority on November

1 of the same year.

Housing under the Public Works Administration.

Housing was authorized in the National Industrial

Recovery Act of 1933, on an emergency basis, as one

of the types of public works for which the Public

Works Administration could make loans and grants

to State or local public bodies provided such bodies

were empowered to clear slums and erect low-rent

housing. At that time no agency having these powers existed, and in no State could one be appointed

without a State enabling act. In view of the time

necessary for these preliminary steps, the Housing

Division of the Public Works Administration, after

convincing itself that neither really low rents nor ex- tensive employment could be secured through limited

dividend housing (for which it could also make loans)

embarked on a demonstration program of its own.

This valuable American experiment resulted in

21,700 family units in 51 projects in 36 widely

distributed communities. Standards of design and

lay-out are good. Playgrounds and other features

of wholesome community life are available within or adjacent to the projects. More than half are on

121
cleared slum sites. Nearly half are for Negro

families, whose housing needs are especially acute.

The program, in view of the great difficulties and

obstacles to be overcome, was remarkably successful,

but no one regards it as the ultimate pattern to be

followed or the last word in cost reduction. Tenants

were selected from families living in substandard

housing, though undoubtedly not from the lowest

income strata of such families. Shelter rents aver- aged 35.10 per room per month, which is comparable

to many slum rents. These rents were fixed under

the original George-Healey Act providing for a 45-percent write-off on development cost. The 1937

act permits a larger subsidy which has brought

about a considerable reduction in rents.

All this was part of the emergency program to

provide employment for the hard-hit construction

industry through useful public works. If we had

had the housing program already under way

legislation, court decisions, administrative machinery,

trained personnel, established standards, costs and

rents, tenant selection, management policies, and,

above all, an active and discriminating public

opinion the quick expansion of slum clearance and

low-rent public housing could have been accomplished and would have furnished an ideal method

of stabilizing the construction industry and its subsidiaries, and, automatically, this would have

created the purchasing power to revive the

consumption goods industries. Recovery from the

1933 low probably would then have been much

prompter and steadier than it actually was. But

modern air transportation did not burst into

bloom immediately after the Kittyhawk flights, and

mass production of automobiles did not happen

122
overnight. It took England more than half a century of trial-and-error experiments to work out

a reasonably effective technique for clearing slums

and rehousing their inhabitants, and by that time

English public opinion was well informed and vigilant.

Holland, starting considerably later, and having

the near-at-hand British experience to profit by,

still required a couple of decades to get going satisfactorily. Only the ignorance of inexperience could

have expected to get a completely satisfactory largescale program under way in this country in a matter

of months. Actually, the advance has been spectacularly rapid.

Provisions of the Wagner-Steagall Act.

The second and even more important step was

taken when growing public interest resulted in the

enactment of the United States Housing Act, which

established subsidized public housing as a permanent,

national policy in this country, while placing the

responsibility for its initiation, execution, ownership,

and management on the local communities.

It would be hard to exaggerate the potential significance of the declaration in the first section of the

act: "It is hereby declared to be the policy of the

United States to promote the general welfare of the

Nation by employing its funds and credit, as provided in this act, to assist the several States and their

political subdivisions to alleviate present and recur- ring unemployment and to remedy the unsafe and

insanitary housing conditions and the acute shortage

of decent, safe, and sanitary dwellings for families of

low income, in rural or urban communities, that are

injurious to the health, safety, and morals of the

citizens of the Nation."

123
The dual purpose of the act has been criticized on

the ground that the improvement of housing conditions for low-income families is a major national

problem, which should command our best efforts for

its own sake. Even so, taking the long view, the

hook-up of the two objectives should prove helpful

rather than the reverse. As a part of wise national

planning, nationally aided public housing could prevent the wave motion produced by private enterprise

residential building from ever again reaching such a

disastrous low as it registered during the recent depression years. (See chart VI.) But there must be

accepted standards, accepted techniques, and trained

personnel to start with. There must be thoroughly

tested experience. And all this must be found, not

just in the Capital, but in every State and Territory.

So, for either objective, a prerequisite is a welldeveloped and well-tested national housing program

continuing without interruption, which may be ex- panded as private building slackens after a period of

activity, in order to keep employment at a more or

less uniform level, and at the same time catch up

on some of the arrears of worn-out housing replacement.

The United States Housing Authority is a fiscal

and standard-setting agency, which does no slum

clearance or building itself, but lends to local public

housing authorities as much as 90 percent of the

capital needed for an approved project. This loan

is to be repaid in full by the local authority in a period not to exceed 60 years, at an interest rate at

least one-half percent above the going Federal rate. The other 10 percent must be supplied by the local

authority in land, services, or by selling its bonds

124
to buyers other than the United States Housing

Authority.

To bring rentals within the means of very lowincome families, the United States Housing Authority

may make annual grants, provided the State, city, or county in which the project is located makes a contribution at least equal to 20 percent of this amount,

whether in the form of cash, tax exemptions, or re- missions, and provided as many insanitary dwelling

units are eliminated, on the site or elsewhere, as there

are new units built. In case of proved shortage, this

elimination may be postponed, but must be carried

out later.

If the contract for annual contributions is for more

than 20 years, it is subject to review after 10 years and

every fifth year thereafter, with the idea of reducing

or discontinuing the grant as economic conditions

permit. In no case may annual contributions run

for more than 60 years or exceed in amount a sum

equal to the going Federal rate of interest on the cost

of the project, plus 1 percent.

To assure economy, a limit of $1,000 per room or 34,000 per dwelling unit has been set on construction

cost, except in cities with over 500,000 population,

where the limits are $1,250 and ?5,000.

Tenants are to be selected from families otherwise

obliged to live in substandard housing and whose

incomes are not more than five times the rent and

cost of utilities unless the family has three or more

dependent children, when the limit is set at six times.

There is no obligation, however, to accept tenants

up to either limit.

Program under the Housing Act.

The first congressional authorization was for loans

to a total of $500,000,000 (later increased to

125
3800,000,000) and annual grants not exceeding

$20,000,000 (later increased to $28,000,000).

On November 1, 1939, two years after the establishment of the United States Housing Authority, 38

States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and

Hawaii had enabling acts and 266 local housing

authorities had been appointed. The growth in

public interest has been phenomenal.

On the same date loan contracts to a total of

$521,097,000 had been made with 133 local authorities for the building of 114,356 family units in 296

projects, expected to rehouse about 457,000 persons.

There were also preliminary "earmarkings" of

$150,994,000 additional. On 47,790 units of the

former group, construction was under way. The

first tenants had moved into the earliest projects.

Contracts show commendable cost reductions, and

substantially lower rents than in PWA projects

appear to be assured. Rents in the South will be

materially lower than in the North. Methods of

reducing the costs of management are being studied.

Here, as in construction and design, the PWA

projects furnish an invaluable laboratory. On an expanding scale, future public housing programs will

profit from the present experience of the USHA.

126
CHAPTER XIII

Housing and Planning

NEIGHBORHOOD, CITY, STATE, AND NATIONAL

To LOOK into the future and plan for it is only to

exercise ordinary intelligence. The individual who

fails to do so for himself or for his family lacks an

essential element of success. The same is true for

communities and for nations.

In the old agricultural pioneering days, the family

on its farm was nearly an independent self-sufficient

unit. It never was completely so. It cooperated with

its neighbors in church, town meeting, and defense

against the Indians. There were always things it could not accomplish alone.

With the growth of towns, the need to learn to live

together and work together, to respect the rights of

others as well as to protect one's own rights against

encroachments, grew stronger. The two needs struggled for supremacy, as they should. The existence

of the solar system depends on the balance between

centrifugal and centripetal forces. If either one got

the upper hand, we earth-dwellers would be in a bad

way. The future of large urbanized and industrialized democracies may well depend upon our ability

to preserve a similar balance between the rights of

the individual and the collectivity.

In spite of our individualism and our horror of

regimentation, we Americans are rather good at

doing things together, when we do them because we

want to. Our fondness for organization, our tendency

127
to be "joiners" are proverbial. Our business organizations, women's organizations, church and charitable organizations, are efficient and powerful. Of

course some of A's most cherished "movements,"

in B's honest judgment, would lead us to disaster,

and vice versa. But that is democracy.

NEIGHBORHOOD

A generation ago Americans began to worry about

the tendency of urban neighborhoods to deteriorate.

It was not merely the enroachment of expanding

business and industry, which they were already used

to, and which, like a child's outgrowing its clothes,

one accepts as the price to be paid for an inherently

desirable process. It was rather the damage done by

the ill-considered and inconsiderate act of some headstrong rugged-individualist property owner. Ninetynine home owners might have settled down to spend

the rest of their lives and bring up their children in a pleasant, wholesome and congenial neighborhood.

They might all take care of their lawns and trees,

trim their rose bushes, keep their houses painted, and

pay their taxes. But if the hundredth owner developed a grouch and sold his property for a filling

station or if he had erratic ideas of progress and

covered his side yard with a tall brick apartment

building running to the sidewalk line, the character of

their neighborhood was changed, its restful charm

was gone, and their only remedy was to move away

and try again.

Out of this situation came "zoning." From 1915

to 1930 it swept the country. Imperfectly framed

and imperfectly enforced as zoning ordinances have

been, they have, on the whole, served a highly useful

purpose in preserving neighborhoods unspoiled for

the greatest good of the greatest number.

128
Through a series of decisions culminating in the

Supreme Court, zoning has established its connection

with health, morals, safety, and welfare. Not only

do height of buildings and the extent of open space

around them have relation to health, or the character of traffic to safety, but one is not being snobbish

or crotchety in objecting to a grocery store or a barber shop on a street of homes. As Mr. Justice

Sutherland said in a memorable decision: 1 "A nui- sance may be merely a right thing in the wrong

place like a pig in the parlor instead of the barnyard."

Zoning has been a boon to families of moderate

means. The wealthy could always protect themselves by living in restricted districts or owning large

estates. Workingmen well enough off to live in new

sections have been helped too, those in older sections

very little, those in slums not at all. No one ever set out deliberately to create a slum.

It is the end product of long continued individualistic

anarchy and civic neglect. When a slum clearance

and rehousing project is planned, an amendment of

the local zoning ordinance is sought to create a

residential district for the protection of the new

homes.

It is a maxim thoroughly accepted among students

of housing that a slum cannot be redeemed by

scattering a few new houses through it. The slum

swallows them instead. A project must be carried

out which is large enough to create a neighborhood

atmosphere of its own large enough to maintain

itself against the surrounding slum.

In order to secure a site of sufficient size, or sometimes because they cover too much of the land,

i Village of Euclid, 0. vs. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U. S. 365 (1926). 129
fairly good houses have to be torn down at times.

The next step is to replan lots and streets so as to admit sunlight and air in abundance one of the major

objectives of a housing program.

The new neighborhood must contain safe play

spaces for small children under their mother's eye,

whether in individual house yards or under apartment-house windows. It must supply recreation

space indoors and out to older children, and meeting

places for the social and educational needs of all ages. Schools, churches, shops, health centers must

be easily accessible if not on the premises. It will

be as free from lawless or openly corrupting influ- ences within its borders as are the neighborhoods in

which parents with higher incomes bring up their

children. It is not the lot of human kind to escape

contact with evil. But it should be within the power

of all parents to shield their children from premature

and excessive exposure to it until they have time to

build up some degree of immunity.

CITY AND REGION

Obviously, this large-scale tearing down, replotting

and rebuilding in slum areas, or anywhere else, cannot

be carried on without reference to the city plan.

It is only within the last few years that American

city planners are becoming housing-conscious. They

started out with enthusiasm for civic centers and

the "City Beautiful." Then they turned practical

and concentrated on the traffic problems that developed with the automobile. They have done fine

work with parks and parkways. Zoning is, of course,

one phase of city planning that dealing with the

problems of height, density, and use of buildings.

Recent land-use studies have shown how little area 130
business really uses (especially since it took to vertical development). The average area devoted to

business in a number of towns of different sizes and

types, lies between 2 and 3 percent. Industry needs

more space and varies more, but, including railway

yards, seldom uses more than 10 percent of a city's area. Most zoning ordinances reserve very much

more, especially for business. The effect on such

superfluous areas has been to blight them. Streets

take up a good deal of room and parks and playgrounds ought to. Nevertheless, the fact is that

about half of the average town area should be zoned

for residence, with such limitations of height and

bulk as to assure ample and permanent light and air

and elbow room for all. These are necessities, not

luxuries, and should not depend on income. They

do not so depend in a state of nature, nor do they

in any rural setting. The urban attempt to corner them and set a price on them is one of the most

unlovely exhibitions of human greed on record, but

it seems to have occurred to city builders all over the

world throughout the ages.

If we are to maintain a successful urban civilization without deterioration of the race, we must find a way to return this part of the common heritage to

the people of our cities.

The city planning movement has been active in

the United States since the Chicago World's Fair.

It grew especially fast and standardized much of its practice during the 1920 decade. Yet only one

State, Massachusetts, has compulsory city and town

planning even now. And only a few communities

have given their plan the force of law after it was

completed. Yet, without this step, the influence

of the city plan is, at best, uncertain.

131
Entirely apart from housing, our cities are faced

by the need to plan, and in a large measure to rebuild

themselves, if they expect to survive the next few

decades. Reckless exploitation has taken place,

quite comparable to the waste of our natural re- sources forests, coal, oil, water supply, topsoil,

grazing lands, birds, fish, and other wildlife. As

Stuart Chase expressed it, the pioneers were obsessed

by the concept of infinity. They were not trying to

impoverish their grandchildren. But there was such

a vast amount of everything that the possibility of

exhausting it never crossed their minds. Much that

has been destroyed is irreparably lost. But the

awakening came, fortunately, in time for self-preservation, and the task of rescue and conservation is under way.

The town builders had a concept of infinity, too.

Each one thought his home town was going to go

on growing forever and that real estate values would

keep increasing forever. Each one thought that

anything constructed with hands was an "improvement." Subdivisions were planned with a T-square

on the office table. Whether their "avenues" and

"boulevards" would fit onto the city streets when the

city grew out to meet them was seldom considered.

Foredoomed to early blight, these unrelated developments often became scattered centers of deterioration far from the larger slum areas. A street

map of Brooklyn looks as if it had been made in an

insane asylum.

If there is any real reason for a given city to continue to exist, perhaps it will find a way to replan

and rebuild itself, turning its waste spaces to fruitful use. If there is no compelling reason to stay, its industries are likely to gravitate to other cities or

132
to cleaner, greener new towns in the open country,

which can be planned for good living at the start. Decentralization and recentralization are the terms

used for this process by the regional planners. The

availability of cheap electric power in increasing

quantities makes decentralization possible.

With no new population coming in, it would not

take much of this siphoning off of population and

industry to put some of our cities into bankruptcy.

Perhaps that is the way they will go. Cities are not

immortal. It may be that those which grew too

fast and too carelessly are likely to die young.

It is not possible for subsidized public housing to

bear the tremendous financial burden of clearing all our slums and rehousing all their inhabitants on the

site. In one sense, it is not the problem of public

housing at all. The purpose of public housing is to

get families in low income groups into housing which

will be good for their health and citizenship, at minimum outlay by the taxpayers. Would it not be

logical to take a leaf from the realtors and build on

cheap vacant land in the outskirts, leaving the slums

to rot? Yes; but unless the slum houses are demolished, some people will still continue to live in

them. And some of the people whose work is near

the slums will be forced to travel a long distance to

work, at a wasteful expenditure of time, money,

and vitality. And the city has schools, hospitals,

streets, sewers, and fire and police stations in the

central district. The taxpayers will have to build

new ones for the peripheral project. So they may

not be saving money after all. The best hope for rational action lies in a city

plan integrated with plans for public housing. A

city planning commission which takes its duties

133

176336-^10 10
seriously will try to foresee the most efficient use

for every part of the city area for the next SO years.

The local housing authority and the city planning

commission, working together, should be able to say

(and demonstrate by supporting facts) how much

low-rent housing is really needed in central areas, which slum sites, if any, are likely to be absorbed

by business or industry, which should be made into

parks, which would lend themselves to higher-priced

housing by private enterprise within walking distance

of centrally located offices.

Housing authorities will need to be opportunists

with the wisdom of serpents as well as the engaging

qualities of doves, in order to acquire their sites

when the market is favorable.

It is instructive to look at a map of the "housing

estates" belonging to the London County Council,

which was landlord on December 31, 1936, to 78,684

of its low-income families.2 The "estates" are sprinkled all over the map in nearly 200 localities.

The largest number of sites, though accommodating

a minority of families, are developed with "block

dwellings" (apartments) within 5 miles of Charing

Cross. The "cottage estates" are mostly in the 5-

to 10-mile zone, though some of the largest are farther and even outside the county of London.

They are open, well-planned, thoroughly wholesome

places to live in.

The "satellite Garden City," as defined in England,

is shown in its complete form only in the privately

developed Letchworth and Welwyn, which are almost ideal industrial garden cities, near enough

2 The number was just under 10, 000 in 1914. (Building did not begin again

until 1919.) In addition, the 28 metropolitan boroughs and city of London,

which together constitute the county, had built at the same date 24,626 family

units, making a total of more than 103,000. Source: London Housing, London

County Council, 1937. 134
London to make use of the advantages the larger city

has to offer. Wythenshawe, owned and developed

by the city of Manchester, is more of a suburb than

a satellite.

In this country the privately developed Radburn

(New Jersey) embodied some of the English Garden

City ideas and developed some new ones of its own,

notably the superblock, to save children and other

pedestrians from the perils and nerve strain of the

motor age. But it has no industries.

A useful demonstration of good planning for good

living was made by the Resettlement Administration, with relief labor, in the three widely separated

greenbelt towns Greenbelt itself near Washington,

Greenhills near Cincinnati, and Greendale near Milwaukee. The shopping and amusement center at

Greenbelt has been entrusted to consumer cooperatives.

STATE AND NATION

Obviously, planning cannot stop at the city's

political boundary. So we have developed metropolitan planning and regional planning, some official,

some nonofficial. Our best known and in many

ways standard-setting regional plan of New York,

published in 1929, was financed by the Russell Sage

Foundation. Though without official status, it has

exerted a great deal of influence. Unfortunately, it was prepared during the period before city planners

realized that housing vitally concerned them.

Way back in 1889, the Metropolitan District of

Boston was created with a unified system of police,

water, and parks. During the 1920 decade, nine

States passed enabling legislation permitting the appointment of county or other forms of regional

planning boards, and considerable useful work was

done.

135
State planning was the next logical step. Wisconsin and New York were pioneers. Since 1930, and

especially since 1933, 45 States, Alaska, Hawaii, and

the District of Columbia have set up planning

boards. They are advisory only. They are con- cerned with the conservation and best use of the

natural resources of the State and also with the

conservation of human resources matters of health,

education, and welfare. Practice and emphasis vary.

So does the extent to which the boards act as coordinators of city and regional planning boards and the

extent to which they feel it within their province to

stimulate the creation of such local bodies where

they do not already exist.

The most difficult and the most necessary function

of all is national planning. Informally, but with

great usefulness, the National Resources Committee

for the last few years has been assembling and publishing the sort of basic information that is needed in

this connection on population, cities, incomes, technological trends, land planning, water planning, the

planning of public works. A number of these studies

have been quoted in the preceding pages.

No attempt has yet been made to draw up a national housing policy for the next 5, 10, or 25 years.

Undoubtedly our approach has, until very recently,

been too experimental and uncertain to permit this.

But unless we are to have an enormous amount of

waste motion and lost time, we should begin to work

out a long-term policy and program.

We nowpossess basic legislation, State and National.

We have had basic court decisions.3 We have national

and local administrative machinery. We are developing standards of lay-out and design, cost, rent,

8 See Appendix D. 136
tenant selection, management. They have not

reached the ultimate stage of perfection. But can anything approaching it be reached on a "fits and

starts" basis? Do not the local authorities and their

communities need to know, not only what funds the

United States Housing Authority has on hand this

year, but what it is likely to have next year and five

years from now ? Plans could be more carefully prepared if the "now or never" feeling were removed.

The universities would be more willing to provide

adequate training courses, and students would feel

safer in pursuing them, if there were some assurance

of continuity of demand for trained staff workers.

Further, young men cannot be expected to seek training in the building trades, and building trade unions

cannot be expected to enlarge their membership without reasonable expectation of a sustained volume of

employment. This same consideration applies to

manufacturers of building materials when they are asked to enlarge the capacity of their plants to ac- commodate an expanded building program.

As was pointed out in chapter XI, it was the

adoption of a 15-year program and a 2% million

family unit production goal by the British Government, in 1924, which made the gentleman's agreement

on construction cost stabilization possible. Program

and agreement referred only to subsidized public

housing, but private enterprise building reaped its full share of the benefit, and being wise enough to

pass much of this benefit on to the consumer, it found that there had been opened a large new market,

previously untouched. Now, for a decade, the industry has enjoyed the greatest prosperity of its history.

Part of the careful analysis leading to a national

137
program should result in the delimitation (not too

inflexibly, of course) of the respective fields of private

enterprise and public housing. Once it is granted

that the top-income third is the field of activity for

the one and the bottom-income third for the other, we

shall have gotten rid of much useless controversy.

When it is realized that the standards of living from

top to bottom of the lowest economic third of our

population represent wider divergencies than those

of our highest economic third, the futility of expecting

any single formula to provide housing for all the ill- housed will become apparent. There is more of a gap between the family with $1,000 a year and the

family with $100 than between the multimillionaire

and the $1,800 office worker. The housing problem

is not single, but manifold. The solution also must

be manifold.

The National Government has completed experimental demonstrations in rural housing by the Farm

Security Administration and its predecessors (almost

13,000 units) and in urban housing by the Public

Works Administration Housing Division. The work

of the latter was briefly summarized in the preceding

chapter. A permanent agency has now been created

in the United States Housing Authority, empowered

to assist local housing authorities endeavoring to eliminate slums and build good housing with rentals suffi- ciently subsidized to reach the ill-housed third of the

population. The Department of Commerce, Federal

Housing Administration, and Federal Home Loan

Bank Board assist investors and builders who represent private enterprise. The Department of Labor

provides information on rents and standard of living

of interest to all workers.

Oddly enough, in a country traditionally devoted

138
to home ownership, neither the United States, nor any of the States (except California,

4 for its veterans)

has developed an agency to make home ownership

safe to the family of borderline means. Existing

agencies sincerely believe that they are doing this.

But they are primarily for trade promotion. They

can no more serve vender and purchaser equally than

a lawyer can appear for both plaintiff and defendant.

The Belgian Housing Act of 1889 4 and the New

Zealand Advances to Workers Act of 1906 4 involve

no subsidies. More than a tenth of all the families

of each country have acquired homes under the provisions of these laws and kept them. During all those

decades only a fraction of 1 percent of the mortgages

granted have been foreclosed. Contrast that with our foreclosure figures without such protection ! The

British Small Dwellings Acquisition Act of 1899,

with similar aims, was little used until 1923. Since

then it has become of rapidly increasing importance.

It will help if we remember not to put the cart before the horse. The consumer really does not exist

by Divine Providence to provide profits for business

and industry. On the contrary, business and industry, mechanisms of wholly human origin, exist to

maintain the multitude of homes, big and little, which

contain men, women, and 'especially children, who are

to carry on the human race. Facts have been assembled from many sources to

demonstrate that the physical and psychological

health of children is profoundly affected by the

dwelling and neighborhood in which they live. It has also been shown that under the highly artificial

conditions of urban life it is not possible for a large

proportion of employed wage earners to control their

4 See Appendix G. 139
home environment or to purchase enough sun, light,

air, and space for their families to assure health.

The wives of these workers are unreasonably expected

to create bricks without straw when they are called

on to be homemakers in slums. Under these circumstances the provision of homes passes as inevitably

to a public utility basis as the provision of city water.

The equality of opportunity in which we all believe

(however far we have fallen short of achieving it) involves a fair chance to every individual for bodily

and spiritual health and for a normal family life. It has been well said that there is no better test of

the civilization of a nation than the kind of homes

the masses of its people live in.

Lincoln's luminous reasoning about slavery and

freedom in his "House divided against itself" speech

of 1858 would be as applicable today to the incompatibility of slums and democracy.

Either democracy will destroy the slums, or the

slums will destroy democracy.

140
Appendix

141

APPENDIX A

Index of Real Property Inventories, by States and Localities

State Alabama
Index of Real Property Inventories, by States and Localities Con.

State
Index of Real Property Inventories, by States and Localities Con.

State City or county

Pennsylvania (con.)Coatesville Delaware County

Donora

Easton

East Washington

Erie

Jefferson County

Lancaster Meadville Monessen

hfbnongahela

New Kensington

Philadelphia

Pittsburgh Scranton Washington and

East Washington Waynesburg

Williamsport Rhode Island Providence South Carolina Charleston Columbia

Spartanburg South Dakota Sioux Falls Tennessee ._ . Knoxville

State Texas.

Utah

Vermont..

Virginia __

Washington... West Virginia.

Wisconsin __ Wyoming...

City or county

.. Austin

Dallas Wichita Falls

._ Salt Lake City

._ Burlington

.. Bluefield Hopewell

Martinsville Newport News

Norfolk Portsmouth Richmond

Winchester

.. Seattle

.. Bluefield Charleston Clarksburg

Fairmont

Huntington

Martinsburg

Morgantown

Moundsville

Parkersburg

Princeton Wheeling

.. Kenosha

Racine

_ Casper

Cheyenne

145
Single-family

owner-occupie

values

under

31,500

uni 315

Ren

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176336~4(
APPENDIX C

CO

D

150
APPENDIX D

State court decisions concerning slum clearance and low-rent housing by local housing authorities THERE is no case in which the highest court of any State has

held invalid the State housing legislation. In the following

list of cases, comprising all State housing decisions through

November 1, 1939, the complete available citations are pre- sented. ALABAMA (advisory opinion to Governor): In re Opinion of the Justices, 235

Ala. 485, 179 So. 535 (March 17, 1938). CALIFORNIA: Housing Authority of the County of Los Angeles v. Isadore B.

Dockweiler, Chairman, 94 P. (2d) (October 11, 1939). FLORIDA: (1) Marvin v. Housing Authority of Jacksonville et al., 133 Fla. 590, 183 So. 145 (July 27, 1938); (2) Lott and Lott v. City of Orlando, Florida et al.t 190 So. (September 26, 1939). GEORGIA: Williamson v. Housing Authority of Augusta et al., 186 Ga. 673, 199

S. E. 43 (September 21, 1938). ILLINOIS: Paul A. Krause et al. v. Peoria Housing Authority et al., 370 111. 356, 19 N. E. (2d) 193 (January 26, 1939). INDIANA: Edwards et al. v. Housing Authority of the City of Muncie, Indiana,

et al., 19 N. E. (2d) 741 (March 13, 1939). KENTUCKY: Spahn et al. v. Stewart et al., 268 Ky. 97, 103 S. W. (2d) 651 (February 19, 1937, extended March 26, 1937). LOUISIANA: State ex rel. Porterie, Atty. Gen. v. Housing Authority of New Orleans

et al., 190 La. 710, 182 So. 725 (June 27, 1938, Rehearing denied, July 8, 1938). MARYLAND (lower court) : Abraham Kreshtool v. Housing Authority of Baltimore

City et al. (Circuit Court No. 2, Baltimore City, October 18, 1939). MONTANA: (1) L. F. Rutherford et al. v. The City of Great Falls et al., 86 P. (2d) 656 (January 21, 1939); (2) State ex rel. Helena Housing Authority v. City Council of Helena et al., 90 P. (2d) 514 (May 10, 1939). NEW YORK: New York City Housing Authority v. Muller et al., 270 N. Y. 33, 1 N. E. (2d) 153; See also, 155 Misc. 681, 279 N. Y. 599 (March 17, 1936). NORTH CAROLINA: Wells v. Housing Authority of Wilmington et al., 213 N. C.

744, 197 S. E. 693 (June 15, 1938). OHIO: State of Ohio ex rel. John D. Ellis, City Solicitor, City of Cincinnati v. C. 0. Sherrill, City Manager, et al. (Docket No. 27410, Court Journal 35,

p. 441, January Term, Sup. Ct. of Ohio) Unreported case (June 21, 1939). PENNSYLVANIA: Dornan v. Philadelphia Housing Authority et al., 331 Pa. 209, 200 Atl. 834 (June 30, 1938). SOUTH CAROLINA: McNulty v. Owens et al., 188 S. C. 377, 199 S. E. 425 (October

13, 1938). TENNESSEE: Knoxville Housing Authority, Inc. v. City of Knoxville et al., 123

S. W. (2d) 1085 (January 21, 1939). WEST VIRGINIA: /. Paul Chapman v. The Huntington, West Virginia, Housing

Authority et al., 3 S. E. (2d) 502 June 13, 1939), 151
APPENDIX E

Housing projects built by the Housing Division of the Public Works Administration, now leased or operated by the United States Housing Authority 1

Location Name Site Mumber

erf dwelling

units

Alabama: Birmingham.

Montgomery.

Do__

Connecticut: Stamford__ Florida:

Jacksonville. Miami..

Georgia:

Atlanta. Do_.

Illinois: Chicago. Do.

Do.

Indiana:

Evansville... Indianapolis.

Kentucky:

Lexington.

Louisville. Do_.

Massachusetts: Boston _ Cambridge._ Michigan:

Detroit. Do..

Minnesota:

Minneapolis. Nebraska: Omaha--

New Jersey: Atlantic City. Camden...

Smithfield Court

Riverside Heights. , Wm. B. Paterson Courts.

Slum

Vacant

Slum...

Fairneld Court..

Durkeeville Liberty Square.

Vacant.,.

.do.

.do.

Techwood Homes.

University Homes.

Slum.

..doJane Addams Houses.

Julia C. Lathrop Homes.

Trumbull Park Homes_ .

Slum and

vacant. Vacant

..do...

Lincoln Gardens

Lockefield Garden Apartments.

Blue Grass Park, Aspendale. La Salle Place... _. College Court

Slum

..do...

Vacant.

..do...

.do..

Old Harbor Village. Newtowne Court__ ..do- Slum.

Brewster.

Parkside.

.do. Vacant...

Sumner Field Homes. Slum.

Logan Fontenelle Homes. .do.

Stanley S. Holmes Village. Westfield Acres. _ .-do....

Vacant...

1 2 Puerto Rico projects were transferred to the Puerto Rico Reconstruction

Administration. 152
Housing projects built by the Housing Division of the Public Works Administration, now leased or operated by the United States Housing Authority Con.

Location
APPENDIX F

United States Housing Authority-assisted projects, as of Nov. 30, 1939

State, city, and project

number
United States Housing Authority-assisted projects, as of Nov. 30, 1939 Con.

State, city, and project

number
United States Housing Authority-assisted projects, as of Nov. 30, 1939 Con.

State, city, and project

number
United States Housing Authority-assisted projects, as of Nov. 30, 1939 Con.

State, city, and project

number
APPENDIX G

Foreign housing experience

1. Public measures relating to housing. Certain public measures having an influence on housing exhibit no essential differ- ences of principle or method among civilized nations and

therefore need not detain us. These include: (1) Public health

works such as water, sewers, streets, collection and disposal of waste. (2) Utilities such as gas, electricity, telephones, trans- portation. (Considerable divergence exists here among the

different countries as between public and private ownership and

operation.) (3) Restrictive regulations in building and sanitary codes. (4) Zoning and city planning, as they affect future

developments.

The following measures, however, although extensively used

elsewhere, are not yet found in the United States or have only

recently been introduced.

(a) Public ownership of land in and around cities. Wisely

used, this may prevent the inflation of land values. In practice it has by no means always been wisely used. Although at present talked about, extensive public ownership of urban land

is not yet found in the United States.

(b) Public loans which are repaid in full with interest, which

reduce rents or purchase cost by low interest rate and long

amortization period.

(c) Subsidy or grant, at the expense of the taxpayers, to bring rents within the reach of the lowest income groups. These last two measures exist in the United States under the

Wagner-Steagall United States Housing Act of 1937 and ac- companying State legislation.

Loans and grants may be made to: (1) Public or quasi public

local authorities. (This is the only form found in the United

States.) (2) Public utility housing societies, either cooperative

or limited dividend. (3) Individuals of low income acquiring homes. (4) Private business enterprise. Subsidy to this

last group, rather extensively used immediately after the World

War to stimulate private building, has been generally abandoned

as expensive and unnecessary.

England (and Wales) will be cited as the outstanding example,

both for quantity and quality, of the first type of subsidy, and

Holland of the second.

158
2. Housing by local authorities in Great Britain. The underlying accepted principle was well stated in the Report of the

National Housing Committee in 1934: "The provision of housing accommodation, not below a minimum standard, for every

family in the United Kingdom, at a rent within the family

capacity to pay ... as a public responsibility and a national

service."

This principle was really implicit in the Shaftesbury Act of 1851, which provided that where there was a shortage of suitable

working-class housing at suitable rents, the local authorities

might provide it. During several decades, local experiments, not too successful, were made in slum clearance and rehousing.

After 1890, legislation and practice improved. Between then

and 1914, between 100 and 200 local authorities built some tens Number of dwellings constructed in England and Wales, by local authorities and by private enterprise, with and without public

assistance, 1919-38{
of thousands of working-class cottages, renting them at enough

to make them self-sustaining, except where slum clearance was

involved. In the latter case, the unavoidable excess cost was

charged to the rates (local taxes) as a public health expenditure.

The reason that more of it was not done was due to the entirely

human objections of the ratepayers.

These decades of small-scale experiments built up technical

experts and an enlightened public opinion which alone made the

post-war achievements possible. In 1919 there were some 8,000,000 family dwellings in England and Wales. During the next 20 years, approximately

4,000,000 more were built. That is, the supply was increased

one-half. Nearly one and a quarter million, or about 30 percent,

have been built and are now owned and managed by local authorities, urban, rural, and occasionally county. During the

1920 decade, and until nearly a million small houses had been

built for ordinary workers to relieve the acute shortage, little was done in slum clearance and the rehousing of the lowest in- come groups. Since 1930, however, that difficult task has occupied the center of the stage. Only for rehousing in connection

with slum clearance, for the abatement of overcrowding, and

for agricultural laborers (whose wages are very low) is the

national subsidy now available. More than 1,000 local authorities are, however, working under these provisions.

The amount paid out in subsidies in 1937-38 was 14,617,543

(about 373,000,000) and the total amount paid since 1919 has

been 193,438,059 something under a billion dollars. These

are annual subsidies, of course, not capital cost. In the

spring of 1938 capital cost amounted to just under 2% billion dollars for subsidized post-war housing by local authorities.

3. Housing societies in Holland. In Holland, as well as in England, there is municipal housing, including slum clearance

and the rehousing of those displaced. It is well done and presents many points of interest. But relatively, as well as absolutely, it is less important than in Great Britain. The most

characteristic Dutch developments are her nearly 1,000 cooperative housing societies composed of better-paid workingmen

and lower-paid white-collar workers and officials. For a few

years after the World War these societies received subsidies,

but as soon as economic conditions were stabilized, subsidies came to an end. They may receive a loan for the whole capital

160
cost, at Government bond interest rate and with 50 years for amortization. But when the 50 years is over, the property will belong, not to the society, but to the city housing department,

which has exercised close supervision throughout. Proportions

vary in different cities. In Amsterdam, there are roughly

12,000 municipal dwelling units, and 24,000 built and managed

by societies the two together forming about 20 percent of all dwellings. Something over 220,000 family units have been

built in Holland since the war with some form of Government

aid, either by municipalities or societies. Dutch housing dates from the National Act of 1901. As in Great Britain and other countries, what was done before the

World War was experimental and on a comparatively small

scale. Cooperative housing societies have played an important role also in the Scandinavian countries, especially in Sweden. But

since there cooperative ownership is involved and the payment

of an equity, the system does not reach as low an income group

as in Holland.

4. Aids to home ownership for families of borderline income.1

(a) In Belgium, Act of 1889: Number of small homes acquired under it to December 31, 1938.. 243, 800 Number of foreclosures during that time__ 2, 712

Total amount of loans made, 3,267,944,702 francs.

(b) New Zealand Advances to Workers Act of 1906: Number of small homes acquired under it to Mar. 31, 1929 32, 949 Amount of loss through bad debts 8, 265

Total amount of loans made, 17,530,085. Compare these figures with the foreclosures shown in chart XII

Nonfarm Residential Foreclosures and Refinanced Mortgages in

the United States 1926-38.

1 The only similar effort in the United States is that of California, under the Veterans' Farm and Home Purchase Act, 1921. Number of small homes pur- chased to June 30, 1939, 17,867. Number of farms purchased to June 30, 1939,589. Total investment

^ by Veterans' Welfare Board, 386,615,146. Of

this sum, 380,000,000 was provided by issues of State bonds and the balance by

administrative savings and earnings. To June 30, 1934, 715 homes and 53 farms had been repossessed and resold, the homes constituting 6% percent of the total at that date. At the same time 29% percent of accounts were in arrears. Since that period the situation has been stabilized by permitting

many veterans to cancel their old contracts and enter into new ones, adding

depression arrears to debt principal and prolonging repayment period. Other homes have, however, been resold, to a number not at present ascertainable. Total loss incurred in resale of homes, 1921 to 1939, was 3850,349, and of farms

3208,902. Obviously the California record is not so good as that of Belgium or New Zealand, but it shines brilliantly in comparison with foreclosures in private

enterprise housing in the United States as shown in chart XII. 161