The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1889-07-15
HEALTH AND HIGH HOUSES.
Greatly Populated Cities Should Have
Many-storied Residences.
From the London Spectator

Many-storied Residences.
From the London Spectator
A great city can only be kept healthy
when the number of persons per acre is
strictly limited. The miles and miles of
ugly tWo-Storied houses may make London
the most SqIaid looking city IN Europe
but they also make it the heaithiest. Speak
ing broadly, a town is like prison or
workhouse If the inhabitants are to thrive,
they must have so many cubic feet of air
apportioned to them. If that is secured. it
matters comparatively little how the minor
details are carried out-whether, in the one
case, the rooms are many and small, or
large and few; or in the other, whether the
houses are low and the streets narrow, or
the buildings high and the Uhoroughfares
broad. That is, London can have high
houses. and yet be kept perfectly healthy;
but then, the ground saved must not be
monopolized by the builder, but must be re-
turned in the shape Of broader streets.
Whatever happens, the proper proportion
OF persons to air and space must be rigor-
ously maintained. In fact the wel-being
of the community demands that ground
space shall not be economical, and that an
increased number of people shall not be
crowded on to particular spot. But this
fundamental principle once laid down, we
may feel pretty certain that the love
of low dwellings which seems natural to the
English race will be triumphant, and that
our system of building houses Of very
moderate altitude will be generally main
tanned.
Stid, though we welcome any plan for
freeing us from the prospect of city of
streets to which the sun can never penetrate,
we can not help, for some reasons, regret
ting that we are not likely to have a town
of high houses and broad roadways In
many ways, house OF ter or even of twelve
stories is very pleasant and healthy place
to live in, provided that it faces back and
front on some great park or wide open
space, and is thus in no sense obnoxious to
its nelghbors. In the first place, a building
of the hight we have named must neces-
sarily be built very strongly. If it does
not have thick wells, it can not stand But
the comfort of thick walls is almost beyond
description. They afford a real secusion,
aud effectually keep out the hammering
and the piano playing of the neighbors.
Then, too. they are cool in summer and
warm in winter, and prevent one feeling
the sudden changes of temperature that
take place in a climate so variable as that
of England.
More important still, tall buildings give
to those who like the feeling of living on
the top of high hill an opportunity OF OBJ
tanning such sensations even in London.
The top story of a house of twelve stories
has brightness and clearness of air. and
those who make their homes there are
above good deal of the i'll smelling mist
and vapor that rises from the much-fre-
quented London streets. Lastly, the higher
portion Of such building as we have been
describing is dry to an extent which it is
difficult to realize from the experience of
ordinary houses. If London could have
houses even so feet high, placed In thor
oughfares 100 feet broad the city might be
rendered, from a merely sanitary point of
view, almost ideal. From no portion of
these houses would the sun be excluded, and
those who liked the fresher air could choose
the top stories, while such persons as object
to the effect of giddiness or insecurity pro-
duced by the hight might inhabit the
lower.
Greater, however, than the advantages Sc
cured within the houses themselves, would
be those obtained outside. Streets 100 feet
wide might be so arranged as in a great
measure to protect their inhabitants from
the acute misery which the constant din of
the traffic produces on all persons sensitive
to noise. Down the center would run a
roadway intended for the general through
traffic.. e., for omnibuses and other vehi-
cles not entering the street in order to stop
at any of the houses in it, but simply using
it as q thoroughfare. On each side of this
main artery would be planted a narrow
plantation of trees and shrubs, aud beyond
these would be roads affording access to
the houses. III fact, everysStreeU would be
a sort of glorified Westbourne Terrace, and
thus the hideous and distracting turmoil
which now half maddens those who have
irritable nerves would, as far as possible, be
banished.