Housing the masses

CAROL ARCXNOVICi

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Housing the Masses

HOUSING THE MASSES

BY

CAROL ARONOVICI, Ph.D.

Lecturer on Housing and Community Planning at
New York University and Columbia University

NEW YORK

JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC.
LONDON : CHAPMAN & HALL, LIMITED

COPYRIGHT, 1939

BY
CAROL ARONOVICI

All rights reserved

This book or any part thereof must not

be reproduced in any form without the

written permission of the publisher.

Printed in the U. S. A.

THE HADDON CRAFTSMEN, INC.
CAMDEN, N. J.

TO THE MEMORY OF

KATE HOLLADAY CLAGHORN

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK

PREFACE

This book was conceived and written largely as a result of a long
experience in teaching both housing and community planning in a variety
of educational institutions. I have felt that most discussions on these
subjects have been emphasizing the immediate objectives of these two
important phases of individual and communal living, while the forces
which have stood in the way of long-range creative effort have been
neglected or overlooked in the interest of expediency. It is with the long-
range aspects of housing that this book is concerned.

It will be noted that there is no discussion of the conditions of the slums
and the alleged evils which they create. Nor has any serious consideration
been given to European housing. The main reasons for these omissions
are largely to be found in the fact that a vast literature already exists
dealing with both these subjects. As for European housing, I have always
felt that we ascribe entirely too much significance to the experience of
countries with standards, laws, methods of living, and social attitudes
which are fundamentally different from our own. We may seek inspira-
tion in the courage and monumental achievement of Europe, but we must
find our own way on our own terms if our efforts to improve housing
conditions are to meet our needs and are to represent the American way
of living.

CAROL ARONOVICI

Greenwich, Connecticut
January $,

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

Introduction xi

i. Land 3

ii. People 51

in. Money 67

iv. Earning Capacity and the Housing Market 89

v. Home Ownership 109

vi. The Law and Housing 125

vii. Urbanism and Housing 175

vin. Architecture and Housing 197

ix. Housing Education 211

x. The Housing Survey and Housing Research 223

XL Conclusions 271

Housing Literature 277

Index 289

INTRODUCTION

Housing as a problem of human welfare is as old as the human race it-
self. Although we have little idea of the manner of construction which
was employed by the primitive races of the world, we are not wholly
ignorant of the fact that from time to time the housing of the lower
economic classes claimed the attention of the rulers. In this connection
we might recall that Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions dating as far
back as 4000 B.C. record a sit-down strike of the workers who partici-
pated in the building of the pyramids. The result was the first attempt to
construct a model town in exchange for a waterproof tomb so essential
to the health of the immortal souls of the Pharaohs.

Thucydides, the Greek writer, tells us that in the fourth century B.C.
there was considerable concern with housing in Athens. The Spartans
were slum dwellers par excellence. The rulers of Athens, however, met
the problem of housing by passing many wise and drastic laws which
set up standards of safety and sanitation under housing inspectors who
had full power to demolish undesirable dwellings.

During the development of the great Byzantine Empire, a great deal
was done to improve the sanitation of homes, and bathing as a sanitary
and religious requirement assumed great importance. Indeed, there were
more private baths in Constantinople about the middle of the eighth
century A.D. than there were in New York and Boston combined in
the middle of the nineteenth century.

In the United States the problem of protecting city dwellers in matters
of housing evidently arose as far back as the earliest colonial times. Thus
we find a New Amsterdam ordinance dated 1647 which attempted to
reduce the hazard from fire, and another in 1657 forbidding the throwing
of rubbish into the street and ordering that it be carted away. Subse-
quent early legislation dealt with sewers, water supply, and other regu-
lations intended to protect health. If we may judge from early documents,
the enforcement of these regulations was not very effective. That con-
ditions went from bad to worse is evident from the many reports of
health officers and the persistent changes and improvements in the laws
regulating housing and requiring cleanliness. All these early regulations
applied to New York City. It goes without saying that the whole prob-
lem of housing was dealt with as a matter of tenant-owner relationship
and was not concerned with the more fundamental and far-reaching

xii INTRODUCTION

aspects of planning, taxation, land speculation, financing, costs, or build-
ing design.

Much has been written in the last four decades about the ways and
means of solving the housing problem and abolishing the slums. Most of
this writing has been concerned, not with the broader social and eco-
nomic implications of providing good housing, but with the legal restric-
tions which might force owners to provide the kind of housing that would
meet the minimum standards of decency. In this book I assume that
sanitary regulations and minimum standards of safety and convenience,
which should be provided for all the families in the United States, can
without much difficulty be established by law. What is more difficult
is to create conditions which would make housing embodying these
standards financially practicable and accessible to all families as owners
or renters. From this point of view, housing assumes a new aspect and one
which implies the solution of a considerable number of social, economic,
and legal problems not involved in the common practice of housing
regulations. This is the approach attempted in this book. Many defini-
tions of the housing movement have been suggested, but there has always
been confusion between the objectives of housing and the methods of
achieving these objectives. In a book which I published some years ago,
I defined the objectives of housing as follows:

The furnishing of healthful accommodations adequately provided with facil-
ities for privacy and comfort, easily accessible to centers of employment, cul-
ture and amusement, accessible from the centers of distribution of the food
supply, rentable at reasonable rates, and yielding a fair return on the investment.1

This set of objectives, I believe, has not altered since this book was
written. What has changed is the outlook of those who are working to-
ward the achievement of these ends. Their task may be defined as a
movement intended to wrest from an unfavorable economy the means
for adjusting the social, economic, legal, and technical factors affecting
costs and fitness of housing so that the masses of the people may acquire
the right to decent shelter in the same degree that they have acquired
similar rights in matters of health and public education.

This new outlook has come about through the new conditions which
this country has had to face. The recent economic crisis has been no
small factor in bringing housing within the scope of the larger national
issues and in taking it out of the realm of sentimentality and small politics.

Since the inauguration of the "New Deal" under the leadership of
President Roosevelt, the housing movement has taken two distinct direc-
tions, both of which are growing in significance with the passing of

1 Aronovici, Carol, Housing and the Housing Problem, McClurg, 1920; p. 7.

INTRODUCTION xiii

time and the evaluation of experience. The first of these is bringing the
financing and construction of housing within the range of public service
as a permanent part of the national government. The second, and in my
estimation the more important, is the effort toward a restatement of the
housing problem as a sociopolitical philosophy in which public action
and private enterprise would be brought into effective relationship in
the interest of building enterprise and particularly housing. If the second
objective could be achieved, housing would pass from the field of charity
and social service into a new phase of economic doctrine, and from a
symptom of maladjustment of individuals and families in need of special
attention into a new phase of economic reconstruction.

The housing movement has been delayed by no more effective ob-
stacles than the failure to consider its causes and the economic resources
of the slum dwellers. It seemed simpler and less disturbing to our social
structure to stress the slum and the blighted district. There was more
dramatic value in portraying the indescribable filth and misery of the
slum dweller than in exposing the economic and business structure which
made these slums possible and, in a sense, useful to the families who could
afford nothing better. Land speculation, low wages, high interest rates,
bad planning, banking and investment policies were too far-reaching in
their effects upon the whole economic system and involved too many
vested interests to be disturbed. All this is now clear to many students
of housing, and even government agencies are taking a hand in revising
the limits of public action in the matter of private investment and profit.

There are, of course, still those who insist that the slums must be
cleared first. How this could be accomplished no one knows. The govern-
ments—federal, state, or local— could undertake this task if the question
of cost were not so considerable. Indeed, many cities, with aid from
the federal government, have attempted to reconstruct some of their
slum areas; but the achievement to date, and the probable achievement in
the future, is likely to be negligible when considered in the light of the
vast slum areas which every large city contains and of the problem of
absorbing, not alone the productive values of land and buildings, but
also the speculative, non-realizable values which the owners of slum
property insist upon turning into cash. Even if we assume that the govern-
ment would eventually absorb all the slum areas for housing, and that
this would be accomplished at the rate of 50,000 dwellings a year, it
would take 140 years to absorb the 7,000,000 slum dwellings in the various
cities of the United States— hardly an encouraging prospect for the next
generation of slum dwellers.

No one is more eager to free our cities of slums than I. No one can

xiv INTRODUCTION

be unaware of its blighting effects upon the welfare, not alone of its
occupants, but upon the whole of the community as well. The diffi-
culty, however, must be realized that slum clearance complicates rather
than simplifies the solution of the housing problem. The real task is not
the clearing of the slums and the salvaging of the values which the slums
represent, but rather the salvaging of the human lives which now must live
in slums. Take the people out of them, and the slums will be cleared in
less time than it will take the government to clear them by subsidies. If
we could forget the slums for a decade and proceed to develop housing
where there is no decay and no mismanagement of investment or un-
warranted speculation, we would open the road to decent housing, which
the insistence upon slum clearing only delays.

Although throughout this book I have emphasized the economic
aspects of housing, I am not unmindful of the fact that our methods of
planning and construction need reorganization and reorientation. In the
matter of productive capacity of the industry which is engaged in home
building, we find that, whereas within the last decade many industries
have increased their productivity per unit of work by 400 per cent, the
building industry has made no perceptible progress. Prefabrication, which
has been attempted by many, has remained in the experimental stage
and does not promise much for the immediate future.

Mass production is coming into greater prominence, but it still has a
long way to go when compared with the methods employed in England,
Sweden, Germany, and other European countries. As to the design of
large-scale housing and the relating of these housing projects to their
neighborhood pattern, much remains to be accomplished. I am not con-
cerned here with the vast and complex task of reorganizing the industry.
This can and will be accomplished when the economic structure upon
which housing depends has been built up to meet present-day conditions
and has been safeguarded by legislative and administrative means so that
it may yield to changing conditions and advancing standards.

We have, in this country, allegedly about 10,000,000 families living in
substandard dwellings. Just where the line of demarcation between
standard and substandard lies is difficult to state. The fact is that many
standard houses of yesterday are substandard today, and that many of the
so-called standard dwellings of today will be obsolete long before the
end of their structural life. Certainly few families live in the kind of
house suited to their needs or one which makes home life attractive.
These houses may not be designated as substandard dwellings according
to some code which is based upon the lowest common denominator of
bad housing, but, from the point of view of the families which occupy

INTRODUCTION xv

them and their individual standards, they may be classed as such. The
task of the housing movement is not alone the clearing away of slums
and replacement of legally substandard dwellings by legally minimum-
standard dwellings. The real task of the housing movement is the raising
of all housing standards to a point of efficiency as living machines and
as centers around which family life revolves that will be consistent with
the potential and actual advance in the technique of planning and con-
struction, and with the way of living which American families can and
should have.

The poor must, of course, be provided for first, but this is not the
fundamental function of the housing movement, except as it would be
facilitated by all the instrumentalities which might be created in the
interest of better housing for all the people. If only we could be liberated
from the slum and lower-income-group complexes, we might forge ahead
in evolving a policy of housing which would affect the welfare of every
individual and family in the land, and raise standards favoring not only
the poor but likewise the masses of American people.

Land

HOUSING THE MASSES

CHAPTER I

LAND
I. LAND VALUES

In a land where populations are constantly shifting, where standards
of living are fluctuating or advancing, where techniques of industry and
business change with unprecedented rapidity, confusion in the physical
pattern of communities and obsolescence of investment in real property
are unavoidable. Indeed this obsolescence may become an index of move-
ment and progress. Such progress does not take place by a process of
rational planning but by that pioneering spirit which destroys, in the
interest of today, what society may be needing tomorrow.

This form of individualistic effort in the march of American civiliza-
tion is nowhere more obvious than in the manner in which we have at-
tempted to reap the benefits from a growing population and a mounting
national wealth in the exploitation of land as space for urban living.

We are not concerned in this work with the whole problem of urban
land and its use, since our main interest is the relation between land and
housing. It is impossible, however, to separate the land problem as it
affects housing from the larger problem of community space, its dis-
tribution and use. Indeed no parcel of land can be evaluated either in
economic or social terms without taking into account the relation it bears
to its immediate surroundings, its neighborhood character, and its place
in the community as one of particular importance to its present as well as
future use. In fact, aside from agricultural values, land has no value except
that which can be derived from its relation to the community, not alone
as a stable commodity, but also as an entity changing in time and space
at particular rates of speed. Thus land values must be based upon a four-
dimensional formula, in which space, position in the community, time,
and rate of change must be taken into account. The transition which
urban land has undergone from pioneering days to its present exploita-
tional phase, and the eventual social and economic obsolescence of large
areas of our cities, resulted in the creation of blight and slums, which
have involved both the welfare of our communities and the security of

3

4 LAND

investment in real property. As real estate embraces about one-fifth of
our national wealth, its effect upon our national economy is bound to
be far-reaching.

In order to understand the relation that land bears to the location, dis-
tribution, and cost of housing, it is important to analyze rather minutely
the factors which make certain lands suitable for housing and the bases
upon which values or costs are established.

Broadly speaking, the suitability of land for housing purposes depends
upon the following classes of factors:

1. Natural character of raw land as building site.

2. Its geographic relation to the community.

3. Its quantitative relation to present and future needs.

4. Its stability and future possibilities.

5. Its place in the evolving community.

6. Its exposure to outer influences.

7. Available community services.

8. Its obligations as present and future investment.

9. Its capacity for economic development.

i o. The relation of units of ownership to use.

1 1 . Degree of intensity and variety of development possible.

12. Margin of profit to be derived from additional investment and
management.

13. Social controls of use and their relation to stability of investment
and possibility for speculation.

RAW LAND

The value of raw land for housing purposes is derived from its natural
character as a suitable building site. Where land presents such problems
as drainage, difficulties in the construction of basements and cellars owing
to rock formation or seepage, soft ground in need of piling before con-
struction, slopes making building or access costly, values are of necessity
lower. Where land is of such quality as to involve no extra effort or
cost, however, and where use is not hampered by physical conditions,
values are not affected.

In recent years some of the so-called natural objectionable conditions in
land due to slope which make it undesirable for certain uses have been
capitalized as assets, particularly in luxury housing. Cities within whose
precincts the hills have been wholly undeveloped or only partly developed
have now resorted to these hills as the best sites for luxury housing. This
is due to the development of the automobile, for one thing, and also to

LAND

a considerable amount of progress in the design of hillside homes, in which
the problems of grade have been transformed into opportunities for
architectural treatment affording variety, picturesqueness, and utility
under otherwise difficult natural conditions. Not only have these lands
become useful as residential areas, but in many cities they have attained
values undreamed of before.

There are, of course, land conditions which, although quite suitable
for housing purposes from the point of view of location, outlook, and
environment, present structural difficulties which add to the cost of con-
struction without adding to the use value of such construction. This is
true of low or swampy lands, where buildings must be especially re-
inforced or piles must be driven into the ground to serve as underpinnings
for buildings. A study of most city lands would easily reveal ample
building areas without resort to this type of costly construction.

View may be considered as part of the value of land. Although this
advantage is not an integral part of what might be called raw land, it
is nevertheless inherent in the position of the site in its relations to
surroundings.

GEOGRAPHIC RELATION TO THE COMMUNITY

Land economies and urban living are inseparable. Land values are part
of the total residential value of the city or town in which they are sit-
uated, and their uses are a direct result of the sum total of the economic
and social requirements of the whole community. This is not always a
condition which may be summed up in quantitative or qualitative values,
because our cities and towns are made up, not of a synchronized set of
factors, but of a series of layers of conditions and demands which are
superimposed upon the community over a considerable period of time,
during which fluctuations in the rate of development, improvement of
standards, and economic disturbances have been taking place. In addition,
the accumulation of legal restrictions and controls over land uses, after
some of the more desirable lands have been developed, makes a categorical
evaluation of building sites in relation to the community difficult, if not
impossible.

It would be clear to anyone concerned with housing that the lower
East Side of New York, by virtue of its proximity to the greatest finan-
cial district of the city, its access to the water front, and its close relation
to business and industry, should be the most valuable and desirable resi-
dential district of this great metropolis. However, the historic factors
which have played a part in the development of this area have destroyed
a good share of the values inherent in its geographic location, thus re-

6 LAND

suiting in the creation of slums. No one can deny that the geographic
location values are still there, but their salvaging would involve such
heavy costs as to counteract a goodly share of the possible gain.

Similar conditions exist in practically every city of the country, where
the most desirable and most accessible lands, although the first to be
developed, have now become outstanding centers of obsolescent residen-
tial districts and blighted business and industrial areas.

Again, we find districts in our cities favored from the point of view
of their relation to the rest of the community which, owing to incon-
sistent development, changes in standards of building and fluctuating
market demands, have become blighted by an admixture of land uses
consistent with temporary demands which now resist coordination. Thus
we find a certain portion of New York City— namely Astoria, in the
vicinity of the Fifty-Ninth Street bridge— made up of obsolete and
scattered buildings, open areas, factories, tenements, and apartment houses
comprising sufficient acreage to house a community of from 50,000 to
100,000 people; but the development of this site is at a standstill. This
failure to develop a coherent community has taken place despite proximity
to business and industrial centers, ample transit facilities, and low land
cost.

To what extent it would be possible to recapture the lost geographic
land values of our cities is a matter of conjecture. Zoning, planning, slum
clearance, street improvements, traffic orientation, and the complex ma-
chinery of technical planning and planning controls may play an impor-
tant part in this process, but the time element involved will depend upon
the rate at which present improvements may be junked without upsetting
the economic structure of real-estate investment. For the moment, there
is a great deal of resistance to a proper redistribution of land uses, much
of which is due to the inherent difficulties of displacing one use of land
with another without loss of revenue to private owners, reduction in
taxable improvements, disturbance of the process of business and indus-
trial relation, and inconvenience to the residents of the district to be sal-
vaged for its proper use.

In any analysis which may be made of a community, in order to deter-
mine its capacity for housing development and the distribution of the
various types needed to meet local needs, it would be essential to consider
all the housing factors which may lead to placing the home districts where
they would bear a proper relation to the community. These would in-
clude shopping centers, education and recreational centers, and such
amenities of environment as would give permanency to individual de-
velopment and justify large-scale building investment, with ample con-

LAND 7

sideration, not alone for the inherent advantages which a site represents,
but also for the manner in which these advantages will serve the people
who are to be housed. Advantages of location in the abstract have no
great bearing upon the problem. They must be related to the specific
needs of the people whom they are intended to serve.

PRESENT AND FUTURE LAND NEEDS

No city of the United States suffers from a shortage of land for hous-
ing purposes. In fact, the expression "land shortage" is subject to a great
variety of interpretations, and the methods of overcoming alleged shortage
have created confusion in our urban land economy. Let us consider
the various ways in which claims of land shortage are justified.

A reasonably fair definition of land shortage would be "the lack of
adequate areas consistent with the various needs of the city— to provide
for its normal functions for the present and its normal anticipated
growth." It must be pointed out, however, that the potential activities
and services which may be developed on a square mile of urban land in
a typical old-time block in the City of Philadelphia, for example, where
the single-row house prevails, creates one type of demand for land, while
a Manhattan tenement-block development bears an entirely different re-
lation to land use and the possibilities for land shortage, if we assume
the same area and the same population. Indeed, it is conceivable that,
under certain conditions, a high population load per land unit under
proper land planning would result in more desirable living conditions
than a low population load on a similar unit of land without proper land
planning.

If a shortage of suitable land is claimed in a city, it may be reasonably
expected that this is due to conditions which have permitted the best
lands to be exploited until they have become blighted with obsolescent
buildings, serving in a substandard manner the purpose for which they
were originally designed.

The last quarter of a century has witnessed a flight of population from
the center to the periphery of our cities. This flight has been partly due
to a normal increase in the population, but its main cause has been the
pressure of rising standards upon the lag of land-use adjustment.

The area of the City of New York is 190,161 acres, of which 83,000
acres were vacant in 1920. The built-up area represented a density of
population of 52.7 persons per acre, or about 13 families, the population
of New York at that time amounting to 5,620,000. On this basis, there
was still room for an increase in population of 4,352,800 within the un-
built area of New York City, or a total potential population of 9,972,800

8 LAND

people— the equivalent of the population of the entire New York region,
which extends into three states and covers an area fifteen times as great
as the area of the City of New York itself.

An analysis of the relation between population and area of almost any-
other city of the United States will reveal conditions similar to those of
Greater New York. Indeed, some cities like Los Angeles have extended
their municipal boundaries to cover the extent of the regional population
flight that has been taking place, in order to recapture the population and
taxing resources, which have been trying to escape from inefficient and
uneconomical land use within the settled areas of the city.

Within the last twenty years we find cities like Detroit, Cleveland,
San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and many others engaged in a
process of land expansion through the development of new subdivisions
sufficient to provide for a populational growth which statisticians tell
us will never take place in this country, owing to the slowing up of our
rate of population increase and to the practical cessation of immigration.

I have seen the development of subdivisions in one metropolitan dis-
trict which would be sufficient to accommodate the population of the
entire state, including its normal growth forecast for a generation. Many
of these subdivisions were carved into landscapes which should have been
preserved as public parks. Others were extended into fruitful agricultural
lands, which were yielding handsome returns as intensively cultivated
areas.

This wasteful method of land-development expansion has now come
to a standstill, but its effects upon city and rural budgets are still being
felt. Connection highways have been built at enormous costs only to be
abandoned or to remain partly used. Streets have been constructed which
have yielded to the ravages of neglect. Sewers and water systems have
been provided on a scale wholly disproportionate to possible use, and,
above all, investors in land or securities connected with these "improve-
ments" have been left holding the proverbial bag.

Many of these subdivisions have now been returned, officially, to the
designation of "agricultural land." This, however, is merely a device to
gain the advantage of lower taxation. The subdivisions, with their aban-
doned and deteriorating equipment, still remain as evidence of an optimism
which transcends the bounds of business sanity.

It seems obvious from what has been said that the expansion of land
subdivision was due to two fundamental factors: first, the intolerable con-
ditions of living which our modern cities have developed; and second,
the high .cost of land within our cities, which made it impossible to use
adequate areas for good housing development. The latter is true of land

Photograph by W .P. A. — Division of Photograph).
A STUDY IN CONTRASTS— SLUMS AND SKYSCRAPERS.

Courtesy of Pittsburgh Housing Association.

A SLUM IN PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA.

r.

Photograph by W.P.A. — Division of Photograph).

WILLIAMSBURG HOUSING PROJECT SITE.

LAND 13

that is still lying idle or that has become blighted by obsolete, incoherent,
or inappropriate development.

STABILITY AND FUTURE POSSIBILITIES

Stability and future possibilities in land values are almost contradictory
terms, and yet much of our land-market activity depends upon alleged or
actual possibilities rather than actual use. For every generation the land
in our slums has maintained an almost unchanged stability as a profit-
yielding power. With the deterioration of the buildings, this profit has
been on the decrease rather than on the increase, but at the same time
assessments on land have been advancing as building assessments have
been diminishing.

Stability of revenue and its consequent stability of value depends upon
conditions which protect a given investment over a considerable period of
time. Zoning and deed restrictions, as applied to land subdivision and land
use, tend to stabilize land values and reduce or eliminate possibilities for
speculation or even gradual increases in value. Where these restrictions are
lax or non-existent, the possibilities for speculation are increased, although
the expected speculative price may never be realized.

In fact, much of our timid zoning effort, which has little to do with
actual utility or fitness, has acted in the direction of destroying stability
and raising false hopes. Out of this has grown a new kind of speculation
without relation to the reality of present need or future demand. Zoning
of this kind can be found in almost every city of the United States. It is
a form of legalized wishful thinking that destroys the balance of com-
munity development which it is intended to encourage.

Even though it is conceivable that a rapid growth in population, a shift
in the center of gravity of business, some unexpected clearing of a less
intensively developed area to make way for more intensive development
may enhance land values at some specific point in the community, there
is no reason why such incidents in community growth should find their
reflection in the speculative land values of the community as a whole.
In fact, any increase in the intensity of land development in one or more
areas should have exactly the contrary effect, since the larger the building
load a particular area carries, the less of a load is left for the remaining
areas with a given population. If an acre of land increases by twenty
times its load of superficial area of office space, as a result of the building
of a sixty-story building where a three-story building had stood before,
it is quite obvious that, unless there is an abnormal business development,
the effect upon other similar areas would be to reduce rather than enhance
surrounding land values.

14 LAND

It may be said without fear of contradiction that, wherever symptoms
of speculation in residential or other lands appear, one of two things is
bound to happen. Either there will be stagnation of building enterprise,
owing to the difficulty encountered in making the building absorb a
heavy land cost; or the result will be land sweating, which leads to con-
gestion on the one hand and to a reduction in the marketability of the re-
maining building sites on the other. A policy of reducing the possibilities
for land use is therefore an advantage to landowners, although it may
deprive a few individuals of unreasonable profits.

THE PLACE OF LAND IN AN EVOLVING COMMUNITY

There are several ways of considering the evolution of communities.
One is the hit-or-miss method, which is an orderless response to growing
needs or alleged needs; another, the preconceived, preplanned method,
which anticipates development and makes preparations that would check
evils and lead to a distribution of land uses and improvements consistent
with economy and efficiency. The greatest danger to orderly develop-
ment is the fluctuating land market. The hungry landowner who has held
land for years, meeting heavy taxes, fighting off mortgage foreclosures,
and building up hopes of large profits can not be held responsible for
taking advantage of a lively land market. The real difficulty lies in the
failure of the community and its governing body to anticipate during
normal times the possibilities of such land-market disturbances.

By fixing the number of dwellings per acre, by prelocating the resi-
dential districts of the city, by preplanning improvements consistent with
the contemplated and logical development of specific areas, and by ad-
justing assessment and taxes to the potentialities of residential develop-
ment of the planned areas up to their capacity to yield revenue, specula-
tion in land could be reduced to a minimum.

It has been pointed out that there is no shortage of land for housing in
most normally located communities. In his studies of the City of Lon-
don, Sir Raymond Unwin has made some interesting calculations of the
expansion of the area of growth that can be added to a given com-
munity by increasing the radius of development by one mile.1 This in-
genious way of demonstrating the relation between orderly expansion
without moving the population too far away from the center of business
activity, if kept in mind when preparations are made for community
expansion, will provide ample housing accommodations easily interrelated

1See Housing and Town Planning— Lectures, 1936-1937, by Sir Raymond Unwin, pp. 77-82.
Published by Subcommittee on Research and Statistics, Central Housing Committee, Washing-
ton, D. C.

LAND 15

by traffic and transit facilities without producing either congestion, land
shortage, or undue territorial expansion.

EXPOSURE TO OUTER INFLUENCES

As land for housing becomes integrated into the body of the com-
munity, it acquires a number of social values which are its qualifying
characteristics as residential property. Land that is used or designed to be
used for housing is dependent for its social value upon its surroundings.
Every structure that is built in the vicinity of a home site has an influence
upon the value of this site for residential purposes. The construction of
a home whose architectural design is out of harmony with its neighboring
buildings will affect land values of adjoining buildings, and the nearest
building or site to such a structure would be most affected. The construc-
tion of a factory, a store, a gas station, or any other element disturbing
either the harmony of the neighborhood or its quiet, peace, safety, or at-
mosphere, will detract from the residential value of the neighborhood and
each individual site. This condition has long ago been realized, and vari-
ous measures have been employed to avoid undesirable practices of this
sort. Zoning, private-land restriction, architectural control, the abolition
of nuisances, and other means have been used. While these methods of
control have been successful in many residential areas of the more ex-
pensive type, they have been only half-heartedly applied to the less costly
and less exclusive neighborhoods.

Both the restrictive regulations and the more constructive planning
methods have been used in stabilizing and enhancing values. Design of
buildings, skillful manipulation of masses and spaces, conservation of
vistas, consideration of orientation and exposure are some of the means
used in this enhancement and stabilization of values. It is quite obvious
that an open lot devoted to indiscriminate dumping or even to unor-
ganized play may be a detriment to building sites located in its vicinity.
A vista that culminates in a gas tank, a tangle of railroad trucks, an aban-
doned factory, or a screaming advertising display would hardly enhance
the residential value of a building site. Just what standard of measurement
could be applied is difficult or impossible to determine. There are, how-
ever, obvious social and esthetic values which consciously or uncon-
sciously impress themselves upon the neighborhood, as reflected in the
assessment and valuation of each parcel of land.

It is true, of course, that the higher the character of the city as a planned
entity and the greater the protection of amenities, the higher are the
standards of the people and the more pronounced are the influences of the
surroundings upon the value of the land. It is also true that the more open

16 LAND

the development of the neighborhood, so as to make possible a closer rela-
tion between the indoor and outdoor use of the site, the greater is the
influence of the environment upon land value.

More and more is this conception of the relation between the inside of
the building and its surrounding areas becoming a factor in housing. The
careful planning of the recent government housing enterprises, as far as
the use of the site is concerned, is ample evidence of this new awareness
of the relation between buildings and surroundings. In fact, given a par-
ticular standard of uniformity in the planning of apartment space, and
assuming all conveniences to be the same for every apartment, rents
could be based upon a differential derived entirely from the relation of
the outlook to window space. The view of a garden, the long vista derived
from a well planned curved street, the view of a river or fountain, the
climaxing of the landscape development by focusing upon a tower, a
steeple, or some monument would play an important part in determining
the rental of residential quarters and would affect rental rates.

In the consideration of these so-called outer amenities, safety of chil-
dren from the hazard of traffic, noises from near-by rail transportation
facilities, and the prevalence of objectionable odors emanating from
near-by industries play an important part in determining the market value
of a site.

The importance of surroundings as a basis for the choice of residential
sites will always play an important part in determining the location and
development of residential districts. But, as we advance in the art of city
planning and succeed in overcoming the present prevailing individualistic
tendencies in the use of land, a new wealth of amenities will be afforded
to residential neighborhoods which will be taken for granted, while the
refinements of these amenities will take on new forms, owing to the
greater skill in the use of land which city planners working under a more
highly sensitized system of planning controls will be able to evolve.

COMMUNITY SERVICES

The community services distinguish, to a large extent, rural from urban
housing. Water supply, sewers, street construction, drainage of surface
water, street lighting, tree planting, collection of refuse, and similar com-
munal activities, which must be shared and which at the same time are
essential to all urban living, are as much a part of the land as the soil
upon which a dwelling stands. In calculating land cost, these improve-
ments play an important part, although in long-established areas where
land prices are high they are commonly taken for granted and are a
small financial consideration in the price of a given parcel of land.

LAND 17

However, where the cost of these essential improvements is a factor
and where conditions make the cost prohibitive, it affects materially the
base price per land unit. In many cases the cost is hidden in high water
and gas rates, owing to the distance of these utilities from the center of
production and other factors. The fact remains that those services must
be paid for either directly through the inclusion of the costs in the price
of land or by payment of taxes, special assessments, or service rates of
various kinds. In the selection of sites for housing it is therefore impor-
tant to examine, not alone the presence and efficiency of services essen-
tial to the normal use of such a site for residential purposes, but the costs
which these services would entail. Water rates which are controlled by
private corporations and which add materially to the cost of maintaining
a home are as much a part of the price of the land, which must be absorbed
by rents, as is the price of the land itself. Gas and electricity, garbage
collection, or any other service of this kind for which charges are made
according to some differential based upon zones may affect the family
budget sufficiently to influence the value of a site and its desirability for
residential purposes.

The services mentioned above are reasonably standardized essentials,
which can be easily evaluated. There are, however, other services which
do not enter into the cost of land development directly but which are,
nevertheless, important. Schools are undoubtedly the sine qua non of resi-
dential-area development. The cost of their construction and maintenance
depends upon community-wide standards, in which the neighborhood
may play a part in determining the quality of the service without assum-
ing a direct responsibility for the cost. Yet, the presence of a good school
once established will affect land prices wherever transfers of land take
place, and in this manner higher assessments of land may be brought
about. It is not inconceivable that the promotion of high-grade schools
for a special class of residents of a district may bring about changes in
property values of a specific school district which would become so high
as to result in a change in the character of the population. The more de-
sirable the school, the greater is the demand for home sites, the higher
the price, the higher the taxes, and the less accessible the land to people
with limited means. It is only where the school system may be said to
render the same standard of service throughout that it has no effect upon
land assessments and values. To a lesser degree, fire and police protec-
tion have their effect upon land prices. Where fire protection is of a low
standard, fire insurance rates are high, and the location of the site in its
relation to such fire-protection service plays a part either in raising the
cost of construction or in raising insurance rates.

18 LAND

DEVELOPMENT DRIFTS AND OBSOLESCENCE

One of the most serious difficulties in the development of services con-
sistent with site needs is the lack of land-use control, which makes it im-
possible to calculate in advance the extent and character of services
needed. If a standard of twelve families to the acre were established as a
housing maximum, it would be possible to calculate within certain limits
the services which would be needed as long as the community is expected
to last. If, however, as is the case at present, the same-sized sites may vary
in population load from one to a hundred families, any attempt to fore-
cast the amount and cost of the service needed must remain in the realm
of conjecture. As some sort of guess must be made as to what services to
provide, it often happens that there is little relation between what is
needed and what is provided. Water mains required for single-family resi-
dences may be built in expectation of greater needs which may never
be realized, thus placing an unwarranted service cost upon land. On the
other hand, a too conservative anticipation of population growth and
increased service needs may result in inadequate services entailing costly
and disturbing reconstruction. The whole process of calculation in the
technique of providing services depends entirely upon the optimism or
pessimism of the entrepreneur, or upon his idea of the state of develop-
ment of his project when he shall have unloaded it upon his clients. In the
case of schools, playgrounds, parks, and similar services, the situation is
even more deplorable.

Since cities must anticipate the services needed and must incur obliga-
tions in securing land for the development of these services, it often
occurs that in some sections of the city there is a superfluity of services
which are not used, while other parts of the community are suffering
from overcrowded schools, lack of playgrounds, and similar conditions
inconsistent with local needs. Once the community has been built up be-
yond the capacity of the services needed, the cost of acquisition of addi-
tional land for expansion may become prohibitive. Thus a reasonably good
residential area, with ample provision for services which make home life
and neighborhood relations desirable, may start at first with slight in-
creases in population, go through a period of increased land prices due
to a more intensive use of the land, and end up as an obsolete district with
a population load wholly out of proportion to the services provided. This
form of transition is not at all uncommon, and any observant citizen may
find illustrations of it around the corner from his home, if not indeed in
his own neighborhood.

In fact, many neighborhoods have deteriorated, not because of the age

LAND 19

of the buildings, but because they were too desirable in many respects and
attracted population in larger numbers than its services could provide for.
This can only be avoided by having regard for the proper balance between
people and service, between maximum and minimum use of site, or what
might be called the relation between the elasticity of land exploitation and
service expansion.

When this relation reaches a point where land exploitation can no
longer be balanced by service expansion, we begin to have slums or
blighted areas, and the tide of population turns in other directions. This
results in vacancies where there is not sufficient population to take the
place of those who move away, or in the influx of a lower economic
stratum of the population, which pays less rent and lowers the whole
economic value of the neighborhood.

As no startling increases in our population are taking place and as most
communities have sufficient deteriorated dwellings in which the lower-
income groups may find accommodations, it often happens that these
overpopulated areas with poor or insufficient services develop spots where
the vacancies are so great as to require the abandoning of some of the
services which were previously overtaxed. Thus we find abandoned
schools in Lower Manhattan, owing to mass removals of population. The
same situation often develops with respect to the various facilities for
sewage disposal, water supply, police and fire protection, and so on. All
of these services must be duplicated in the new settlement, regardless of
whether the equipment in the abandoned areas was obsolete or not. Such
mass removals of families from old to new areas entails expenditure not in-
herent in population growth but in the failure to keep up the standard of
buildings and surroundings so that they may not become obsolete before
other equipment in the district needs replacement. Failure to bring into
harmony the improvement of dwellings and surroundings with the other
available services leads to waste in municipal administration, a lowering of
realty values, expansion of transit beyond the essential needs of the city,
and an increased burden of taxation which affects the entire community.

The phrase "planned economy" has become an accepted term for
discussion in matters of national concern. Again and again it has become
obvious in recent years that the community-equipment economy has been
of such a nature as to drive many municipalities to the brink of bank-
ruptcy without maintaining the high standard warranted by the costs or
available technical skills. They also need a "planned economy."

If the moneys invested in new schools, new roads, new sewers, exten-
sions of water mains, transit lines, and so forth were to be applied to the
improvement of blighted and partially developed areas in close proximity

20 LAND

to the center of the city areas in which the essential services already exist,
a thorough and adequate rehabilitation of these areas would be possible.
The present expansion of our cities is largely the measure of our failure
to use the core of the city and its improvements in the best interests of the
people. The cost involved in needless expansion is a social and economic
extravagance which yields no returns.

OBLIGATIONS CONTINGENT UPON INVESTMENT IN LAND

When the cost of land has been paid for and improvements such as
sewers, water, streets, and tree planting have been covered either by city
expenditure or by private enterprise, the land is by no means free from
contingent financial burdens.

Taxation on land and buildings has for a long time furnished municipali-
ties with from 75 to 95 per cent of their total revenue. The taxes upon
land have in most cases depended, not upon the actual or potential use
to which land is or may be suitably devoted, but to the vagaries of the use
to which other people in the same neighborhood may put their land.
Thus the building of business structures in the vicinity of a home may
force land assessments to a point where the owner would find it impos-
sible to maintain the original use of his property because of exorbitant
taxes based upon the valuation of adjoining lands due to other and at
times undesirable uses. Thus tax obligations pile up where revenue can not
be increased, and in many cases the assumed intensive use of the land
is both socially and economically unjustified.

There are many instances of increased assessments where a small area
is highly developed in a neighborhood, thus exhausting any possibilities
for further similar development. Yet, the assessment by a form of "con-
tagion" is spread over adjoining areas, regardless of the limitation of the
market for such land development. This is a type of land exploitation for
tax purposes in which the municipality lends itself to profiteering by
taking advantage of accidental conditions which have no relevance if
taxation is to be based upon a scientific evaluation of the potentialities of
land development and use.

In fact, many of these unwarranted rises in assessments not only fail
to bring about any realization of profit but contribute materially toward
the blighting of sections which might otherwise have developed into
decent residential districts with low-cost lands and low tax burdens. A
scientific zoning system might prevent this type of assessment boosting
and make possible a reasonably balanced relation between value, assess-
ment, and actual or potential use.

Another contingent economic burden on land is the "special-assessment

LAND 23

method" of improvement finance. In recent years, the automobile has
forced cities to seek relief from traffic congestion. This has resulted in
costly street plans for which the communities were not able to pay.
Many of them reached their borrowing limits, while others reasoned that
the "improvements" in roads should be assessed against properties bene-
fited by such improvements. Little or no account was taken of the capac-
ity of properties to pay for these improvements. That road building al-
ways resulted in benefits to property in the vicinity of such roads was
accepted as a fact. The outcome of this practice of imposing special as-
sessments on properties in the neighborhood of a street improvement
placed a heavy burden on both used and unused land. Indeed, where the
properties had already been used for residential purposes, the encourage-
ment of streams of extraneous traffic has led to reduction in rents, a lower-
ing of land values for residential purposes, and a slowing-up of construc-
tion of dwellings. The writer has had occasion to examine properties in
several cities which carried special-assessment burdens of from 50 to
150 per cent of the actual market value of the land. In a few cases the
number of special assessments on single properties ranged from 15 to 20.
This was due to the practice of spreading assessments over entire neigh-
borhoods wherever there was a suspicion that an improvement three,
four, five, or ten blocks away might in the least benefit a resident of the
district. That the spread of these assessments has often been used for politi-
cal reasons or favoritism is quite evident from the most casual study of this
practice.

While no one may quarrel with land-tax methods which prevent
monopoly and force land into use, in the case of residential areas every
rise in the assessment and tax burden which does not have its counterpart
in production of revenue consistent with suitable use is a detriment to
housing.

THE CAPACITY OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF LAND

Land prices vary with movements of population, building activities
of the community, and availability of the type of land ripe for develop-
ment. During the depression, when credit was scarce, building activity
at a standstill, tax arrears prevalent, and, except for doubling up and
flight to rural communities, population stationary, land was cheap. With
changing conditions, the curve of land prices is bound to move upward
again.

The question that must be asked, however, is not how land prices fluc-
tuate but what relation these prices bear to their capacity to yield a return
on the investments. Assuming an undeveloped area, properly planned,

24 LAND

zoned, restricted against certain uses, and designed with clearly defined
objectives, it would be very simple to determine the relation between pro-
jected land use and land price. For residences of the single-family type
costing an average of $5,000, the reasonable land value might fluctuate
between $1,000 and $1,200 per lot of 5,000 square feet, including all
services. In the case of an apartment house designed to accommodate
twelve families and costing $48,000, an expenditure of from $8,000 to
$10,000 for land would be reasonable. Assuming, however, a developed
community, with a scarcity of suitable land at desirable points and land
prices doubled, the yield for each dwelling unit would either have to be
reduced or rents would have to rise. Another alternative would be to use
the land so intensively that the land-cost load would be chargeable to a
larger number of rentable units. Thus, instead of twelve families, twenty-
four families would have to be housed on the same area. The effect of the
rise in land price in such an area would result in a corresponding rise
in the price of all lands in their neighborhood, with an inevitable rise in
assessments. Two important consequences will have to be reckoned with,
first, that, as land costs increase, congestion increases; and second, that,
as congestion increases, the chances for use of the remaining open areas are
reduced. We know that population does not increase in proportion to
the availability of land. We also know that wages and incomes do not
fluctuate with investment in housing. Housing represents a long-term
investment, with incomes fluctuating with the changing economic levels
extending over the period of the life of the building. On the other hand,
most construction takes place during times of prosperity, when land and
building prices are high, while rental revenues must meet the changing
levels of economic conditions. The cost of the land, therefore, often bears
a closer relation to the rate at which construction is going on than it does
to the revenue which a particular building is capable of yielding during
its lifetime. Once a boom in the building industry has taken place and
land prices have risen, their return to normal lags behind the market. This
is one of the reasons for the high land prices in many of our slums which
are not at present and could not in the future become productive on any
basis consistent with the rent-paying resources of the tenants. Indeed,
a study of land values in Manhattan slums reveals some very interesting
statistical facts. The block between Third and Fourth Streets and between
First Avenue and Avenue A is assessed at from $ 1 5 to $20 per square foot.
Assuming the lower figure to be the actual price of the land, which covers
about three acres, its total price would be $1,800,000. On such an area,
400 families might be housed at a density of 1 3 3 families to the acre. This
would mean a per-family investment in land of $4,500. Calculating the

LAND 25

gross return on the investment alone at 10 per cent, it would mean a
ground rent per family of $450 a year. Such a rent can only be paid by
families receiving an income of not less than $2,250, which very few, if
any, of the families in that district receive. This rent would be based on
the land alone, without buildings. The best that could be done for hous-
ing at this rental would be to build tents. If we add the cost of the build-
ings, allowing an average of four rooms per family and a maximum cost
of $1,000 per room, the total rent per family would be $850, which only
families with incomes of $4,250 should normally pay— and this on the
basis, not of a 1 2 per cent, but of a ten per cent return on the investment.
It is obvious that $153 square foot for housing is out of the question for
about 65 per cent of the families in the United States. The other 35 per
cent of the families would certainly not choose a New York slum for
their home. Indeed, if the land were given away, the present cost of
buildings would make rentals in new dwellings prohibitive for a large
proportion of our people.

Urban land has no revenue-producing value unless used. Unlike other
non-productive investments, it must meet taxes and special assessments.
When built upon, the land can not be burdened with capitalizations
which make building investments prohibitive, otherwise it must be used
so intensively as to reduce the chances of development for adjoining
lands, thus creating islands of overdevelopment surrounded by empty
spaces or spaces built up merely to produce the necessary taxes, in the
expectation of a future boom.

Cities with slums and high land prices have no choice in the matter
of site selection for new housing when we consider the rent-paying abil-
ity of more than three-fifths of the families, except to seek land outside
the slum areas. Should this policy succeed, the owners of substandard
houses standing upon high-priced land would have to choose between a
drastic reduction in the capitalization of their land, in order to promote
reconstruction, or a further lowering of rents resulting from competition
with better housing on cheaper land. Unless reduction of land capitaliza-
tion takes place first, the chance of reconstruction will be increasingly
reduced.

As recently as the last weeks in 1938, there seemed to have developed
a veritable propaganda in the interest of retaining the population within
the precincts of the present congested and slum areas of our cities. The
suggestion that peripheral housing presents many advantages for the
slum dwellers in the way of cheaper land and more opportunities for pro-
viding open spaces has been met with a number of counterarguments,
which may be summarized as follows:

26 LAND

1. The city can not afford to create a vacuum in the very center where
all its business and industrial activities are located.

2. The cost of providing services and the various amenities already
provided in the center of the city, so that they may fully satisfy the needs
of the people, would more than absorb the excessive cost of land in the
center of the community.

3. The transportation required to carry the inhabitants of the housing
projects at the periphery would be a heavy burden on the city's resources.

4. The city can not afford to abandon tax values which would be de-
stroyed by the removal of large numbers of families to outlying districts.

The particularly potent reason which is perhaps the most important
factor in this propaganda is the fact that property owners in the slums
and congested areas are not disposed to permit the removal of popula-
tion from their homes and thus destroy the values which are or are al-
leged to be still remaining in substandard housing property.

If it were possible to rehabilitate these areas for the people now living
in them without raising rents, there would be no justification for periphe-
ral housing. The fact remains, however, that, even under government
subsidy and mass production, the families eliminated from the cleared
slums must seek housing elsewhere, as, even with subsidies, the rentals
charged can not reach the lower-income families displaced.

Further consideration must also be given to the fact that any slum clear-
ance project which does not previously make provisions for the housing
of the displaced families while the slums are being cleared and recon-
structed constitutes a serious hardship and expense to the families con-
cerned.

The argument as to high cost of replacing services may or may not
have any validity. Most of the old services are obsolete; schools are
crowded, both as to open space and as to room accommodations, play-
grounds are inadequate, and street traffic is congested. Any replacement
of these services and amenities would, at least in terms of land costs,
amount to considerably more than in the outlying districts; and the free-
dom of land use would be curtailed by the fact that the land can only be
secured by the absorption of additional housing facilities, thus reducing
the available accommodations for housing. The price of land in the
center of the city being three or four times as high as at the periphery
or in the less intensively developed areas, it would of necessity raise the
cost of such facilities as might be needed or reduce their spaciousness to
the detriment of the use to which they are to be put in the interests of
the inhabitants. The open spaces for schools at $20,000 per acre would
make possible one kind of development, as compared with similar facili-

LAND 27

ties in the center of the city, where land costs per acre would amount to
$400,000 per acre.

It should also be kept in mind that, as the intensity of housing concen-
tration due to high land costs increases, the amount of open spaces for
schools and parks and playgrounds in the vicinity of such housing must
also be increased in proportion, to take care of the needs of the people.

If rehousing the people in the slums is to be a makeshift process, with-
out full consideration of the needs for reorganizing and replanning slum
surroundings, then the proposals made by the people interested in pro-
moting slum rehabilitation have the better of the argument. However,
if housing is to be looked upon as a problem distinct from that of the
recapture of vanishing land values, and as a movement in the direction of
establishing decent living conditions at a low cost, then the slum-clearance
protagonists have little basis for their reasoning.

It is argued, of course, that government subsidy will continue for a
long time and that thereby the slums will all eventually be cleared. At the
rate at which these subsidies are being provided, however, it would take
around forty centuries to accomplish this result. Assuming, however, that
we speeded up the process by ten or even forty times, it would still take
a century or more to clear the slums in our cities, which still contain
around 7,000,000 substandard dwellings. To expect the private owners to
clear slums and replace them with good housing, in the face of govern-
ment-subsidized housing in the same neighborhood, is hardly consistent
with business practice and good economy. In my own estimation, the
more the government does in slum clearance, the less will private initia-
tive be able to produce housing in competition with such projects and at
rents consistent with the rent-paying resources of the workers.

Insofar as land values are concerned, the more subsidized housing is
constructed in areas where land costs are low, the more are the chances
that the slum lands will shrink in value to such an extent as to bring about
conditions permitting the construction of low-rental housing. The sub-
sidizing and absorbing of high-cost lands at high prices by government
purchase for housing and open spaces only delays a process of deflation
which must come if our cities are not to retain their slums in perpetuity.

There is, of course, also the possibility of reconstructing some slum
areas for high-grade, high-rental residential purposes which could absorb
the present land prices. As many of the slums are located in desirable areas,
such opportunities for reconstruction do exist. Unfortunately, the lower-
grade housing districts are too extensive to be entirely absorbed for this
purpose. The use of these costly lands for other than housing purposes

28 LAND

is hardly practical, since it is so extensive in area as to make it impossible
for either business or industry to absorb it.

There is a possibility that large tracts of land might be incorporated in
vast housing schemes which would include, not only low-rental housing
projects, but also large community neighborhoods in which all classes and
grades of rents would be made available, and where business, office space,
and some forms of small industry would be provided for under one proj-
ect. Under these conditions, it might be possible so to distribute the
burden of land cost as to cause it to be absorbed by the various productive
types of buildings, leaving the lower-rent housing to be a byproduct of
the entire development.

At the present time, we count upon the provisions for business to help
in the reduction of rents in housing projects. It is quite conceivable that
the same principle could be applied to larger and more heterogeneous
areas, so that a larger share of the land cost might be shifted to those
occupants who could bear the extra burden.

The value of land, in the last analysis, is only what it can produce by
way of revenue. The English method of securing land for low-rental
projects is based upon the theory that the land price must be reasonable
for the purpose for which the government proposes to use it. If cottages
are to be built, the price of the land is calculated by assuming a reasonable
rent on a given building cost, the price of the land being determined by
the other two factors. In the United States, however, we begin by assum-
ing a given land price and work backward to the rental that would have
to be charged.

I am informed on good authority that the English government is now
seriously considering the acquisition of all urban lands on the basis of
actual revenues which these lands have been yielding in the last decades
prior to acquisition. This principle was applied to the acquisition of min-
ing lands, and the theory is that the same principle should apply to other
lands as well. Whether this step will ever be taken is, of course, a matter
of conjecture, but undoubtedly it is one clear way of avoiding speculation,
clearing slums, and reducing the cost of housing in the future.

RELATION OF UNITS OF OWNERSHIP TO USE OF LAND

A glance of a lot subdivision map or any insurance map reveals a crazy
quilt of property lines, which have little or no relation to economic land
development or adequate housing standards. In many places, narrow lots
25 feet wide by 125 feet deep were the common practice. This resulted
in crowded single dwellings, with narrow alleyways to the backyard
which eventually became repositories of rubbish and upon which no win-

LAND 29

dows could open, unless they became mere peekholes into one's neighbor's
bedroom.

This kind of subdivision is no longer permitted in most states, but
there are still hundreds of thousands of lots owned and undeveloped
which, if ever used, will have to be built upon under these unfavorable
conditions. Where tenements have been constructed on such lots, by vir-
tue of the shape and size of the lot, they were slum dwellings, with dark
or semi-dark rooms.

Excessively deep but narrow lots merely lead to a greater stringing out
of buildings or waste space, which increases street lengths without pro-
viding better building conditions. It is obvious that a lot 25 by 125 feet
with a 50 per cent coverage would be less desirable than a lot 40 by 80
feet with a 60 per cent coverage, although the area of the second lot is
actually smaller.

We shall deal in greater detail later in this work with the whole question
of subdivision of land. Here we are concerned only with the effect of sub-
divisions upon the economic use of land and the enhancement or restric-
tion of use values due to the method of subdivision.

It is quite clear to anyone who may take the trouble to examine and
compare buildings located on the various lot widths and depths that the
same area divided into narrow strips which requires close proximity of
wall spaces, does not allow for sunshine and ventilation, and interferes
with the privacy of the next-door neighbor is less valuable than a lot of
the same number of square feet in area, of greater width, and with an
equal amount of lot coverage and building height.

I am calling the reader's attention to this very simple principle because
our methods of lot subdivision in the past fixed the character of many of
our buildings, the life of which ranges from two to four generations. The
character of these buildings is such as to make them undesirable for de-
cent living, although the cost per unit of construction may be the same as
for buildings located on more suitably shaped lots which afford much
better living conditions. Rentals in tenements built on narrow lots, im-
posing as they do lower standards of accommodations, would of necessity
fall below rentals in buildings located on well-shaped lots which afford
better living conditions.

Going a step further in the consideration of the use value of narrow
lots, if we take two lots of equal depth, one 25 feet and the other 100
feet in width, we find that entranceways, halls, bulkheads, and other ac-
cessories of common use are practically the same for the requirements of
buildings on both lots. Assuming 20 per cent of the building on the
narrow lot to be required for approaches, a lot four times as great, with

30 LAND

four times the living accommodations, could be provided at the same
building cost, since there would be a saving of from 50 to 75 per cent in
the space required for approaches, while the general layout of the apart-
ments would be more desirable and command higher rents. So far as
height of buildings is concerned, the narrowness of the lot must of neces-
sity become a handicap in the exploitation of the land and therefore of its
use value.

One need not venture into elaborate detail to emphasize the obvious
fact that the parcels of land ownership in our cities can not be evaluated
on a square footage basis regardless of the shapes and sizes of individual
lot units. Any assessments of values which disregard the factor of lot
dimension in terms of economic construction overlook economic factors
which have a bearing on the whole development of the city, both as to
living standards and building costs.

We hear much of land assembly for public or semi-public uses. Recent
efforts at large-scale housing have necessitated the gathering under one
ownership of numerous parcels of land, in order to make possible the
construction of large projects. But this is only a partial and comparatively
insignificant part of the larger problem of pooling property units in order
to make them suitable for a high grade of dwelling construction. In fact,
the reconstruction of many of our slum areas depends as much upon a
new division of land in terms of construction costs and standards as it
does upon legal control, finance, and other factors which may promote
or force reconstruction.

Indeed, if we consider only the matter of investment, the value of each
foot of ground is enhanced by the increase in the number of units of own-
ership of which it is a part. If assessments were to be based upon use
values, the owner with a lot 25 by 100 feet should be assessed much less
than the owner with a lot of 100 by 100 feet, for, aside from single-
family dwellings, the use value of a building increases as the unit of own-
ership increases. Any slum reconstruction which may be attempted by
private initiative will have to take into account existing property holding
in the light of economical land development consistent with building costs
and living standards.

II. LAND POLICIES

As has already been pointed out, land development and building enter-
prise depend upon a given condition and need at a given time. The life of
the development and buildings extends over a long period of time, during
which both conditions and needs may change. Social and economic de-

LAND 31

mands follow a tempo different from that of physical utility. Obsolescence
of the land development, buildings, and the technological utility may
undergo changes at a still different tempo.

This conflict between the tempos of social and economic needs and
the rate of physical and technological obsolescence creates conditions
which confuse both the value and use trends of land. Conversion for
purposes of replanning and modernization of use becomes more difficult
and more costly. When reconstruction seems desirable, a six-story tene-
ment area will require greater economic sacrifices than will the reclaim-
ing and reconstruction of single- or two-family residences. Twenty-story
store buildings or office buildings, once they become obsolescent, may re-
main idle for a long time, while business and other factors migrate to other
sections of the city.

In direct line with this lack of coordination between the economic util-
ity of a building and its physical life, we must consider the variety of
intensity of development of lands with equal potentialities for residential
or business purposes. Looking up and down many of our streets, we find
that, given the same type of land containing approximately or actually
the same area, a broad range of development is apparent. We may see
a tall twenty- or thirty-story apartment house, next to it a five-story
building, and bounded by two tall buildings may be found a two- or even
a one-story "taxpayer."

All these buildings, located as they are on the same street, with the
same traffic facilities and the same potential common services, standing
in the same relation to the rest of the city, represent as many samples
of development as can be found in the entire city. The personal resources
of the landowner, his credit, the money-market conditions at the time
of development, the renting market at the time of construction, the per-
sonal vision of the owner, and the capabilities of the architect or builder
are stamped upon each building. Indeed, times of boom and prosperity,
which hold out great promise of profit, when interest rates are high,
building costs are rising, and population is growing, may bring into ex-
istence improvements which constitute the greatest burden upon the
owners and, in the end, may be the least desirable. Thus the chaos of
one period of financial optimism in the building industry may have to be
paid for in times of chaos arising out of depressions, when the same im-
provement could be made at a lower cost of land, money, labor, and
materials.

Still another factor in the consideration of land values is the improve-
ment activities of certain owners who, with ample resources and adequate
land areas, can construct buildings with capacities which transcend actual

32 LAND

needs for a period of time, thus leaving other landowners without the
possibilities of deriving enough profit from improvement of their own
land to bring an equitable return on the investment. One may wander
about in some of our business districts to discover that, while tall build-
ings are forcing assessments of land upward, they are forcing the market
values of unimproved or partially improved land downward.

The greater the variants in the speed and intensity of development of
land and construction of buildings, the greater is the difficulty of adjusting
need, cost, service and obsolescence to the pace of social purpose and
sound investment.

In the case of goods manufactured for immediate consumption, the
problem is reasonably simple. Unconsumed or unconsumable goods are
disposed of quickly, either by sale at a low price or by destruction. At
any rate, they do not long impress themselves upon the pattern of our
community life and economic recovery. Unprofitable investment is soon
absorbed. New techniques and business methods create new goods in
keeping with new needs and new resources. This is not true of land devel-
opment and building enterprises.

We have here another case where the individual plays a sinister part in
destroying values and in making harmonious development of a commu-
nity difficult or impossible. City planning, through zoning in its various
forms, could set the pace for a steady, profitable, and efficient develop-
ment of our cities that would benefit both the landowners and the land
users, but the preposterous attempts at zoning which have been attempted
in the past can hardly be said to be economically sound or socially
efficient.

In business and industry, the initiative of the individual and his busi-
ness ventures need not be concerned with long-range objectives, except
perhaps in his personal outlook. In land development, account must be
taken, not only of individual investment and the chances of profit and
loss, but also of the social and economic burdens which each investment
places upon the community— rent payers, taxpayers, or citizens. It is for
this reason that a new concept of the social economy of land use must be
evolved. Zoning and city planning are thus far the only controls avail-
able. Business practice has certainly failed to show that traditional "busi-
ness sense" which resents interference by government agencies.

Only recently have we realized the importance of giving consideration
to the agricultural lands of our country. Overproduction and underpro-
duction, which have created our agrarian problems, have their parallels in
urban land utilization. We need a land policy in urban communities as

LAND 33

much as in rural ones. It is not only a matter of planning and zoning, but
of broad Landivirtschaft, or land economy in all its manifestations.

THE MANAGEMENT FACTOR IN LAND VALUES

In his discussion of land values and assessments, Rudolph Ebertadt tells
the following incident bearing on land economics:

An inn keeper had a pair of lively daughters, who helped in the dining room.
Business was consequently good and showed large consumption. An assessor
was ready to impose a high tax on the house, and the land upon which the inn
stood was mortgaged for an unusually large sum. The liveliness of the daugh-
ters figured in the future economy as capital . . .*

This story may illustrate the ephemeral basis for judging values to
which assessors may resort and which investors may trust. Whether it be
the susceptibility of the males for the charms of a lively barmaid or the
peculiar aptitude of an apartment-house manager who keeps his tenants
and makes a profit, while a next-door building of similar type loses ten-
ants and runs at a loss, the fact remains that profit and loss on the same
investment may mean the difference between good management and
bad management. Here the human or efficiency equation enters as a new
factor which may be capitalized, assessed, taxed, mortgaged, and specu-
lated upon, regardless of the possibilities for maintaining the standard set
by individual efficiency, which may or may not be lasting. Such temporary
management results, recorded by a bookkeeper, will affect the capitaliza-
tion of land, which may extend over a generation or more.

In fact, this capitalization may affect neighboring lands which present
the possibilities for similar uses without consideration either of the need
for such use or the possibilities for similar returns. Thus through the con-
tagion of capitalizations and taxations, investment may extend over areas
which, by no stretch of the imagination, could or should be put to similar
use, or produce the same returns.

The writer does not mean to imply that management is entirely a per-
sonal equation. There are, derived from long experience, principles of
management which may approximate a reasonable and steady return on
the investment, provided the land and buildings lend themselves to the
application of these principles. Unfortunately, the manager's job begins
only after the building has been completed, instead of preceding the
plan of the building or even the choice of site.

The predicament in which much of our land and building investment
finds itself at the present time, may prompt real-estate enterprise to con-
ceive of housing as management translated into buildings, instead of trying

1Gemiind, W., Bodenfrage und Bodenpolitik, Berlin, 1911, p. 105.

34 LAND

to translate buildings into management. In the field of public housing,
we are accumulating valuable experience in matters of management. Let
us hope that our national housing program will yield valuable experience
applicable to private enterprise.

SOCIAL CONTROLS OF LAND USE AND THEIR EFFECTS ON VALUES

As already pointed out, the most effective method of land-value and
land-speculation control is to be found in zoning, when applied within a
framework of a well conceived community planning scheme. This exer-
cise of the police power, which is designed to prescribe the use to which
land may be devoted as regards kind, bulk, height, and area of building,
can be made to serve both the purpose of preventing speculation in land
and, at the same time, that of bringing about such orderliness and stability
of community development as to conserve real values consistent with the
capacity of the people to use and pay for. Unfortunately, the methods
employed in the application of zoning powers and principles have seldom
brought about the desired and possible achievements in the direction of
preventing speculation or stabilizing values.

It may also be assumed that many building regulations have imposed
restriction of land use incident to proper lighting and ventilating of
buildings, which have had some effect upon the evils of land overcrowd-
ing. These restrictions, however, were compensated for in most cases by
higher rents.

The only far-reaching methods of land-speculation control and land-
value stability will be found in the more recent practices of imposing re-
strictions upon the methods of new land subdivisions, most of which lie
beyond the boundaries of the thickly settled areas, or outside the munic-
ipal limits of cities. These restrictions, regulations, and voluntary practices
intended to fix land uses, both in kind and intensity, have frequently en-
hanced land values, without leaving room for unwarranted speculation.
Land-use control has been accepted by many cities and counties of the
less sparsely settled states, particularly in the North and West.

A LAND POLICY FOR HOUSING

We are all familiar with the many land policy movements which have
motivated the shaping of national politics.

In the discussion of land policies affecting housing, we are concerned,
not alone with its price, but with the effect which its use has upon the
structure of the community, its functions, its rate of obsolescence, its
stride toward readjustment to modern needs and the pattern which this

LAND 35

community may assume in its relation to good, well located, accessible,
and permanent development of decent housing accommodations.

It is, therefore, obvious that a land policy affecting housing must be
part and parcel of the general land policies which the community may
evolve for the protection of all the people. Such a land policy must in-
clude, not alone the control of evils resulting from private ownership and
exploitation, but also the development of forms of public ownership con-
sistent with public needs.

THE MUNICIPALITY AS LANDOWNER

In the course of our urban development, certain land policies have be-
come established as common practices. Some of these are incidental to
the carrying on of services for which there is immediate need and which
local governments must provide, or services which these governments
delegate by franchise to private agencies. Lands required by these services
may be acquired by gift, tax-delinquency sales, or the filling in of water-
ways over which the governmental agency may have riparian rights.

In all these possible ways of land acquisition and ownership, there is
no provision for a long-range land policy, no possible method of anticipat-
ing future needs or of accumulating land reserves which may be utilized
or disposed of as necessity demands. Within the rigid framework of
the exigencies of the moment, and within the limits of land prices and
speculative practices, the municipality, county, state, or national govern-
ments may acquire land for immediate use.

Such acquisition of land, however, does not leave the way open for
long-time planning or the contingencies of changes that may have to be
met in the course of changing standards and needs. As a fundamental
principle, it may be asserted without fear of contradiction that, given free-
dom to acquire and control land under favorable conditions, the whole
problem of planning becomes essentially a matter of social and economic
interpretation of the needs of the times. With a policy of easy and reason-
ably flexible method of land acquisition, the problems of planning and
zoning, as well as the expansion of community services, must always bear
the marks of the mistakes of the past, or the community must pay for
them in hard cash.

Let us consider for the moment what would seem to be the most de-
sirable program for the development of a public land policy.

WHAT SHOULD THIS LAND POLICY BE?

Assuming that the development of cities can only be partially antici-
pated and that the present use of land is in many cases inconsistent with

36 LAND

the most pressing needs of our communities, a land-ownership and con-
trol program might be outlined somewhat as follows:

The municipal government should have the power to acquire all such
available lands as may be needed for immediate use and such other lands
as may be found available for future use or sale in the interest of orderly
community reconstruction, development, and growth.

Such a policy would bring about a greater freedom of land use, because
the land would be acquired at a time when land values are low and in
parcels of sufficient size to permit comprehensive planning. The owner-
ship of considerable land areas by the local government would prevent
high prices and speculation, and could be used to establish standards of
land use not generally in practice under private ownership. In the case
of the resale of public lands for private use, such resales may be made
contingent upon a proper development consistent with both private in-
terest and the common good. If the cities of today were the owners of
lands desirable for housing purposes, a considerable share of the difficul-
ties encountered in securing adequate housing sites for government hous-
ing projects would have been obviated. Such was the case when certain
European cities undertook to build municipal, cooperative, or subsidized
housing. The City of Vienna alone owned 72,000 acres of land. By 1935,
the City of Stockholm owned 25,000 acres of land or about five times the
area of the city itself within a nine-mile radius from the center of the
municipality. Similar conditions can be found in most German, Eng-
lish, and Finnish urban centers. In many cases this policy can be traced
as far back as the Middle Ages. This land-ownership policy applies to
areas within the municipal boundaries as well as to adjoining areas. The
use of the land depends upon the requirements for local services as well
as private exploitation under public control.

Objection may be raised that such land acquisition would withdraw
from the tax rolls revenue-producing properties which, by the act of pub-
lic acquisition, would automatically be added to the tax-exempt property
list. To this objection, several answers may be given. One is the fact that,
where such properties cease to produce revenue, they may be considered
as insurance against later high land prices. Another answer is to be found
in the fact that, while lands acquired by the municipality cease producing
tax revenues, they may later, by disposal for private use under favorable
conditions and controls, constitute a steady revenue, free from blighting
contingent upon uncontrolled and unplanned development. It may still
further be argued that the city, upon disposal of land for private use at a
time when it is most needed, would make a sufficient profit to cover tax

LAND 37

losses fully or in part. In the case of land acquisition outside of the political
boundaries of municipalities, no tax losses would be sustained.

It should be mentioned in passing that the present system of municipal
taxation, which places practically the full burden of municipal expendi-
ture upon revenues from real property, needs revision. That the burden of
municipal taxes often weighs heavily upon home owners goes without
saying. Economists have been debating the question of land and improve-
ment taxation for many years. The so-called "single tax," or land tax,
as a means of reducing land prices by absorbing the values created by
society through its activities, has been agitated for a long time. This
movement has taken on various aspects in municipal taxation and has re-
sulted in the practice of taxing land more heavily than buildings or im-
provements. Indeed, this practice is now so well established that most pro-
gressive cities use it as means of encouraging building enterprise. In a
report issued in June, 1937, by the National Resources Committee of the
federal government, entitled, Our Cities— Their Role in the National
Economy j the following statement appears: "State and local authorities
should consider the reduction of the rate of taxation on buildings and the
corresponding increase of such rates on land, in order to lower the tax
burden on home owners and occupants of the low rent houses, and to
stimulate rehabilitation of blighted areas and slums." As an isolated remedy
against land speculation and high land policies, this system of graded
taxation is undoubtedly a valuable factor. However, the Pittsburgh plan,
which has been in operation since January i, 1914, and has passed through
all the successive stages leading to a tax on land twice the rate imposed
on buildings, has proved workable as a tax policy; but Pittsburgh slums
are as bad and as extensive now as they were in 1914. It seems to me that,
while land prices may be lowered because of the heavy burden of taxa-
tion which land has to carry under a land-tax system, the price can only
be lowered to the point where the difference between interest and the
price paid when added to the tax rate would make the same total as the
interest on the investment on land at the ordinary rate of taxation. The
effect upon housing might be to foster a larger amount of building enter-
prise and thereby bring about an improvement in the supply of houses.
Unfortunately, when the houses are constructed, the capital, plus taxation
carrying the charges, remains practically the same, and must play a part
in the rental. It must also be recalled that the shift of taxes from building
to land often has the effect of increasing taxes beyond the actual worth of
the land for the purposes for which it is being used. Where land is as-
sessed on speculative volutions, as is the case in many of our cities, the
shift may bring about a higher maintenance cost, which, although it may

38 LAND

not be reflected in the rent of the existing buildings, will have to be re-
flected in the rentals of future constructions. I have in mind slum areas
with high assessments on land due to a possible speculative outlook. An
additional tax burden on such land may result in two different lines of
action: either the owner disposes of his property at a lower price— a con-
dition which, if it becomes general, may devalue much land and reduce
the revenues of the city; or, when reconstruction takes place, the necessity
for absorbing a higher land tax would still not affect the general housing
cost sufficiently to encourage low-rental housing.

The fact is that, whether land is forced into the market because of
higher taxes or not, the rent-paying resources of the lower income groups
are still too low to play any part in the land market or construction mar-
ket, even if land were reduced to the lowest minimum price. There is a
possibility, however, that the increase in land taxes would reduce land
values so as to affect municipal revenues without affecting the housing
situation in any material way. I can find no evidence to prove the con-
tention that the graded land tax bears any relation to the supply of low-
rental housing, the clearance of slums by private initiative, or any other
widespread effort to promote investment in housing. The taxation of land
to the point of absorbing the larger share of the values created by the
community itself, without any contribution on the part of the owners, is
justifiable; but whether this method of taxation will in the end produce
improvements in the housing conditions of those in need of cheap accom-
modations remains to be seen.

It would seem that, regardless of the method of taxation which may be
employed in municipalities, the demand for new and the extension of ex-
isting services warrants the conclusion that the present system of taxa-
tion of real estate is both inadequate to meet rising costs of municipal ad-
ministration and too heavy a burden upon real property.

Next in importance to the right of municipalities to acquire and own
land in anticipation of uses to be determined at some future time is the
right to dispose of such lands according to needs and demands. In the
matter of town and city expansion, much difficulty has arisen in past
years through the premature development of lands not ripe for exploita-
tion. Some of this land has been favored, not because of any inherent
qualities which made it suitable for a specific use, but because the land
market made it difficult to secure adequate space in areas ripe for such
development. The flight from high land costs in the city has caused many
of these premature developments in areas neither suited for the purpose
for which they were used nor within the sphere of adequate public serv-
ices which such developments demand. This has often caused new im-

LAND 41

provements in public services to be undertaken prematurely and under
conditions which added to the burden of taxation of the whole municipal-
ity, while free areas ready for development and ready to yield tax revenue
have been left idle. The extension of sewers, water systems, roads, rapid
transit, and school facilities have all been made necessary by the develop-
ment of unripe areas. Municipal ownership of land, with the municipal
practice of acquiring areas which need to be held in reserve and selling
them for private use when the necessity for their development arises
would obviate many difficulties and save much money which might well
be used for other more pertinent purposes.

PLANNING AND LAND DEVELOPMENT

City, county, and regional planning are practiced so generally in the
United States that one senses even in the rigid organization of the least
advanced of our communities a conscious need for a new outlook and
organized preparation for the future. Thus, literally thousands of com-
prehensive or partial community plans are conceived and given some
coherent form. Upon analysis, it is invariably discovered that the carry-
ing out of these plans depends primarily upon access to land, and the
changes in present uses to some other more suitable service. If the plan
is not carried out at once, the chances are that further obstructions and
misuses of land in the path of contemplated improvements may occur.
Thus, the best of plans may become obsolete, not because of any faulty
conception, but because control of land use in the path of projected im-
provements is lacking.

This lack of control often causes plans to be abandoned, to the detri-
ment of the whole development of the community. Let us assume that a
city considers a certain area suitable for residential purposes and that,
within the scope of a given plan, schools, roads, playgrounds, fire sta-
tions, and so forth, are tentatively located. In the interim, private land
owners, fully disregarding the plan, undertake developments inconsistent
with local needs and conflicting with public interest. To be sure, good
zoning might prevent a certain amount of interference with the plan, but
there is nothing in our land-control policy which would prevent an
owner from building an apartment house where a school should be, or
from creating a business center where a playground would eventually
have been of most service. Short of municipal land ownership, this could
not be prevented under our present system even if an effective zoning
scheme were in vogue.

In the case of regional planning, notably in California, a legal device
has been evolved which prevents an owner from building any structure

42 LAND

in the path of a contemplated public improvement recorded on a master
regional plan. Should such a landowner undertake to build in the path
of a projected improvement, he would either have to secure special per-
mission from the planning authority or forego any claims for damages
incident to the final acquisition of the land for public purposes. It may
seem a drastic exercise of the power of land control to prevent develop-
ment of private improvements prior to the carrying out of planned pub-
lic improvements. In view of the fact, however, that the municipality
has a joint interest with the private owners in the conservation of all
community values, the prevention of blight, and economy in the cost of
services incident to good or bad planning, such control does not seem a
very radical step. Whatever extra costs are entailed by lack of land-use
control must be met by the individual taxpayers. Whatever improvements
and savings may be effected by such control reflect upon the welfare of
the entire community.

As has already been repeatedly pointed out, our present-day divisions
of land-ownership units make it quite difficult or impossible under private
initiative to develop any considerable housing projects. The difficulties en-
countered by the various housing authorities in this country in assembling
land for housing projects has brought this question clearly to the fore-
ground.

THE HOLDEN PLAN

How to overcome these small landholding difficulties may well be
made the subject of a special study, since it involves many aspects of the
economy of construction, the advantages of good light and air distribu-
tion, so necessary in the development of plans, and the possibilities for
providing adequate open spaces for common uses. Where land is not
already occupied by buildings, the problem is simplified, provided the
owners are willing to pool their interests. It is conceivable that a group
of owners in one or several blocks with bad land subdivisions could
come to some understanding as to specific uses of their holdings, and enter
into an agreement regarding methods of resubdivision or adjustment
which would prove beneficial to all owners concerned. Where there are
buildings of various types, adjustment of equities is more difficult. In the
case of open areas, two types of legal provisions might help to facilitate
a redistribution of holdings or a pooling of interests. The first would
be some legal provision whereby a majority of the owners might petition
the corporation commission or some other properly constituted official
body for the privilege of creating a temporary holding company, with
powers to make adjustments through an arbiter or committee qualified

LAND 43

to reapportion the holdings or to set up machinery for a common, coop-
erative use of the entire area under consideration. Another method might
be to have the governing body legally empowered to take over the entire
area and, after readjusting the holdings on some equitable basis, return
parcels to the original owners, according to a predetermined valuation
of the individual holdings. The latter method has been used in German
cities, particularly in cases where both street facilities and land holdings
were in need of adjustment.

Since 1933, when the housing movement began to take shape as a na-
tional concern, much emphasis was placed upon slum clearance and slum
rehabilitation. Mention should be made here, of the obvious fact that,
in the process of slum rehabilitation, the main stumbling blocks are the
great diversity in the conditions of buildings in each block and the con-
flicting interests which they represent. Mr. Arthur Holden, of New York,
has for several years devoted much time and energy to the task of devising
a practical method of pooling ownership interests whereby it would be
possible to overcome the difficulties arising from the multiplicity of indi-
vidual ownership of land and buildings, with a view to arriving at a prac-
tical scheme of cooperation between individual owners for the purpose of
block rehabilitation. This device finally found legal expression in a bill
which is quoted and discussed in the chapter on legislation. All that
need be said here is that the bill, now inoperative, contemplates the pos-
sibilities of combining a great variety of ownership of land and buildings
within a given area, and the improvement of these properties so as to raise
standards and reduce losses due to obsolescence by demolition of some
structures, the improvement of others, and the combination of revenues
according to the equity of each individual owner in the original project
subjected to improvement. There are also legal means provided for over-
coming difficulties that might be encountered in matters of trusteeships
and ownership which may be limited by law in entering upon such coop-
erative enterprise.

The Holden plan is a radical step in housing legislation. If it finds favor
with owners and is properly administered on a large enough scale, it may
lead to the gradual rebuilding of many substandard housing areas. How-
ever, unless it can be demonstrated that this plan can be made profitable
to the owners, it will remain a dead letter. In principle, the law is an ex-
pression of a widespread need.

THE PERRY PLAN

One of the most far-reaching suggestions that has been advanced re-
cently relative to public land policy is that of Clarence A. Perry, regard-

44 LAND

ing the exercise of the power of eminent domain in the interest of housing
and community or neighborhood development. According to this plan,
the government would take the necessary steps to assemble land for pri-
vate building enterprise. In elaborating this suggestion, I wish to make it
clear that the form in which it is presented may or may not be in full ac-
cord with Mr. Perry's conception of its methods and possibilities. The
original suggestion, however, emanated from Mr. Perry.

There are in many of our cities areas which have been developed inco-
herently, without plan, without neighborhood unity, and without uni-
formity or standard of land division or construction. These areas con-
stitute a sort of no man's land, where sporadic developments were started
and abandoned for various reasons inherent in the lay of the land, some
economic or financial accident, or a shift in the trends of city develop-
ment. The result has been damage to individual properties, the develop-
ment of interstitial areas without character and of slight use to the com-
munity, and land blight. Many of these areas are capable of replanning
and rehabilitation. They may be transformed into desirable residential
areas and, where construction has not advanced too far, into veritable
garden communities in close proximity to the center of the city.

In many of these cases, land is easy to assemble and low in price. In
order to achieve this end, however, it is necessary to create ways and
means of using land acquisition powers which, applied according to a re-
habilitation plan, could assemble the land and buildings to be found on
the site, and lease or sell them to a private organization for development
according to a preplanned scheme. This would, of course, involve large
sums of money and efficient organization, as well as a thorough under-
standing of existing needs and the existing market.2 Under such a pro-
cedure it would be possible for the municipality to reserve in advance such
areas as may be needed for schools, playgrounds, parks, and so forth, and
to control the method of development so that it would bear a sound rela-
tion to the services to be provided. This method of attacking the blighted
areas of land, or land and buildings, might lead to further experiments in
the public acquisition of land as a means of facilitating private enterprise
under public control. Better neighborhood conditions and effective util-
ization of submarginal areas might thus be brought about.

This alluring method of rehabilitating submarginal areas is, however,
beset with many difficulties inherent in the fact that the municipality
would have to raise the funds for the acquisition of land and existing

2 The Astoria Replanning Project, prepared by Aronovici, Churchill, Lescaze, and Wright,
contemplated such a scheme of rehabilitation. This antedated Mr. Perry's suggestion, but did
not include the possibility of government authority in land assemblage.

LAND 45

buildings, and also because the appraisals of private holdings may involve
the local authorities in endless litigation. So far as the funds are con-
cerned, many devices may be developed to meet specific project costs: fed-
eral, state, county, and city credit may be used separately or in combina-
tion. Federal loans or subsidies might also be secured to promote some
specific enterprises of this kind. Owner participation as shareholders could
also be incorporated in the general plan. The real test of the enterprise
would be the adjustment of compensation for property taken. Insofar
as buildings are concerned, values and prices could be determined with
comparatively little difficulty. The acquisition of land, however, would
involve serious problems.

To obviate the problems of land acquisition, another step must be taken
in the land policy of our urban communities. It is a truism that land is
only worth what it can produce under an orderly system of development.
In a preplanned community, such as would be developed under the
scheme of neighborhood rehabilitation, it would not be difficult to deter-
mine the use value of each parcel of land and the compensation to be
paid to the owners. Recognizing the fact that land values depend upon
immediate use, the municipalities should be empowered to acquire by
purchase or condemnation the lands needed for a neighborhood project,
and should pay compensation according to the revenue-yielding power
of the use proposed, as mentioned above. This method of paying for land
needed for housing purposes is in vogue in England, and has worked satis-
factorily. Similar powers should be granted American municipalities.

TAX-DELINQUENT PROPERTIES

Recent years have witnessed vast accumulations of tax delinquencies
on many housing properties. Many tax-delinquent dwellings represent
the poorest types of construction or are actually part of slums. The present
method of disposing of these properties by public sale varies in different
states, but it is certain that nowhere have the cities made an effort to
take advantage of these public sales for taxes to acquire and hold or to
use lands thus acquired. The usual procedure is to dispose of such lands
and buildings as soon as possible. Tax-delinquent properties often present
rather extensive opportunities for land rehabilitation and the destruction
of substandard buildings. By adopting a policy of acquiring such proper-
ties, the city would find itself in a position where it could clear out many
dwellings unfit for habitation, or where the disposal of such properties
under proper conditions and restrictions would result in improved hous-
ing provisions. This, in turn, would remove these properties from the

46 LAND

tax-delinquent list and result in buildings which would add to the sup-
ply of housing and the revenues from taxes.

The City of Milwaukee has done splendid work in acquiring tax-delin-
quent properties and, where justified by conditions, in clearing out slum
buildings. The policy of handling tax-delinquent properties is often
hedged in by a great maze of restrictions, which cause delay and con-
fusion, without in the end being of great value to the owner of such
properties. A way must be found for disposing of tax-delinquent cases,
particularly where the public interest is involved.

SUBDIVISION CONTROL

The present situation in our cities regarding land subdivision and use
is due essentially to the fact that land division for building sites has con-
tinued to follow the practices required by the simpler ways of building
which prevailed up to the middle of the latter half of the last century.
Buildings were seldom more than two stories high, home ownership was
a common practice, and traffic needs were comparatively limited. It is on
this basis of land division and ownership that our "macropolis" reached
upward and outward for space. This has resulted in land sweating on the
one hand and in flight of population to the periphery of the city on the
other.

Within the built-up areas of our cities, the transition from a low to
heavy land load resulted in the confusion and blight which we now must
face. The flight from the city congestion produced radical changes in the
towns and villages in the vicinity of our cities, but mainly it resulted in a
rush to subdivide suburban and rural land into building, and especially resi-
dential sites. We have no record of the total number of lots subdivided
under this impetus. If we may judge, however, by the subdivisions around
New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Los Angeles, and other cities,
the number of new lots carved out of the countryside would be enough to
rehouse all the population of the country in single-family dwellings.

In the development of these subdivisions, no account was taken in most
cases of many of the factors and methods of planning which lead toward
successful land subdivision. The rush toward the less settled areas
prompted the conversion of fertile fields and fruit-producing orchards of
high quality into dismal suburban residential layouts with concrete streets,
electroliers, sewers, and other services. A monotonous street pattern is the
rule in these subdivisions, and roads devoid of proper orientation or clearly
defined objectives, surrounding lots of dimensions designed more for sale
than for home sites, characterize the vast majority of them. Millions upon
millions of dollars have been invested in these ephemeral land operations,

LAND 47

and high-pressure salesmen and saleswomen raided many a savings ac-
count of the lower-income families, while optimistic banks made invest-
ments which culminated in a country-wide break in our credit system.

The tragic fiasco in the land-subdivision market has brought clearly
to the attention of both investors and public authorities the need for sub-
division control.

As far back as 1924, it became obvious that some steps should be taken
in the direction of controlling, if not curtailing, land subdivision. From
the present situation and the experience of the past, it is evident that at
least the following forms of control should be made the prime conditions
of land subdivision:

1. All subdivisions must be designed so as to fit into the existing
physical pattern of the communities to which they are related.

2. All services must be provided before building may be undertaken.

3. Provision must be made for open spaces, shopping centers, school
sites, playgrounds, and the usual amenities of modern living.

4. The entire area should be zoned before the ground plan is developed.

5. Lots must be of ample size and suitable for the various types of
buildings provided by zoning.

6. All public areas, such as streets, alleys, and so forth, must be dedi-
cated to the municipality without cost, or provision should be made for
adequate care of these areas by the original owners and their successors.
In addition to these restrictions, private land developers should impose
deed restrictions upon individual sites, which would guarantee high stand-
ards of construction and maintenance.

The study of many of the subdivision regulations reveals the fact that
standards are generally low and that the need for the subdivision is sel-
dom based upon the resources of the local market or a shortage of
building sites. The overdevelopment of subdivisions has therefore re-
sulted in an overstocked market, slow sales, blighted areas, partial occu-
pation, and low service standards resulting from a lack of resources.

A land policy applied to subdivisions which would require the sub-
divider to prove the need for such a subdivision would therefore be a
progressive step in the direction of protecting investors on the one hand,
and of saving open areas around our cities, either for farming purposes
or as park and forest reserves, on the other. If we apply restrictions upon
cultivation to agriculture, there is no reason why similar restrictions
should not be applied to the use of open areas around our cities.

Still another proposal must be made regarding urban land policies. It
has often been found that lots intended for one purpose are used for other
and less suitable purposes. A single-family residence area eventually de-

48 LAND

velops into a hotel or an apartment-house district. This is frequently due
to defective zoning regulations or to frequent and lax zoning amend-
ments, which permit easy changes from one use to another without due
consideration of the actual needs of the community or the land-division
conditions of the district. As various types of buildings require sizes and
shapes of lots consistent with their own size and use, it is essential that zon-
ing should take account of the lot divisions, so that use and site would bear
some relation to each other. Conceiving a subdivision as an integrated en-
tity, a great deal can be anticipated regarding future development, with
due regard to such an entity, by careful consideration of all social, eco-
nomic, and cultural requirements. The whole problem of land subdivision
and the expansion of land uses is one which must be solved, not alone for
the protection of the future purchasers of lots, but in the interest of the
whole community, so that there will be no waste of needed open spaces,
no extravagance in the extension of services, and no blight due to partial
development.

SUMMARY

This somewhat lengthy discussion of the land problem as a factor in
housing is by no means as complete as it might be. We have endeavored
to focus the reader's attention on the character and peculiarities of land
as a commodity, which determines land assessments, land values, land
prices, and land use. That a great variety of controls are needed to bring
land within the reach of low-cost housing is evident. It is my conviction
that, in the long run, both owners and users of land would profit from
such controls.

People

CHAPTER II
PEOPLE

The whole of any social structure and its varied manifestations and
functions depends upon two fundamental factors, land and people. By
land, I do not mean mere ground, but the sum total of natural environ-
mental conditions, its resources as they are suited for exploitation, con-
trol in the interest of human welfare, and the changes that land under-
goes under human exploitation which affect society and the individual.

Housing has often been considered independent of land in its broadest
sense. We have, of course, given much attention to the land problem,
not in the sense of its natural character and resources, but as space upon
which homes could be built and the various social manifestations which
have interfered with the use of land for housing purposes. In this chapter
we should like to consider land and people from the broader aspects of
location, migrations, shifts in the centers of activity, effect of resources
upon population, climate, and similar aspects of the subject. The housing
problem as it appears from this point of view involves, not alone build-
ing and living standards, but also regional relationships of site and the
potentialities which these regional conditions afford to permanent human
settlements. Professors Odum and Moore point out that the Indians have
developed housing methods consistent with the region in which each
tribe lives.1 Similar differences may be found in the construction and
manner of using homes in the various regions among the white popula-
tion of the country. To be sure, architectural styles and the tendency to
copy from one another have somewhat beclouded the local character of
construction and ways of living which regional conditions have pro-
duced. The discerning student will, however, find no difficulty in dis-
covering prevailing and clearly regional architectural characteristics in
many communities.

It has been pointed out in the course of this book that housing is built,
not for short-time service, but, as implied by the economic nature of
the investment and the character of the commodity, for long-time service
extending from one to three generations. The character of the popula-
tion has been changing in this country both because of immigration and

1 Odum, Howard W., and Moore, Harry Estill, American Regionalism, 1938, p. 304.

51

52

PEOPLE

because of the transformation which takes place in the cultural char-
acter and economic and social outlook of the generations following a
large immigration influx. Immigration in itself has ceased to be a factor
in the United States since the doors have been closed to immigrants fol-
lowing the events of the Great War.

THE FAMILY

According to the Census of 1930, there were 29,904,663 families in
the United States. These families were of various sizes, dependent upon
the number of children on the one hand and the number of lodgers on
the other. I am giving in the following table their percental distribution.

FAMILIES CLASSIFIED BY NUMBER OF CHILDREN UNDER 21 YEARS OLD, BY DIVISIONS AND STATES: 1930

DIVISION AND STATE

All Families

Per Cent of All Families

None

I

2

3

4

5

6 to

8

9 or
More

United States

29,904,663

38.8

20.8

16.2

10. 1

6.1

3-6

4.0

0-5

Geographic divisions:
New England

1,981,499
6,374.380
6,362,823

3.3I7.88I
3,511,860

2.273.359
2,868,262
914,408
2,300,191

42.1

39-7
40.8
40.1

32.3
32.6

33-0
38.3
49-2

19.7

21.2
21.4

20. 6
19.9
20.3
21.4
19.6

21.2

15-5

16.8

16.5

16.1
16.0

iS-9
16.7
16.0
14.9

9-7
9-9
9-7
9-9

II. 2
II. 2
II. 2
IO-4

7-5

5-8
5-6
5-5
5-9
7-8
7-7
7-3
6.7
3-7

3-3
3-1
3-o
3-4

5-2
5-2

4-6
4.1
1.8

3-5
3-3
3.0

3-5
6.7
6-3

5-2

4-S
1.6

0-5
0.4

0-3
0.4
0.9

0.7
0.6

o-5

O.2

Middle Atlantic

East North Central

West North Central

South Atlantic

East South Central

West South Central

Mountain

Pacific

This above table presents a number of very interesting conditions
which, in any consideration of size of dwellings and general trends of
building enterprise, should not be overlooked. The Pacific states show
the largest number of families without children, while the South Atlantic
states have the smallest number of families without children. The most
startling fact, however, is the frequency of families without children for
the whole United States, amounting to 38.8 per cent. While these figures
may represent, not the sterility of families, but rather the tendency among
young people to maintain their own homes, still, in the general planning
for homes as units of accommodation, these figures should play an im-
portant part. Whether the general character of the home has forced
young people to undertake living in their own establishments, or whether
the spirit of independence and freedom which characterizes the modern

PEOPLE 55

generation has created a demand for small dwellings for one or two per-
sons we can not say with any certainty, as no information is given on
the marital condition of the persons living in individual homes or on the
relation between those occupying the homes, except where the occupants
had children. The fact is that, on the Pacific Coast, families without
children constitute nearly half of all the families living in that part of
the country. In the New England states, the proportion of families with-
out children to the total number of families is 42.1 per cent, also a rather
large proportion. When we combine these figures with those relating to
the average size of the family in the United States, we realize that a
radical change has taken place. The average number of persons for every
100 families in 1900 was 430, while in 1930 it was only 407; a decrease
of 23 persons for every 100 families.

That no plan for the development of housing can be made without
considering this trend is obvious. But the figures which reveal the changes
in the birth rate are still more significant. In 1800, the birth rate in the
United States per 1,000 persons was 55. In the middle of the last century,
it was only 43.3; by the end of the century, it had been reduced to 30.1;
and in 1930, it was only 20.1. These figures are not only indicative of
the decrease in the rate of growth of population, but also imply a change
in the general composition of the families of the country which need
to be housed. That this condition is not to remain stationary is recog-
nized by students of population who are concerned with national fer-
tility. Thompson and Whelpton, in their book Population Trends, cal-
culate the "medium" birth rate for 1960 as 14.6. With a birth rate nearly
one fourth of what it was at the beginning of the nineteenth century
and immigration no longer a factor in the growth of population, the
whole outlook has changed or should change insofar as housing is con-
cerned. No longer can we plan on buildings being absorbed by a transient
immigrant population on its way to prosperity, nor can we assume that
whatever growth takes place in specific communities is due to a natural
increase in the local population.

As a counterpart to the low birth rate, a very considerable change
has taken place in the expectation of life in various age groups. Edgar
Sydenstricker, in his chapter on "The Vitality of the American People,"
which forms part of the first volume of Social Trends in the United
States, has compiled a very valuable table showing the life expectation
and its evolution from 1789 to 1929. In this table we find that, for males,
the life expectation of children born in 1789 was 34.5, as opposed to
46.01 years in 1901. For females, the increase of life expectancy rose
from 36.5 to 49.42 for the same period in our history. From 1901 to

54 PEOPLE

1928, there was a rise in the life expectancy for males from 46.01 to
58.11, while for females the rise was from 49.42 to 6i.-$6.2 In seventeen
years, there was a gain of nearly eleven years for males and nearly twelve
for females. This condition should, for the time being, compensate in
part for the low birth rate. As the distribution of ages advances, however,
and the number of old people increases, there is bound to be a shift
which will no longer take care of the low birth rate. The figures given
by Sydenstricker show that, after the age of sixty, the life expectation
for persons of that age is actually lower for 1928 than for any previous
period in our history.

Many of the cities of the United States, in particular the metropolitan
centers, have completely disregarded the evidence concerning the changes
which have taken place in our birth rate and the drop in the immigration
ratio. Their prognostications about population increases have at times be-
come so fantastic as to be ridiculous. The City of New York, disregard-
ing the actual drop in the population of Manhattan, its most densely set-
tled area, has assumed that by 1960 the city itself will have a population
of about ten millions and the entire metropolitan region some sixteen
to twenty millions of people. The City of Chicago, in its preparation for
a regional plan, has assumed— or its planners have assumed— that, be-
tween 1930 and 1960, the population should increase from 3,376,438
to 5,100,000, while the entire metropolitan region with 5,058,147 people
will have a population of 8,738,000 in 1960. If all prognostications re-
garding the regional population growth in the United States were to
come true in the year 1960, according to the probable growth of popu-
lation which can be reasonably expected in the country at that time, it
would take all of this country's population and the population of Canada,
Mexico, and Brazil to fulfill the prophecy of the regional planners.

It should be remembered in this connection that many of the so-called
"metropolitan regions" are merely metropolitan districts with none of
the fundamental characters of integrated regions. They are the agglomer-
ations of population which, as a result of historical conditions and forces
and the establishment of certain industrial activities, have been thriving
and attracting more people. The natural trend of population may be in
other directions, owing to the many conditions of urban obsolescence,
changes in the character of industrial distribution, and the greater aware-
ness throughout the country of the possibilities for a more rational dis-
tribution of people and their activities. This, however, does not seem to
have entered into the calculation of metropolitan planning. Much of

2 For a more recent and detailed analysis of American age distribution and life span see The
Problems of a Changing Popidation, National Resources Committee, May, 1938, p. 22.

PEOPLE 55

what is generally designated as "metropolitan area" is an artificial clas-
sification developed largely as a prospective shopping and business re-
source in relation to some central community. To all intents and purposes,
many of these communities are rural or semi-rural, are rooted in their
environment, and are but slightly related to the metropolis. There were
392 communities of less than 2,500 population included in the metro-
politan districts of the eleven largest metropolitan centers of the country.
These are certainly devoid of most of the characteristics of metropolitan
districts, and serve to distort the conception of the growth and develop-
ment of the metropolitan areas. It is a very simple matter to extend
the boundaries or contract them according to need. In fact, there has
been a great loss of vitality and individual initiative in local development
of small communities taken into the fold of some specific regional cal-
culation as a result of the pressure and control exercised over them by
the metropolitan city.

There is, of course, no question of the value of the metropolitan con-
cept as a basis for social and economic planning. The most serious danger
is in the orientation given to this planning, which so often tends to con-
verge all services and activities in the direction of the metropolitan city
rather than toward the development of such services and activities for
the benefit of the local community. So far as tendency affects housing,
the emphasis has been on the need for rehousing in areas that have long
ago outlived their usefulness and fitness for residential use. The re-
habilitation of slums and the reclamation of blighted areas used for hous-
ing purposes have been constantly focused upon the fact that the vitality
of the metropolitan district, as a central factor in the distribution of popu-
lation and population activities, must continue to follow an outworn
historical pattern.

In the course of the next few years, there is every evidence that there
will have to be a good deal of housing construction. Under the pressure
of an existing housing shortage and political influence of metropolitan
communities, there is danger that much of this housing will be located
in areas where the best conditions are difficult to attain because of the
very character of these metropolitan cities. There is the danger that,
although housing may be provided where it is needed at the present
time, eventually there will be a shift in the industrial and general eco-
nomic life of the country which will necessitate a new program of hous-
ing consistent with a new set of regional requirements. It would not
be desirable to delay construction until that new regional pattern is
created, but I venture the assertion that much could be forecast at the
present time, and that these forecasts could be made through the elabo-

56 PEOPLE

rate and thorough studies of the National Resources Board, the Railroad
Commission, the Home Loan Bank Board, and various other investigat-
ing and policy-control agencies of the country, and which could be
crystallized into national policies.

RURAL AND URBAN POPULATION

While certain efforts are being made to improve housing conditions
in large centers of population, the smaller communities, and particularly
those classified by the Census as rural non-farm communities, which
constitute nearly one-fifth of the population of the United States and
nearly half of the total rural population of the country, have received
no attention whatever. It would seem that the migration from rural to
urban communities is not only farm population migration but also mi-
gration from rural non-farm to urban communities. These rural com-
munities are generally small villages, many of which are devoid of most
of the advantages of the larger population centers, and yet they present
an important factor in the life of the nation. If we consider the non-farm
rural population in its relation to the total urban population, we find
that the non-farm rural population constitutes 34.5 per cent of the total
population not living on farms. These people represent a very impor-
tant element in the population of the country by virtue of the fact that
they are potential urban dwellers and also because their lot is generally
ignored in the efforts that are being made to improve national conditions
of living, employment, and cultural advancement. Their housing is often
of the poorest, their schools of the least desirable type, and their ways
of living confined to the limits of undeveloped communities, with pre-
carious employment conditions. This non-farm rural population is equal
to the total urban population of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
and Michigan, four of the most urban states in the Union. Nor should
it be assumed that this is a part of the population which is on the decrease.
The fact is that, between 1920 and 1930, the non-farm rural population
increased by 3,615,333, or 18.06 per cent, while the total population of
the country increased only at the rate of 16.1 per cent for the same
period of time. If we are to recapture the rural values which still surround
one-fifth of our population and reduce the tide of cityward migra-
tion, we must take into consideration the rural non-farm people, who
present an important and largely unexplored field. The various advan-
tages of urban life could be made available to these people without forcing
them into the congested and obsolete precincts of our cities.

That these families are not rooted in their little communities and are
just awaiting the opportunity to leave for larger cities is not wholly a

PEOPLE 59

justified assumption, if we consider home ownership as an index of sta-
bility. The fact is that, while only 42.8 per cent of the families living
in urban communities and 52.3 per cent of rural farm families own their
homes, the rural non-farm families own their homes in 52.6 per cent of
the cases, or more often than either the urban or rural farm population.
In fact, home ownership in rural non-farm type of community has been
constantly on the increase since 1890.

I am not certain that home ownership in this case is an index of stability
of population settlement. There is little information on this type of set-
tlement which would furnish us with the facts regarding the migrations
of the rural non-farm population, but it is quite certain that so large a
portion of our population is worth study and consideration, both as
social and economic entities.

POPULATION AND COMMUNITY EQUIPMENT

It has already been suggested that the birth rate in this country is
decreasing and that the general distribution of ages is undergoing radical
changes. These changes should have their counterpart in the manner in
which housing enterprises are conceived, both as habitation and in their
relation to the various services essential to the development of suitable
environmental conditions. Thus schools which may have been adequate
ten years ago in providing ample space and equipment for a certain dis-
tribution of age groups may become inadequate in this respect with a
shift in the distribution of ages.

It has been calculated that, by 1940, there will be 1,000,000 fewer
children of the ages of 9 to 1 6, and that quite obviously fewer children
will be entering school. Insofar as the institutions for higher education
are concerned, there will still be the same number of students, or an
increasing number by that time, since the birth rate up to 1921 was on
the increase.3 Schooling a million children and providing the various
services which they need constitute very important factors in the whole
problem of bringing into proper relation housing provisions and com-
munity equipment which housing must have.

It may be said, however, that, while the birth rate has been decreasing,
the urban and semi-urban population has been increasing at the same
time that the rural population has been decreasing. Thus, some of the
changes in the age distribution may be absorbed by the increase in popu-
lation. We must bear the fact in mind, however, that, while the metro-
politan cities have been increasing at a comparatively normal rate, the

'Thompson and Whelpton, Chapter on Population, Social Trends, Vol. I, p. 33; McGraw-
Hill Book Co., 1933.

60 PEOPLE

outlying areas of the metropolitan districts have been increasing at an
abnormally rapid rate. We find, for example, that, while the metro-
politan districts of cities with 2,000,000 population or more increased
but 21.8 per cent between 1920 and 1930, the increase in the surround-
ing areas has amounted to 48.3 per cent. The metropolitan cities with
from one to two million population increased but 13.1 per cent, while
the outside areas increased 40.1 per cent. Without exception, all of the
metropolitan districts of the country have been increasing in population
more rapidly in the areas outside the boundaries of the metropolis than
inside.

Another interesting and important tendency in the distribution of
population has been taking place within the municipal boundaries of
the metropolitan cities along the lines of pushing the population from
the center to the periphery of the community. This phenomenon has
particular significance from the point of view of the distribution of
amenities and the necessity for reorienting the distribution of schools,
playgrounds, health centers, traffic, and many other facilities which re-
late the newly developed areas to the municipal center. The centers of
the cities are at the same time undergoing serious transformations both
as to use and needs. Professor R. D. McKenzie, in his book, The Metro-
politan Community, gives a table showing the rates of increase in popula-
tion in certain zones from the centers of New York, Chicago, Cleveland,
and Pittsburgh. Invariably the zones within one mile from the center of
the city have decreased in population, Cleveland having lost 27 per cent,
New York 25 per cent, Chicago 22 per cent, and Pittsburgh only 7 per
cent. In New York, the greatest increase in population has taken place
in the areas which represent a minimum distance from the center of the
city of from twelve to sixteen miles, where the increase in population
between 1920 and 1930 has been 278 per cent. In Chicago, the greatest
increase in population has taken place in the areas between eight and
ten miles from the center of the city, the percentage of increase being
112 per cent in the period between 1920 and 1930. This change in the
distribution of population has its bearing upon the whole question of
community equipment and its planning in relation, not only to the drift of
population, but also to age composition, with all its implied requirements.

I have not attempted an elaborate study of population in relation to
housing, as this would require a much longer discussion than the scope
of this book warrants. All that is essential is to point out the conditions
which the tendencies in the distribution and rate of increase in our popu-
lation present and their relation to housing. Briefly stated, the following

PEOPLE 61

considerations should be taken into account in planning housing programs
and projects:

1 . The size of families is undergoing radical changes.

2 . The age distribution in these families represents basic factors which
must be taken into account in planning housing and the community-
equipment which must serve such housing.

3. There is being created in most large cities a no man's land, as a
result of obsolescence and blight, or normal transition, in housing devel-
opment. The problem of rehabilitating and reconstructing these areas
and reshaping their destiny must be met, not as a resettlement question,
but rather as a problem involving the future of human habitation.

4. A large proportion of the population of the United States lives in
villages or rural areas in which housing conditions are often in need of
attention, and there is every reason to believe that these communities
represent a source of conservation of human and cultural resources at
present largely neglected in our social planning.

5. The distribution of population, or rather its present redistribution,
as exemplified by the larger metropolitan centers, affords an opportunity
for control of densities and a balancing between density and services
which would give greater stability to rapidly developing settlements and
a more harmonious and efficient community integration.

6. The whole program of housing, for both the underprivileged and
those with incomes sufficient to maintain decent living conditions, depends
upon a careful consideration and understanding of the trends of popu-
lation and the needs which these trends represent, as well as the various
controls which can be attained by proper planning and zoning.

SIZE OF FAMILY AND OWNERSHIP OF HOMES

In 1930, there were in the United States 17,372,524 families living in
urban communities. Of this number, 7,432,554, or 42.9 per cent, owned
their homes or had at least attempted to acquire ownership. Tenant
families numbered 9,681,359, or 57.1 per cent. In the case of the home-
owning families, the percentage of those having from three to five per-
sons was 53.8 per cent, while in the case of tenant families, the percentage
was only 50.8. On the other hand, home-owning families consisting of
only one or two persons constituted 28.9 per cent, as opposed to 35.9
per cent for the tenant families. The trend in the direction of building
small apartments has no doubt grown out of this demand on the part of
three and a half million families of only one or two persons. The fact
also that, in these families, often both members of the family are work-

62 PEOPLE

ing, making possible the payment of a higher rent for smaller accommo-
dations, has added to the impetus toward the construction or conversion
of buildings with an ample supply of small apartments.

It is a rather interesting fact that the proportion of families with six
or more persons is higher among those who lived in their own homes
than among those who lived in rented quarters. In the one case they
constituted 17.5 per cent, and in the other only 13.3 per cent, of the
total number of families in these groups. Unfortunately, we have no
figures showing the economic status of the families in each family group
or the kind of homes occupied by the larger home-owning families.

In any national program for housing, it is quite essential to develop
adequate data on the size of family and percentage of home ownership,
so that we may be able to judge as to the relation which government
aid may bear to types of families, particularly in the matter of adjusting
size of family to accommodations. In many European countries, notably
in Austria and France, a good deal has been done to help large families
with normal or low incomes to secure suitable accommodations at rentals
within their range of income.

AGE OF THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY

The acquisition of homes and the ability to meet the long-term obli-
gations which such acquisition requires raises the question of the distri-
bution of ages of the heads of families. Assuming that the highest earning
capacity is reached around the age of 45, undertaking the obligations of
home ownership must be related to the age distribution of the heads of
families. There are, of course, exceptional conditions when other mem-
bers of the family contribute toward the payment for a home, but gen-
erally that is not the case.

Of the 29,904,663 families in the United States, 3,792,902 have as
head of the family a woman. Of those with a man as head of the family,
a considerable proportion is made up of persons 45 years of age and over.
Of this number, 22.0 per cent are between 45 and 54 years of age, 14.1
per cent between 55 and 64, and the remaining 9.4 per cent over 65.
In other words, 45.7 per cent of all the families are headed by persons
beyond the age of highest earning capacity. Should it be possible to elimi-
nate the pseudofamilies of one or two persons who live, not as families,
but merely as individuals, without any intimate family ties, the proportion
would be much larger. It is unfortunate that we have no figures relating
to the urban and rural distribution of family heads according to age; but,
assuming that the distribution corresponds to the general age distribution
in these areas, we find that a very considerable proportion of the families

PEOPLE 63'

which do not own their homes are headed by persons who are not in a
position to become potential purchasers of homes at present costs and
under the usual methods of payment.

Housing has been preoccupying the interest of many government
agencies, both in the matter of supplying homes and in the matter of
setting up an economic structure which would make decent housing
accessible to larger numbers of our families. It would be worth while to
elaborate the census schedules for 1940, therefore, so as to contain ade-
quate and better-focused information, not alone on existing conditions,
but also on the possibilities for providing the proper kind of homes for
the great variety of needs represented by the types of families to be
accommodated.

Money

CHAPTER III
MONEY

In the chapter on land, we pointed out the various ways in which
housing is affected by the fluctuation in the values of land and the fac-
tors that bring land into play in financing housing. Here we shall consider
the matter of money in its various aspects, as regards availability, cost,
and liquidation of indebtedness; the relation that housing investment
bears to the economic structure of the country; and the consequences
involved in the relation between money and housing.

There are no figures which could be said to be dependable regarding
the total investment in dwellings in the United States. Indeed, there have
been such violent fluctuations in values that any estimate we might make
today would hardly hold for more than a short time. In round figures,
it has been estimated that the total value of dwellings in the United States
is approximately one-fifth of the total wealth of the country. Assuming
this wealth to be about $500,000,000,000, the value of housing real estate
would be about $100,000,000,000. This would hardly correspond to the
assessed values for taxation purposes, nor does it represent values which
could be made the basis for estimating actual realizable investment.

While this valuation of the dwellings in the United States may be
somewhere near correct under normal conditions, there is serious ques-
tion whether it would hold today, after eight years of lack of replace-
ment of old buildings and failure to meet the normal demands due to
increase in population and in the number of families. It may be added
that, in view of the fact that more than half the values of dwellings are
mortgaged in the cities of ordinary and large size, the whole estimated
valuation of the relation of homes to national wealth needs revision.

According to estimates made by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board,
the total amount in home mortgage loans outstanding in 1925 was $13,-
843,000,000. By 1930, the home-mortgage loans outstanding increased
to $22,153,000,000, an increase of over 66.9 per cent in six years. By
1936, however, the figures had receded to $17,798,000,000, or a decline
of 19.7 per cent. But if we consider the $2,763,000,000 taken over by
the Home Owners Loan Corporation, the actual decline in the outstand-
ing loans on homes in six years rose to 32.1 per cent.

I am citing these figures because they show how spasmodic the whole

67

68 MONEY

lending market of the country is and how rapidly it responds to chang-
ing conditions. This is true regardless of the fact that investment in
housing is a long-term investment and that the payments of both capital
and interest, as well as the costs, generally extend over two or more
decades.

In small, stable communities, with non-fluctuating populations and
well established economic resources, the valuations may remain reason-
ably steady for a long time. In communities like New York, Boston, or
Chicago, however, which are highly sensitized to the economic changes
taking place in industry and business, these values of necessity depend
for their stability upon economic changes.

What we are concerned with, however, is not so much the value of
existing dwellings as the investment market, which makes the providing
of dwellings possible and economically practical. Long experience has
established the conditions under which investment in any enterprise can
depend upon the support of capital. These are:

1 . Adequate return on the investment.

2. Capacity of the investment to be liquidated.

3 . Continuity of productivity.

4. Safety.

5. Freedom from heavy taxation and the incidents of advancing tax
burdens.

6. Large-scale investment, with reduced management responsibilities
for the individual investor.

These are the essential requirements which certainly apply to housing
with greater force than to any other investment venture.

ADEQUATE RETURN ON THE INVESTMENT

We shall see that, insofar as the housing market is concerned, be-
tween one-third and one-half of the population can pay rentals so small
that any heavy burden of interest would make investment in housing
quite unsafe if such housing were intended for lower-income families.

The result has been that the kind of housing which found a ready
money market was the type that could carry the extra charges for money
costs. This is the type that, with the addition of a few luxuries, can
yield luxury rents, although the total investment per unit of building
cost differs only very slightly from the simpler requirements of the
lower-income families. Thus, during the period of prosperity, when
profits were expected to be high, there was actually more construction
of a luxury type than could possibly be absorbed, although income groups
capable or paying the high rentals were not numerous enough to absorb

MONEY 69

the available accommodations. In New York, Boston, Chicago, and many
of the Western cities, private houses, apartment houses, and apartment
hotels were built with no regard to the income distribution of the popu-
lation, but only from the point of view of expected returns in rents or
sales based upon calculations which completely disregarded the actual
market. At the beginning of the depression, there were many more losses
due to luxury-housing construction than to investment in and owner-
ship of low-rental housing. Thus the intent to avoid the small profits
to be realized in the building of lower-cost and lower-rental housing re-
sulted in vast losses which could otherwise have been avoided and, at
the same time, could have served to produce the type of house for
which there was a market at a lower profit. The building boom which
characterized the period of prosperity, particularly between 1926 and
1929, proved the debacle of the building industry and of building in-
vestment.

The further fact should be observed, namely, that, during the boom
period, not only were large returns expected but the charges for financ-
ing and the parasitic manipulations of various aspects of building enter-
prise became so burdensome that the investor was left with a building
in which the actual use value, after speculative values had been eliminated,
was too small to produce the expected revenue. There were cases of
buildings of the luxury type which, after all, except the actual cost of
building had been covered, left the investors with a mere shadow of
what was intended to be a source of revenue. In numerous cases, fore-
closures yielded less than the first mortgage, leaving the holder of the
second mortgage with the proverbial empty sack. In some cases, persons
forced foreclosure on their homes, since they were aware that, in a pros-
trated market, they could repurchase their homes for less than the first
mortgage. Where refinancing of a large housing enterprise became nec-
essary, the risk was considered so great that from 12 to 15 per cent on
the annual rate for second mortgages was not an uncommon practice.

Thus the period of great prosperity, after sowing its wild oats, left
us a harvest of bankruptcies, lost property, reduced incomes from hous-
ing investment, and a building industry which, after ten years, is still
trying to recover.

CAPACITY OF INVESTMENT TO BE LIQUIDATED

In most investment fields, particularly where the investment is repre-
sented by stocks and bonds, the sensitiveness of the market and the needs
of the investor can be met through the flexibility of the stock market.
In housing, the investment is fixed and difficult to liquidate without

70 MONEY

serious loss, except in cases where a shortage occurs or some special
condition favors the investment. There is little room for speculation
after the investment has been made and the rentals or prices for homes
have been fixed. The investment is made, not for a year or two, but for
a decade or, as is more often the case, for twenty to thirty years. The
hazards entailed by such an investment are great, and the fact, as has
been pointed out, that investment is made in housing at times of high
prosperity and rentals, and that disposal of property generally takes place
during times of depression, the hazard becomes still greater and must be
compensated by high interest rates and heavy financing charges.

As housing is not a matter of large-scale investment in any single en-
terprise, no adequate mechanism for marketing investment shares in hous-
ing has been devised. Each individual or organization handles its own
project or investment and expects to liquidate the investment as best he
can. The fundamental philosophy of housing finance is therefore highly
individualistic, with the promoter unloading his burden as soon as pos-
sible and leaving the financing agency to reap the results.

CONTINUITY OF PRODUCTIVITY

I have dealt in detail elsewhere with the many foreclosures which were
brought about during and even before the depression. In addition to the
various and more or less regular depressions which affect the housing
market, the matter of obsolescence is seldom taken into account. We
know that, in the upper brackets of rental ranges, families are always
seeking to improve their housing conditions, to take advantage of every
invention or new gadget that comes into use. New houses, as they are
built along modern lines, therefore drain off much of the tenancy of
the older houses. Rentals must be gradually reduced to compete with
the newer buildings, and the anticipated income is of necessity reduced,
unless allowance is made for this type of obsolescence and revenue cal-
culated to meet these conditions.

In the many plans for housing finance that I have had the opportunity
of examining in the course of the last few years, the matter of rent re-
duction is seldom considered. Now and again allowance is made for
depreciation, but little heed is given to the fact that, in the course of
time, rentals will have to be lowered.

Where mortgages are placed upon the so-called owner-occupied
homes, it is taken for granted that the purchaser who assumes a mort-
gage obligation will always be able to meet his obligations, regardless of
changing conditions. As most mortgage obligations are assumed at a time

MONEY 71

when income is steady and high, and the mortgage must be paid up
mostly when times are normal or bad and earning capacity is reduced,
the result can hardly be satisfactory.

The figures reported in the Financial Survey of Urban Housing show
that, in the fifty cities in which the investigation was carried on, 58.5
per cent of the homes occupied by the owners were mortgaged, while
42.8 per cent of the rented dwellings were mortgaged. In the cities of
the New England states, the proportion of mortgaged owner-occupied
dwellings reached 83.6 per cent in Worcester, Massachusetts, and 81.1
per cent in Waterbury, Connecticut. We have no figures either as to
the length of time that has elapsed since the mortgage obligations were
contracted or of the rate at which they were being cleared up and the
homes held free from debt.

We have likewise no figures relating to the relation between original
investment in housing and the rents which houses yield. Nor have we
any adequate figures to show the relation between value and revenue,
net or gross. All we have are some fragmentary figures, reported in the
above-cited survey, which relate to the average value of single-family
dwellings and the rents which they yield. These figures, as of 1934,
show that, for single-family dwellings, the average valuation was $3,142
and the average rent $248 per annum. This is a return of only 7.89 per
cent gross, which must 'take care of interest on the investment, taxes,
depreciation, vacancies, time lost in rerental, management, rent collec-
tion, repairs, and so on. On the other hand, the tenants in these same
dwellings, although failing to pay a reasonable return on what is pre-
sumed to be a safe investment, are themselves paying an average of
24.2 per cent of their income in rent, or nearly one-fifth more than is
generally assumed to be the normal proportion between rent and income.
In many cities, the proportion of rent to income is even higher and the
return on the value of the property lower.

It may be said that the figures relate to an abnormal period in our
history, but abnormal periods have been occurring from time to time,
and the investment in housing has had to meet these conditions regardless
of the original investment.

Enough has been said to show that, unless the fluctuations in the pro-
ductive capacity of housing as an investment can be absorbed by reduc-
tion in costs, or by high initial rents in the case of rented dwellings, or
much lower financing charges where private ownership is involved,
continuity of productive investment does not seem to characterize hous-
ing, or at least not without a downward trend.

72 MONEY

SAFETY OF INVESTMENT

The records of the banks and insurance companies could tell a very
interesting, though tragic, story of the safety of investment in housing.
The slums of our cities— those specifically blighted areas which held the
promise of great demands for additional housing, into which vast migra-
tions which have been brought by changes in the character of districts,
or by the incidence of unemployment— are mortgaged to our various
investing institutions for amounts ranging from a few hundred dollars
to millions.

Some studies made by the Chamber of Commerce of the Lower East
Side of Manhattan Island teach a serious lesson in investment finance, as
practiced by some of the most outstanding and reliable financial institu-
tions of New York City. The very fact that these great institutions,
shrewd in their financial operations, guardians of millions of depositors'
savings, could have failed to visualize the impending tragedy merely indi-
cates either that we know little about the whole science of real-estate
economics— if, indeed, it can be called a science— or that the winds of in-
vestment blow with the irregularity of our changing tides of prosperity
and depression.

How much of these investments will have to be written off the books
of these institutions no one can forecast, but that the chances of recover-
ing these losses are slight, even though prosperity may return, has been
already recognized by those who do not refuse to see that much fiction
has been masquerading as reality.

FREEDOM FROM HEAVY TAXATION AND THE INCIDENCE OF
HEAVY TAX BURDENS

Our municipalities have become more and more costly to service, and
the burdens of taxation have been mounting at a pace that has made
homeowners the victims, in many instances, of levies which they could
not carry. In congested districts, tenements often bear a tax burden
equivalent to 30 per cent of the gross income. In areas which are under-
going transition, the tax burden may be even higher. In new and still
undeveloped communities, like those of the Far West, local improve-
ments, as has been pointed out, reach a point, through special assessments,
where the market value of property is equal to or even lower than the
assessed value.

The more complex the community, the greater is the per capita cost of
local government; and the greater the per capita cost, the heavier is the

MONEY 73

taxation. As from 85 to 95 per cent of all local budgets must be derived
from real property, the renter or homeowner carries the burden. Some
countries have relieved unoccupied dwellings of taxation. This seems to
have worked rather well in Germany, where housing is taxed only on a
basis of income or value for occupancy, and not on a basis of assessed
value regardless of revenue. It would seem to me that, aside from the
taxing of unused lands, one way of relieving housing from its present
heavy taxation might be to apply the principle of taxation upon income
from property rather than upon assessments, many of which, particularly
in congested areas, are based upon possibilities for future use of land
rather than upon actual use at the time of the assessment.

At present, there is considerable difficulty in securing capital for hous-
ing purposes where the tax levy is high and the rentals to be expected
leave little margin for profit. In the security field, the hazard is often
slight, as taxes on incomes are low and the chances of a sudden change
in the tax rate are few. In the real-estate field standards are constantly
being changed and rates are juggled to meet emergencies, regardless of
revenue from rents or returns due to sale of property.

LARGE-SCALE INVESTMENT WITH REDUCED MANAGEMENT
RESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE INDIVIDUAL INVESTOR

In the United States, with few outstanding exceptions, low-rental
housing is undertaken as a business by small operators, who either are
ready at any time to unload their buildings or must carry the property at
a small return. Most of the properties are comparatively small and are
occupied by families with low incomes. In recent years, only luxury
housing has assumed the larger aspects of investment, but these accom-
modations are designed for the upper tenth of the population and not
for the people with moderate or small incomes.

Sir Harold Bellman, of England, who has been responsible for some
of the largest housing enterprises in his own country, referred to our
method of housing production as a "shoestring industry." Under the
conditions that prevail in the United States, management often absorbs
from one-third to one-half the revenue, not so much because the service
is of a higher grade, but because of the fact that the units of construction
are small, and economical business organization for each small unit is dif-
ficult, if not impossible, under present conditions. In order to overcome
this difficulty, the whole industry and the business methods under which
it operates will have to be reorganized on a large scale.

Under the conditions pointed out, it is not surprising that housing

74 MONEY

finance has lagged behind the financing of many other enterprises, and
that the hazards involved have tended to develop methods which have
burdened housing with financing costs out of proportion with the rent-
paying resources and buying power of the people.

There are no figures available which would show with any degree of
accuracy the amounts which are loaned every year for housing purposes.
Nor do we have available figures which would tell the story of losses
sustained from investment in housing enterprise either by the banks and
other investing agencies or by private individuals who lend money for
housing purposes. The only figures we do have relate to foreclosures,
and even here the information is neither accurate nor of a sufficiently
general character to convey an idea of the conditions throughout the
country. In fact, mortgage holders often defer foreclosure because of a
bad market, which would make it impossible to realize from the sale even
the amount of the mortgage.

The Financial Survey of Urban Housing represents a cross-section of
urban community housing. The following figures apply only to owner-
occupied dwellings:

OWNER-OCCUPIED RESIDENTIAL PROPERTIES: PERCENTAGE DISTRIBUTION OF AMOUNT OF FIRST MORT-
GAGE LOANS OUTSTANDING BY AGENCY HOLDING THE LOAN
(JANUARY i, 1934)

Agency Holding Loan

Life insurance company

Building and loan association. . . .

Commercial bank

Savings bank

Mortgage company

Construction company

Title and trust company

Home Owners Loan Corporation.

Individuals

Others..,

Total.

Per Cent of Total

13.6

18.5

17.2

7-i

0-3

3-2

3-3

19.7

4-1

IOO.OO

This is a rather remarkable distribution of investment, showing that
the private investor plays a very small part in the whole loan market of
owner-occupied dwellings. The various banking institutions are involved
to the extent of 72.6 per cent of all mortgage loans on the dwellings
studied in 52 cities throughout the United States. The balance is distrib-

Robert Maclean Glasgow, Photographer.

HILLSIDE HOUSING. A HOUSING PROJECT BUILT WITH THE AID OF GOVERNMENT
FUNDS IN THE BOROUGH OF THE BRONX, NEW YORK. CLARENCE S. STEIN,
ARCHITECT.

Photograph by Robtrt Maclean Glasgow.
HILLSIDE HOUSING, BOROUGH OF THE BRONX, NEW YORK.

MONEY 77

uted among private individuals, who exceed investors not mentioned,
and the Home Owners Loan Corporation, which has comparatively
recently taken over some of the mortgages threatened with foreclosure.
The most remarkable fact revealed by this table is that the construction
companies played practically no part in the financing of their enter-
prises, as they held only 0.3 per cent of the mortgages. An examina-
tion of the detailed table dealing with the distribution of mortgages and
mortgage-holding agencies in the 52 cities studied, shows that insurance
companies carried very few mortgages in New England and Middle
Atlantic cities, the percentages being 3.1 per cent and 4.6 per cent, re-
spectively. On the other hand, they carried 31.2 per cent in South At-
lantic cities and 42.1 per cent in East South Central cities. The savings
banks carried the heaviest load in the New England states, where they
held 44.8 per cent of the mortgages, and next in the Middle At-
lantic states, where they held 42.1 per cent of the mortgages. In
Worcester, Massachusetts, the savings banks held 76.8 per cent of the
mortgages.

There are, no doubt, historical and legal reasons for this distribution of
mortgage investment. In all probability, however, these reasons have long
ago lost their justification, and there is room for a complete revamping
of the legal restrictions and practices in the interest of better financing
methods, in order to make housing loans more easily accessible and not
subject to the risks and costs involved in transactions of this kind.

MORTGAGE DEBT AND VALUE OF PROPERTY

The Financial Survey of Urban Housing also presents some very in-
teresting figures on the relation between the value of property and the
amount of mortgages. In Table in, it is shown that the average ratio
of mortgage debt to the value of the property for the 52 cities included
in the investigation was, as per January i, 1934, as much as 60.4 for
rental dwellings and 55.6 for owner-occupied dwellings. We, of course,
do not know the age of the mortgages and can therefore not judge
whether this mortgage situation was the result of unusual business depres-
sion or whether it represents normal conditions in these cities. It is an
interesting fact that the ratio of rental property value to the mortgage
debt is invariably higher than the debt ratio of owner-occupied dwell-
ings. The reason for this is not available. However, there are two prob-
abilities: either the people who invest in homes find it difficult to meet
their obligations out of rents or, as in the case of many business buildings,
owners use money secured on mortgages for business purposes because

78 MONEY

of the quick turnover in business which they can not find in property
ownership.

INTEREST RATES

It has been alleged that the interest rate in the United States is very
high. In view of the fact that the ultimate cost of a house includes not
only its construction investment and other charges inherent in owner-
ship but also the rate at which money can be obtained in the market. This
rate is an important factor in housing costs. They affect the whole
economic status of housing, both in owner-occupied dwellings and in
rental property. It is quite impossible to ascertain what the actual rates of
interest are, because the picture is often befogged by all sorts of charges
intended to conceal the rate of interest. This is more frequently done
by including a heavy financing charge in the loan, upon which interest
must be paid throughout the life of the loan. Thus, it is impossible to
ascertain the actual amount of money borrowed and, therefore, the
actual interest rate exacted.

The only first-hand statistical information we have regarding the pre-
vailing interest rates on loans which may be considered reliable is again
to be found in the Financial Survey of Urban Housing. These figures,
as all others quoted in this work, relate to 52 cities of this country. The
average interest rate reported was $6.18 per $100, on the basis of the con-
tract rate (weighted), and the effective rate averaged $6.54 per $100 in
owner-occupied homes. The rates for owned dwellings were $6.25 and
those for rented dwellings were $6.75. The rate for rented dwell-
ings, probably because of their speculative nature, was higher. As far as
the figures show, the fluctuation in the rates of interest ranges from $5.40
in Syracuse, New York, to $8.7 1 in Butte, Montana. The general average,
however, is a very high rate, and of course it affects both rents and
capacity to carry mortgage obligations.

I have always been impressed with the sanctimoniousness of the limited-
dividend enterprises which have set, as their goal, a maximum of 6 per cent
on the investment. This is entirely too high a rate and is in no material
way a departure from normal investment return which commercial in-
stitutions expect to derive from such investments.

In looking over some figures on loans made in France by the most im-
portant lending institutions of the country, La Societe Centrale de Credit
Immobilier, I found that the government had, by a decree issued in August
1937, permitted this organization to charge as high as 2.75 per cent on
housing loans. The organization, however, did not take advantage of this

MONEY 79

privilege except in certain cases, and established a graduated scale of
interest rates on the following basis:

2.75% on loans to families with one child

2.50% on loans to families with two children

2.25% on loans to families with three children

2.00% on loans to families with four children

Here is a new approach to the dwelling-house financing problem
which takes into account differences in the economic burden which
families must carry and the effect upon the resources which are left for
housing purposes. To be sure, the difference in the interest rate is not
material, but the principle is sound. When we compare our idea of "6
per cent and philanthropy" with the rates charged by the French insti-
tution, we are not so sure that there is any valid reason for granting tax
immunities and other privileges where the interest rate is higher than 3
per cent. So far as I know, money for housing can now be obtained at
less than 5 per cent in any part of the country, even through private insti-
tutions, whether its mortgages are government-insured or not.

Sir Harold Bellman, in an article published in the Journal of Land
and Public Utilities Economics for May 1938, has this to say about in-
terest rates charged here and in England as they affect housing loans:
"We have devised a technique for making the borrower's burden as bear-
able as possible, which is in turn rendered practicable by the high average
standard of borrowers' integrity and a relatively stable level of property
values."

It is not difficult to realize that rental rates or the ability to acquire
and pay for a home is, in large measure, determined by the cost that must
be charged up against interest. Rent Tables, published in February 1937
by the Technical Division of the New York City Housing Authority,
are significant in this connection.1

This important document is divided into two parts. The first part deals
with rentals under stipulated amortization periods with government capi-
tal subsidies, while the second deals with the same housing costs without
such subsidies. In each case, variants in interest rates are used as a basis
in calculating rents.

Assuming a period of amortization of 40 years, and also taking it for
granted that a housing project of any magnitude would derive some bene-
fit from the rental of stores, which would help to reduce residence rent-
als, we find the following variability in rents dependent upon the interest
rates:

1Uhl, Charles H., Rent Tables, New York City Housing Authority, United States Works
Progress Administration, revised February i, 1938.

80 MONEY

(Cost per room, £1,200)

Interest Rate

Rent per Month
per Room

No interest

$ 6 96

I %

7 73

i#%

7 84.

2 %

8 17

2^%

8 C2

3 %

8.88

3K% •

916

4 % ..

96d

4K% ..

10 04

5 % ..

10 46

Each room is reduced in rent by $.50, which is expected to be derived
from business rentals as part of the project. So far, this expectation has
not been justified by the experience of recent projects.

The calculations have not been carried beyond the 5 per cent basis, on
the assumption that most public enterprise will not have to pay more than
this interest rate. However, when we consider the major activities in hous-
ing for which money costs 6 per cent or more, it is obvious that rentals
would have to be proportionately higher. Admitting, however, that some
means might be found of providing money at a rate of 5 per cent for
all housing enterprises, if we consider the difference between such a
rate and that charged in France averaging 2 1A per cent, the effect on
the rentals is quite significant. At 2 1/2 per cent, the rent per room would
be $8.52, as compared with $10.46 for the same room if the interest rate
were 5 per cent. This makes a difference of nearly two dollars per month
per room, and, for a four-room dwelling, it would mean nearly eight dol-
lars per month. If we accept the usual standard of one fifth of one's
income for rent, we must recognize that a different income group could
occupy the same houses under a 2 1A per cent interest rate than under a
5 per cent interest rate. The difference in income groups that could
occupy the dwelling on the basis of the two interest rates would be
about $50.00 per month, or $600 per year. It is hardly necessary here
to emphasize the importance of this difference in the income groups
which would be affected by such a change in the interest rate.

As it is invariably true that the interest rates charged for loans on rented
houses are considerably higher than for owner-occupied homes, it is
quite evident that a very considerable saving in rent from the present re-
quirements could be effected by a reduction of the cost of money from
the present figure of around 6 1A to 2 1A per cent. This would mean a

MONEY 81

saving, in the average rent for rooms costing about $1,200 of about $3
per month, and would bring down the whole level of rents to income
groups who can not be provided for, even by government enterprises,
unless subsidies equivalent to a large proportion of the original invest-
ment are granted. There is still a large field in which the government
must and probably will continue to operate, but I am strongly of the
opinion that private enterprise can and should provide a large share of
the housing requirements for self-supporting families, and that this should
be done by providing housing credit at a cost not greater than the cost
of money to the government for other enterprises.

The full story of the methods which had to be employed to reduce
the outstanding home loans from 1930 to 1936 by 32.1 per cent, as
pointed out at the beginning of this chapter, will perhaps not be told
fully for a long time. The fact that the United States government,
through the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, had to step in and take
over mortgages to the amount of $3,093,459,271 affecting 1,018,171
homes by June i, 1936, is itself an index of the serious condition into
which the mortgage field had drifted by 1930. Unfortunately, there are
no figures available to show how many homes were actually mortgaged
when the United States government took a hand in saving homeowners
from foreclosure. If, however, we accept the figures of the Financial
Survey of Urban Housing as typical relative to the proportion of non-
farm homes owner-occupied which were mortgaged in 1934, we find
that the total number of such homes was 6,226,372, or 58.3 per cent of
the total. On this basis, it would seem that the government had to step
in to save these homes from foreclosure in 16.3 per cent of the cases. In
other words, the government had to intervene and save one in every six
owner-occupied homes of the non-farm type. How much of this condi-
tion was due to the heavy interest and financing rates we can not say. The
government's reduction of the interest rate to 4% per cent was a decided
gain over private rates.

Before we discuss the various steps which the United States govern-
ment was led to undertake in order to meet the market situation in hous-
ing and employment conditions, we are prompted to give a more general
picture of the situation as it developed from 1921 to 1936. This situation
is presented in a chart taken from the Annual Report of the Home Loan
Bank Board for June 30, 1937, the last report available.

Chart I on page 82 is significant because it shows the trends in con-
struction from 1921 to 1936, and also because it reveals the lag in rent
reductions to meet the industrial situation while clearly indicating that a
reduction in the construction of homes tends, even under conditions of

82

MONEY

CHART I. SHOWING RELATIONS BETWEEN WHOLESALE COMMODITY PRICES, INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION,
HOUSING RENTALS AND RESIDENTIAL CONSTRUCTION FROM 1917 TO 1936

zvu

180
160
140
120
f 100
80
60
40

20
0

;

>oun

e: (1) U.S. Dept. of Labor
(2) Federal Reserve Board
(3) National Industrial Conference Board
(4) Federal Home Loan Bank Board

/

V*"

•WhC

lesal

5 Cor

imo

iityi

rices

(1)

/

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1

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al Pr

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ion

2)

%

,w«

>

5

r *

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He

usin

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ntals

(3)

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/

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/

^

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i

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s

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ctior

(4)

•• •-•

A

^

Div

si on

of Re

searc

1 1
i and Stati

.ties

\

^

/

From the Annual Report of the Home Loan Bank Board, June 30, 1937.

CHART II. SHOWING FORECLOSURES, RENT REDUCTIONS AND RATE OF RESIDENTIAL CONSTRUCTION

BETWEEN JUNE 1921 AND JUNE 1937

400
380
360
340
320
300
280
260
240
220
1200

c

180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0

Source:
( 1 ) Federal Home Loan Bank Board
(2) National Industrial Conference Boa

/

^
s.

rd

/

s

/

1

K
\

1

1

For

>clos

ures

(1)

— ».

1
I

\
\

/

/

\
\

i
1

1

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V

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\

i

[

\

t
/

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/

/

/

5=

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i

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s

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jsjnj

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£-.

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z

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s

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side

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true

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1)

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visior
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of R
a! Ho

esea
me L

ch a

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)ank

atisti
Hoar

cs

X

^

Lf-

1

X

4-n

~ tv m •$•

>o r» oo

CT^ 01 OV 01 Ot

From the Federal Home Loan Bank Review, August 1938.

MONEY 83

depression, to keep the rents at an even level. As soon, however, as there
was an upward trend in employment, which took place in 1933, there
was a corresponding increase in the rentals, in spite of the fact that the
supply of houses was also being increased.

A reasonably clear conception of the mortgage foreclosure situation
can be gleaned from Chart II, on page 82, which was taken from the Fed-
eral Home Loan Bank Review for August, 1938, an official publication.
The curve which indicates the trend of foreclosures between 1926 and
1933 is a clear index of the situation of the real-estate market. This is par-
ticularly striking when we take into account the fact that there was little
construction going on between 1929 and 1933, thus creating a shortage of
housing. There is also to be considered the fact that rentals decreased
only slightly during the same period of time.

The drop in all construction enterprises, the decrease in industrial pro-
duction, with its consequent unemployment, the fall in commodity and
security prices, and the mounting number of real-estate foreclosures,
which reached an average of about 1,000 a day by 1933, were the critical
factors which brought the government into the housing business. Appeals
for help against foreclosures came into the national capital by the tens
of thousands, and Congressmen were finally made aware of the need for
action. At first, an effort was made through the Reconstruction Finance
Corporation to save the banks and lending institutions from failure, or
to rehabilitate those which had already failed. Later, it was found neces-
sary to create the Federal Home Loan Bank System, with a capital of
$125,000,000. It was soon obvious that this amount was insufficient to
meet the needs of distressed homeowners, as well as those of the banks
which had made loans.

The Home Owners' Loan Corporation was the next venture into
housing of the federal government. This corporation undertook to re-
finance the loans of distressed homeowners to the amount of 80 per cent
of the value of the property, at 5 per cent interest and repayable over a
period of 1 5 years. The total amount made available for this purpose was
at first $2,000,000,000, but was later raised to $4,750,000,000. Of this
amount, $3,093,459,271 was actually used to refinance mortgages up to
June 12, 1936, when operations under this appropriation were concluded.

The Federal Home Loan Bank Board, through its directors, acted as
the Board of Directors of the Home Owners' Loan Corporation. In
addition to the function performed by the latter organization, it was
essential to bring savings accounts into some condition of safety, so as
to increase the flow of thrift money into the real estate market and other
enterprises. This led to the creation of means for safeguarding small de-

84 MONEY

posits and encouraging thrift through federal control of the institution's
resources for investment in housing. Up to June 30, 1937, 637 new
federal associations had been organized and 639 other local thrift or-
ganizations had been converted from state and federal institutions. It
was soon discovered, however, that control under federal regulation
alone would not produce the desired results. Regulation was not enough,
and, in 1934, the United States Congress finally created the Federal Sav-
ings and Loan Insurance Corporation, which created great confidence
through its insurance of deposits not in excess of $5,000. Through this
new device of protecting bank deposits and investments the savings of
a million and a half persons in 1,756 institutions were affected up to
June 30, 1937. It is interesting to note that, despite this very important
step in the direction of encouraging deposits and investment, only 250,-
ooo dwellings were built in the United States during 1936. The actual
need for absorbing the housing shortage created by the depression was
between 1,500,000 and 1,750,000 dwellings, exclusive of replacements.

The question that naturally arises is why, with money available through
the various banks, with ample protection for the small investor and with
the federal government having absorbed a considerable share of the
mortgages threatened with foreclosure, was there not a revival of con-
struction? The answer to this question is to be found, in large part, in
two fundamental difficulties. First, the market in housing of a higher
price had been oversupplied during the boom period preceding the
depression, and there was little opportunity for further investment in
this type of dwelling. Second, although there was a great need for ad-
ditional low-cost housing, the margin between the cost of money and
the profit that could be derived from housing as an investment, after
all other charges were met, was too small to warrant a rapid recovery
of the building industry insofar as housing was concerned. At the same
time, the building enterprises, upon which the federal government ven-
tured through its various departments, particularly through the Public
Works Administration, led some investors to the unjustified belief that
these enterprises would reach proportions which would constitute a
formidable source of competition with private investment. Unjustified
though this assumption was, it nevertheless seriously affected investment.

The following are offered as the main causes of the lack of private
investment in housing:

1. The interest rates at which money is obtainable from both private
and public sources are too high to encourage building for the families
affording the largest housing market in the United States.

2. The upper brackets of home purchasers find a saturated market

MONEY 85

and comparatively low prices, as compared with the cost of construction
and building costs, since recovery started on its upturn.

3. Banks and insurance companies have not yet unloaded all of the
bad investments they made during boom times, and there is no way
of unloading without writing off more than it would be safe to do in
a short period of four or five years, which is the length of the present
trend toward recovery.

4. Incomes have not yet become sufficiently certain and steady, or
normal, to encourage investment in small homes.

5. A considerable number of workers, who, under normal conditions,
would have become homeowners, have in the last nine years dropped
out of the market, either because they have become dependent upon
government relief or because they have become unemployable due to
age, technical changes in their trades, or other conditions.

6. The hazards which characterized the real-estate business after the
boom have created a psychology regarding investment in real estate
which will require a much longer period of time to be forgotten than
has elapsed since the last experience of that kind.

In my estimation, the efforts which the government is making to en-
courage housing, while certainly of great value, are still insufficient to
accomplish the most important result— namely, to reduce the cost of
housing by creating legal, financial, and technical conditions capable of
bringing about economic construction of a decent standard within the
reach of a larger number of people. To achieve this end we must have
a lower interest rate, lower taxes, lower building costs, and more rational
building regulations. We must also develop ownership and investment
insurance at a cost sufficient to meet the hazards involved and yet low
enough to keep the cost of financing within the reach of every investor.

Earning Capacity and the
Housing Market

CHAPTER IV
EARNING CAPACITY AND THE HOUSING MARKET

It is common belief among students of housing that, essentially, the
problem depends for its solution upon the establishing of a stable rela-
tion between incomes and housing costs. How to bring these two fac-
tors into harmony is still a matter of controversy. Dr. Edith Elmer
Wood, one of the outstanding figures in the movement for improving
housing conditions, presents a point of view which is shared by many.
While admitting in the first sentence of her book Recent Trends in
American Housing^ that "the crux of the housing problem is economic,"
she clearly rejects as impractical any adjustment of the wage scale to
meet housing costs. Two paragraphs in her introduction are evidence
of this point of view:

No such simple remedy as raising wages will solve the problem. If the group
involved were a small one, it might answer. But a general increase in wages for
unskilled and semi-skilled labor would add to the general cost of production
and, therefore, to the cost of living, which would force up salaries and the
wages of skilled labor. The cost of the home would increase in the same pro-
portion, and we should be just where we were before, on a higher price level.
It is not the absolute figures that are important, but the ration between the
family income and the cost of a home.

It is easier in practice to lessen the cost of housing than it is to change the
distribution of income in favor of the lower groups. It disturbs the existing
order of things much less.

I am quite in agreement with Dr. Wood that a change in the wage
scale would disturb the existing order more than subsidies and the
other varieties of reforms. The difficulty with this line of argument
is that it separates housing as the only problem with which we are con-
cerned from the general condition of the underpaid workers who must
face not only rent bills, but bills for food, clothing, the doctor and
hospital, and for the education of their children, insurance obligations
against old age, sickness and burial insurance, and a host of other obliga-
tions which stand in a similar relation to income as rent. It would there-
fore seem logical under this kind of status quo social reasoning that
the responsibilities of the lower income groups, of whom there are at

1 Wood, Edith Elmer, Recent Trends in American Housing, The Macmillan Company, New
York, 1931, pp. 1-2.

89

90 EARNING CAPACITY AND THE HOUSING MARKET

least a third of the American families, should be assumed by the state,
and that subsidies or other devices be evolved to meet the difference be-
tween decent living and the ability of the wage earners to pay for
these necessities. Are we willing to assume this burden, and is it com-
patible with our democratic outlook and philosophy that one-third of
our people should become in part public charges, if they are to live up
to even a minimum standard of decency?

The whole theory seems to be a negation of the trends of modern
times in the direction of wage increases in the interest of better living
conditions for the workers. As we shall see in the course of this discus-
sion, it is not wages alone that make housing inaccessible to the lower-
income families but a host of other economic factors representing profits
and services which have grown out of our complex financial structure,
in which labor plays a comparatively small part.

Dr. Coleman Woodbury, in an article on "Integrating Private and
Public Enterprise"2 suggests the following guide or principle for public
policy:

Public enterprise should be limited to developments to house those families
whose normal incomes do not enable them to afford the soundly constructed
product of private building enterprise, meeting modern minimum standards,
produced in substantial volume at prevailing wages, in localities in question.

While on the whole no one can argue that subsidies and public enter-
prise should be dispensed with, I seriously doubt that this guide would
lead to any material changes in our housing conditions, since it would
involve such vast expenditures as to make the public investment imprac-
tical, except for a very few families fortunate enough to reap the bene-
fit of the fragmentary efforts of government housing aid. But even as-
suming that the government would be in a position to meet all of the
present demands for better housing for those who can not meet the
cost, it seems to me that we would be creating a separate class of citizenry
who would become "housing wards" of the state. Such a situation is
wrought with political, economic, and social dangers which I dare not
contemplate.

Among those working towards improvement in housing accommoda-
tions there are sincere people who believe that the present structure
of the building industry and its financing methods could be doctored
up to bring about a new era in housing enterprise and a rise in stand-
ards. Among those we find people who believe that even the slums
could be rehabilitated by the master hand of business organization. Mr.

2 Woodbury, Coleman, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science. March, 1937, p. 171.

EARNING CAPACITY AND THE HOUSING MARKET 91

Arthur Holden has been the chief exponent of this movement, which
contemplates the gradual reconstruction of slum blocks by a pooling
of resources and real estate holdings in slum areas. The more radical
group believe that housing is merely a small fraction of the larger
problem of decent living, and that the present profit system must be
radically altered or completely abolished in order to bring within the
reach of the masses the kind of homes that modern civilization warrants.

In this connection we should not overlook the technicians who for
years have been working upon the problems of mass production, sim-
plification of production processes, reduction of essential requirements
to the lowest minimum, and thus reducing costs to a point where every
family would be able to secure a home.

There is, of course, no single scheme that would bring the desired
results within a time that would benefit the present or the next genera-
tion of the underhoused. The problem presents too many phases and
reaches too far into the social structure of our times to be solved by
doctrinaire methods.

If we accept the assertion that housing is essentially an economic
problem we must seek a solution in economic terms. As a commodity,
housing is subject to most, if not all, of the laws of the business world
and all of the conditions which control supply and demand in other
business enterprises. The first consideration, therefore, is the power of
consumption which business enterprise can depend upon should it be
disposed to undertake the construction of minimum-standard, minimum-
rent dwellings.

Let us see what the purchasing power of the families in the United
States is and deduct from this the housing market which private enter-
prise can depend upon. Before we do this we might consider some of
the peculiarities of housing production in its relation to its character as
a commodity.

1 . Housing is a product that remains stationary and does not have the
mobility possessed by other commodities to seek the market. This in-
volves either a highly stable community without the risk of serious
changes in the character of the environment or economic conditions
which would remain stationary over long periods of time.8

2. While housing from the point of view of rising standards may be-
come increasingly obsolescent, its life as shelter can be prolonged for an
indefinite period of time. It can always be adjusted to meet emergency
needs, and there are always families who are forced to accept whatever
they can secure within their means.

3. Most marketable products are purchasable in the market, are paid

3 See Perry, Clarence Arthur, Housing for the Machine Age, Russell Sage Foundation,
New York, 1939, p. 15.

92 EARNING CAPACITY AND THE HOUSING MARKET

for within a comparatively short time, and are discarded when they
reach obsolescence. The renting of homes, on the other hand, is on a
contract basis between the owners and the tenant. The sale of a home
is seldom a cash transaction. The long-term installment method is used,
and the period of payment extends over a twenty- or thirty-year period.

4. Production of housing is determined by a great variety of changing
conditions which are more closely related to the ability to derive a
paying rental than upon an existing shortage. In other words, the motiva-
tion of the construction industry and financing organizations is the
production of the type of dwelling which is most profitable and not
the one that is most in demand. The most profitable housing in the
United States, when rented, is the type that will command the highest
rent for the same amount of space as must be afforded for low-rental
housing. In fact the hope for high rents has, in many instances, led to
the overbuilding of luxury housing, when the demand was for low-
rental accommodations. This has resulted in an oversupply of high-rental
dwellings and an undersupply of low-rental housing.

5. Low-rental housing, while generally in demand, yields a lower
return on the investment under normal economic conditions and is a
serious risk in times of unemployment.

6. In most industries the relation between the supply and demand is
very close as to the time element. In the case of housing, the investment
in housing brought into the market during periods of prosperity must
be liquidated over long periods of time, during which depressions and
a lowering of the market must be accounted for. Thus while the original
investment may hold the promise of profit, the final result may prove
otherwise.

7. Standards of construction lasting only half a decade may become
frozen into buildings from one to two generations. Obsolescence in many
respects may overtake a building from six to ten times in the course of
its life, both on account of changing methods of construction and be-
cause of changing standards of comfort and convenience.

8. Methods of financing are constantly changing, and the advantage of
one period in which some buildings are constructed may be brought
into competition with buildings of another period when conditions of
construction are less advantageous. What is true of financing is true of
the cost of materials and labor. It may not be out of place here to call at-
tention to the fact that during periods when the labor and material costs
might be low, and money comparatively easy of access at a low rate
of interest, the financial outlook of the country would be such as to
make investment slow to take up the slack of the housing shortage. Thus

Photograph by Samuel H. Gottscho.
HILLSIDE HOUSING, BOROUGH OF THE BRONX, NEW YORK.

EARNING CAPACITY AND THE HOUSING MARKET 95

building always booms when prosperity is in our midst, while rents
must be fixed to meet the resources of the people at all times.

I have pointed out these conditions because in the end they are funda-
mental in controlling the supply of housing and in fixing rents. Housing
costs, as can be seen from the above, can not be calculated in relation
to rent in the simple manner in which the price of other commodities
can be priced. There is a time element involved, and with that time ele-
ment go all the changes which take place in the life of the building.

Incomes. Disregarding the original cost of a single dwelling with all of
the additional investment contingent upon ownership, the housing mar-
ket can count only upon rents or purchase price on the basis of income.
The distribution of the incomes of American families will therefore
determine the revenue that can reasonably be expected from housing.

There are a great many estimates of the income distribution among
American families. Many of them have been based upon limited num-
bers of families in specific localities, while others have been gathered by
official bodies from a great variety of sources and with very clear under-
standing of the difficulties involved in gathering such data.

In view of the rather detailed information which is necessary to gain
a clear conception of the meaning of income and the sources from which
such incomes are derived, I shall analyze at first a rather well-conceived
tabulation of incomes which was presented before the United States
Senate Committee in June 1935, at the time of the hearings on the
Wagner Housing Bill. This bill was enacted into a law which created
the United States Housing Authority. The table, prepared by Mr.
Milton Lowenthal, combines the data gathered and reported by the 1934
Monthly Labor Review, which recorded income in 75 per cent of all in-
dustries, the balance being calculated by assuming that the ratio of em-
ployees and wages, using 1929 as a base, is the same as in the industries'
record. The number of families was derived by taking account of the rate
of increase that took place between 1920 and 1930. The 1929 incomes
were adjusted to the 1934 dollar. While this table presents a rather cir-
cuitous way of arriving at the results, it does not seem to deviate in any
substantial degree from the many other estimates of income distribution,
of which we have had many and some of which we shall consider in
this discussion.

This table in its detailed analysis of income groups, which are segre-
gated into less general groups than is usual in the consideration of in-
comes, presents a number of interesting and valuable facts regarding the
housing market. If we assume that 20 per cent of the family income is a
normal expenditure for rent, we discover that 1,600,000 families are

96

EARNING CAPACITY AND THE HOUSING MARKET

INCOME PER FAMILY (NON-FARM POPULATION), 1929, ADJUSTED TO THE 1929 PURCHASING VALUE OF
THE DOLLAR, AS COMPARED TO THE 1934 PURCHASING VALUE

Income per
Year

Number of Families (in thousands)

Per
Cent of
Total
Fami-
lies

Cumu-
lative
Per-
cent-
age

With I
Worker

Per

Cent

With 2

Workers

Per

Cent

With 3
Workers

Per
Cent

With 4
Workers

Per
Cent

Total

Unemployed . .

600

I.OOO

927

927
998
808
2,328
691
2,217
1,696
i ,284
1,047
352
839
424
19
882
686
173
744
388
140

201

16

267
64

339
133
58
9i
136
156
119
28
77
25

2

44

8

14

12
139

2.560
4.280
3-960
3-960
4.270
3.440
9-950
2-945
9-46S
7.220

5-465
4.470
1.500

3-575
1.815
.081
3-770
•930
•737
3.180
1. 660
•595
•855
.068
1.128
.274
1.440

.565
.248
.388
•578
.665
.508
.119
.328
.107
.008
.196

•034
.060

.051
•592

2.560
6.840

10.800
14.769
19.030

22 . 470
32.42O

35-365
44.830
52.O5O

57-515
61.985

63.485
67.060
68.875
68.956
72.726
75.656
76.393

79-573
81.233
81.828
82.683
82.781
83-879
84-153
8S.593
86.158
86.406
86.794
87.372
88.037
88.545
88.664
88.992
89.099
89.107
89-303
89-337
89.397
89.448
90.040

Unsupported . .

$670-$745....
$746-$820
$821-2895....
$8o6-$97o
$971-$!, 040..
$i ,041-$!. i 15
$i , ii6-$i ,190
$1,191-$! ,265
$1.266-$!, 340
$1,341-$!, 415
$i ,416-$! ,490
$1.491-$!, 565
$1,566-$! ,640
$1.641-$!, 715
$1,716-$!, 790
$1,791-$!, 865
$i,866-$ I .940
$!,94i-$2,oi5

$2,Ol6-$2,O9O
$2.09I-$2,l6o
$2,l6l-$2,235
$2,236-$2.3IO

$2,3ii-$2.385
$2,386-$2,46o
$2.46i-$2,535
$2,6io-$2,685
$2,686-$2.76o
$2,76i-$2,835
$2,836-$2,905
$2,9o6-$2,98o
$3.055-$3.I30
$3,i3i-$3,205
$3,2o6-$3,28o
$3,28i-$3.355
#3.356-$3.430
$3,43i-$3,505
$3,5o6-$3.58o
$3,58i-$3,655
$3,656-$3,730
Over $•? ,7io. .

927
927
998

808
2.328

37S
1.901
1.696

944
772
244
46
188
19
65
106

78
370

S3
83
75

100
100
IOO
IOO
IOO

54
86

IOO

73
74
69
S#
45

IOO

7X
IS
45
So
H
59
37^

316
316

46
H

340

275

27
26

108

3i

793
128

94K
30

108

25

648
580

73K
85

116

13

S3

6

95

55

321

263

43
68

53

7

72

18

57

4i

83
16

4i

IOO

43

21^

22!

83

46

17

64
6

22

37

IOO

iK

i6#
64

198
III

58X
83K

135

40

21

36

91

IOO

26
127

18
28

19

82

IS

IOO

110

81

29

5

18
4

96

81

22

28

55

72

25

IOO

2

IOO

44

IOO

8

IOO

14

IOO

12

77

IOO

55

62

45

Total

2QI ,OQ

90.040
oo.ooo

Entrepreneurs (assumed earnings over $1,700)
Total

2.331

9.960

23 .430

oo.ooo

EARNING CAPACITY AND THE HOUSING MARKET 97

receiving incomes so meager that, if they are to subsist, payment of rent
can not be included in the budget. This represents more than one-four-
teenth of all of the 23,000,000 non-farm families in the United States.

Assuming an income ranging from $670 to $1,040 per year, as indi-
cated in the above classification of incomes table, we find that 25.58
per cent of American non-farm families belong in this group. Leav-
ing out of consideration the factor of family size and the diversified
needs for accommodations incident to various family types, the maxi-
mum rent payable by 25.58 per cent of the families would be $16.33
per month. This constitutes less than one-third of the total number of
families with incomes below $1,040 per annum. To put it another way,
1,600,000 families, according to the above table, are clearly to be classed
as public charges insofar as housing is concerned. An additional 3,660,-
ooo families could only pay from $i2.85to$i6.i6a month in rent, while
2,328,000 families could pay from $16.26 to $17.33 a month in rent.
In all cases, we assume that only one-fifth of the income is to be devoted
to rent. It must be kept in mind, however, that the lower the income,
the greater are the inroads made by rent into the family budget. A family
with an income of only $670 per year would have to devote $134 per
year to rent, leaving a balance of $536, or $44.66 per month, to cover
the cost of food, gas, fuel, light, clothing, medical care, insurance, edu-
cation, recreation, transportation to and from work, and in most cases
dues to various societies whether they be fraternal orders, burial societies,
unions, or churches, and so forth. On the other hand, a family with an
income of $ i ,040 per annum, although paying a higher rent in propor-
tion to the income, would still have nearly $253 month more to spend
on other family needs.

The important fact is that 1,600,000 families in this country are with-
out the means of paying rent and that 5,988,000 families can pay only
$17.33 or less in rent. These families are the poorest-housed group in
this country, and it is here that the main problem exists. I venture to
say, however, that the task of rehousing these families is far beyond the
government's capacity to meet, even if the federal, state and local gov-
ernments were to combine their financial forces. To be sure, the total
burden of housing these families would not all fall upon the government,
as some rent could be paid by these families, but under government
standards of construction the investment for both paying and non-
paying families would amount to about forty billion dollars, or nearly
half the total value of residential property in the United States.

I have used Mr. Lowenthal's tables because of their more detailed
classification of incomes. Turning to the Brookings Institution publi-

98

EARNING CAPACITY AND THE HOUSING MARKET

cation America's Capacity to Consume, prepared by Leven, Moulton,
and Warburton, we find, on page 227, table 37 giving a more elaborate
classification of families and a slightly different classification of family
incomes. These incomes relate to 1929, when conditions were more
favorable so far as wages are concerned. But although wages were un-
doubtedly higher, rents were also higher.

DISTRIBUTION OF FAMILIES AND SINGLE INDIVIDUALS AND OF AGGREGATE INCOME RECEIVED, BY INCOME

LEVEL, 1935-36

Income Level

Families and Single Individuals

Aggregate Income

Number

Per
Cent at
Each
Level

Cumu-
lative
Per
Cent

Amount
(in thou-
sands)

Per

Cent at
Each
Level

Cumu-
lative
Per
Cent

Under $250

2.123,534

4.587.377
5,771.960
5.876,078
4,990.995

3.743.428
2,889,904
2.296,022

I.704.53S
1,254,076

I.47S.474
851.919
502.159
286,053
178.138

380,266
215,642
152,682

67.923
39.825

25.583
17-959
8,340
13 .041
4.144

916
240
87

5.38
11.63

14-63
14.90
12.65

9-49
7-32
5-82
4-32
3.18

3-74
2.16
1.27
0.72
0-45

0.96
0-55
0-39
0.17

O.IO

0.06
0.05

O.O2
O.O3
O.OI

*
*
*

5.38
17.01
31.64
46.54
59-19

68.68
76.00
81.82
86.14
89.32

93-o6
95.22
96.49
97.21
97-66

98.62
99.17
99-56
99-73
99-83

99.89

99-94
99.96

99-99

100. OO

$ 294,138
1,767,363

3.615.653
5,129,506

5.S89.IH

5,109,112
4,660,793
4,214,203
3 ,602,861
2,968,932

4.004.774

2.735.487
1,863.384
I ,202,826
841.766

2,244,406
1,847,820
1,746.925

I.I74.574
889,114

720,268
641 ,272
390.311

908.485
539.006

264,498
134,803
157.237

0.50
2.98
6.10
8.65
9.42

8.62

7-87
7.11
6.08
S-oi

6.76

4.62

3-H
2.03
1.42

3-79
3.12

2-95
1.98
1.50

1.22
1. 08

0.66

i-53
0.91

0-45
0.23
0.27

0.50
3.48
9-58
18.23
27-65

36.27
44.14
51-25
57-33
62.34

69.10

73-72
76.86
78.89
80.31

84.10
87.22
90.17
92-15
93.65

94.87

95-95
96.61
98.14
99.05

99-50
99-73

IOO.OO

$25o-$5oo

$500^750

#750-$! .000

#i ,ooo-$i ,250

$i ,250-$! ,500

$i ,500-$! ,750

$i ,750-^2,000

$2 , ooo-$2 ,250

$2 . 25O-$2 , 5OO

$2,5oo-$3 ,000

$3 ,ooo-$3 ,500

$3 , 5oo-$4 , ooo

$4,ooo-$4,5oo

$4,5oo-$5 ,000

$5,ooo-$7,5oo

$7, 500-$ i 0,000

$io,ooo-$i5 ,000

$15 ,ooo-$2o,ooo

$2O,ooo-$25,ooo

$25, ooo-$3 0,000

$30 , ooo-$4o , ooo

$40 , ooo-$5o , ooo

$5o,ooo-$ioo,ooo

$ 1 00,000-^250, ooo.

$25o,ooo-$5oo,ooo

$500,000-$! ,000,000

$i ,000,000 and over

All levels

39,458.300

100.00

$59.258.628

IOO.OO

*Less than 0.005 Per cent-

EARNING CAPACITY AND THE HOUSING MARKET 99

Taking the groups with income under $1,500 per year, we find that
7,484,000 non-farm families of two or more persons came within this in-
come group. These figures are almost exactly the same as the figures
found in the table by Mr. Lowenthal, if we make allowances for the
cost of living index, which was 170.8 for 1929 as compared with 1 36.4 in
1934. It is easy to realize that while wages may have differed in the two
periods, the higher wage was absorbed by the cost-of-living differential
of the low periods under consideration.

The problem of providing housing accommodations affects not less
than a third of the population of the United States whose incomes do not
make possible payment of a business basis return on housing invest-
ment under the present system of organization of the building industry.
The solution of the housing problem for this sector of our population
must, therefore, be found in forms of promotion and control of the
building industry and a land economy which have so far not been de-
veloped.

We have no adequate figures which would show the net incomes from
rents or imputed incomes from owned non-farm homes. In a table
contained in the Brookings Institution study mentioned above, the total
income from rents is given as $2,825,000,000 and imputed incomes
from home ownership of a non-farm character as $1,900,000,000. The
combined amount is $4,725,000,000, which, if calculated in terms of
a net 5 per cent on the investment or valuation, would make the total
value of all non-farm homes around $95,500,000,000, or a little less than
one-fifth of the national wealth. I am emphasizing this aspect of the
subject because any steps that might be taken in the direction of im-
proving housing conditions, particularly for the lower-income groups,
would have to face the problem of dealing with the largest single in-
vestment in this country. This investment, as was pointed out elsewhere,
involves not only the individual owners of property but the whole eco-
nomic structure of the country. In stating the alleged investment repre-
sented by the dwellings of this country, I do not mean to assume that
the actual value from the point of view of use can be found in these
properties. Indeed, there is no question that much of this investment
should be liquidated at its real value, which in many cases would replace
mistaken hopes and misguided business shrewdness.

Let us turn now to a recent report issued by the Bureau of Foreign and
Domestic Relations of the United States Department of Labor. This
report, entitled Financial Survey of Urban Housing, is the best cross-
section study of rents and property values we have so far made in this

100 EARNING CAPACITY AND THE HOUSING MARKET

country. Some objections have been raised as to the accuracy of this
study, but a check of the various results would seem to indicate that,
while undoubtedly some errors might have crept into the count, in its
essential results it may be taken as the most accurate and comprehensive
in the territory covered and the most revealing study yet made in this
country.

This investigation reveals the astonishing fact that the traditional one-
fifth of the income for rent does not prevail except in eleven cities, where
the rentals constitute from 14.7 per cent as in the case of Wichita Falls,
Kansas, up to 2 1 per cent, as in Lansing, Michigan. One is prompted to
ask a variety of questions regarding these low rents, such as the method
of selecting the dwellings investigated in these communities, the pre-
ponderance of slums, the severe effects of the depression, the movement
of population, the seasonal presence of people in the community, and
their departure for other parts during periods of unemployment, and so
on. Unfortunately, the figures are permitted to stand without any analy-
sis of local conditions. Here and there a suggestion may be derived from
such a statement as the following:

"Among tenants, expenditures for rent required an average of about 25 per
cent of the family income in most cities. Families with higher than the average
income required smaller proportions for rent, while families with less than aver-
age income generally spent a substantially larger share for housing."

It would have been of the greatest value to students of housing if the
study had included a compilation of facts, available on the schedules,
which would have brought rents and incomes in closer correlation. As
the facts stand, however, they prove clearly the contention of students
of long experience that rentals go up in proportion as the incomes go
down. The figures also show that, despite the low average rents in eleven
cities, the total average for 1933 was 24.2 per cent, with the highest pro-
portion of rental to income in Trenton, New Jersey, where it was
found to be 30.3 per cent. In calling attention to these rental rates I am
particularly eager to emphasize the importance of recognizing the local
variants and of approaching the subject from the local rather than the
general point of view.

Another defect of the investigation is the fact that the tables in the
introductory section of the Financial Survey of Urban Housing fail to
reveal the general classification of incomes in their relation to the assumed
rental in owner-occupied homes. We have the statement of David L.
Wickers, director of the survey, that: "The value of owner-occupied
homes averaged from two to three times the family income in most

EARNING CAPACITY AND THE HOUSING MARKET 101

cities. The total incomes of the families occupying their own homes
averaged nearly one-third larger than for the tenants in the same city."

These assertions, if we understand correctly, mean that those who
owned their homes carried a much heavier burden of financial obligation
toward their homes, on the average, than families occupying rental
dwellings. This being the case, it would seem that ownership of homes
imposes financial costs upon occupants that are much greater than those
often met by renters. It would have been of the greatest value to the
study if a more detailed study of incomes in relation to the value of the
owner-occupied homes had been made. Mr. Coleman Woodbury has
raised the question as to the possibility which federal investigations pres-
ent for error in income returns because of income tax considerations.
However, in view of the fact that the investigation revealed a constantly
increasing rental rate in relation to incomes for the lower income groups
and a decreasing rate for the higher income families it would seem that
the contention of Mr. Woodbury is without material foundation.

Should we accept the correctness of the figures showing the high pro-
portion of assumed rent to income of home owners, it would seem ob-
vious that home ownership is on the whole less desirable financially than
renting. Whether this is due to the manner in which the financing of
owner-occupied homes is carried on in this country, or whether it is
due to the tendency to overreach oneself in the purchase of a home
under unstable conditions of income, I am not prepared to say. It would
seem, however, that, in view of the much discussed and presumably
desirable social objective of "making every citizen a homeowner," much
remains to be learned from the experience of the past as to desirability
of this ideal state.

In connection with the ownership of homes it need not be assumed
that the purchaser overreaches himself in actual accommodations, but
that the whole mechanism of calculating costs is so badly encumbered by
parasitic and non-creative charges that the ultimate owner becomes pos-
sessed of a dwelling which represents only in part the actual cost, the
rest having been dissipated in a great variety of charges which have no
relation to the cost of production. Housing America, written by the
editors of Fortune in 1932, contains a significant chapter entitled "How
Much Housing for a Dollar?"

In this "chapter are discussed the many charges which are added on
to the cost of a home built by the speculative builder. The details cited in
the case of a house priced at $10,000 show that a saving of 22 per cent, or
$2,200, could have been effected had the non-creative cost involved in the
transaction been eliminated. This would have meant that the ultimate
consumer of the house, instead of paying $10,000, would have paid

102 EARNING CAPACITY AND THE HOUSING MARKET

only $7,800 for the same house. This means that taxes, interest, rate of
amortization, and resale in case of necessity, would have been less burden-
some to the owner for the same accommodations. It may be added
that the interest rate, as indicated in the same chapter, increases as the
investment in the home is lower. The cheaper the home, the more the ex-
cess cost above the actual building cost.4

What is true of the speculative construction of single-family dwellings
is to a large extent true of rented buildings, whether of the single- or
multiple-family types. When second mortgages are required in the financ-
ing of building transactions, the interest rates often go as high as 8 or 9
per cent.

Let us examine the housing market at the present time from a different
angle. In consideration of the market, the present conditions of costs,
charges, methods of construction, interest rates, taxes, amortization rates,
and all the other factors which determine the rental of a home, require
a gross return per annum of between 10 and 12 per cent. This return
must include all of the charges which go to produce a house from com-
missions to the agents, to the profit on land development, and such specu-
lative profits as can be attached to the costs. According to the 1930
Census figures compiled by the Federal Housing Administration, there
are in the United States 9,805,847 families which either pay less than $30
a month rent or own homes which are valued below $3,000.

The figures can be distributed as follows:

Rents

Number Non-Farm
Families

Under #10
0io to $14
$15 to $ig
$20 to $29

I.S63.9S2
I.330-927
1.302.387
2,545,208

Total

6.74.2.474.

As the total number of non-farm rented homes is 12,351,549, this
number of dwellings renting at less than $30 per month represents 54.6
per cent of the total rented dwellings in the United States. This is the
market for low-cost housing we need to deal with, as it is assumed
that families paying above that amount would under normal conditions
be able to find accommodations that do not belong in the problem class.
Neither is there any very great market for the rental or sale of homes

* See Housing America, by the editors of Fortune, New York, Harcourt, Brace and Com-
pany, 1932, pp. 67-69.

EARNING CAPACITY AND THE HOUSING MARKET 103

among those who already have homes, and certainly there is little possi-
bility that the people now owning homes valued at less than $3,000
would constitute any large portion of possible rental or purchase pros-
pects. Of the families owning homes valued at less than $3,000, there
were 3,063,373, or 29.2 per cent of the total of 10,503,386 non-farm
families who owned their own homes.

Assuming, as we have already said, that the home-owning families
would not be prospects for new houses, except in rare instances, we
have therefore to contend with the group of renters who could have some
choice in the matter of housing. Dr. Edith Elmer Wood has stated re-
peatedly, and most authorities on the subject of housing would agree,
that families paying less than $20 a month have no choice and could not
undertake or should not undertake the purchase of a home. Nor could a
home be built and the land paid for in most of our non-farm areas which
would cost less than $2,000 and furnish any of the modern amenities
or reasonably decent accommodations for normal families. The market
for the lower-income families is confined, therefore, to the 2,545,208
families which pay a rental of from $20 to $30 per month or 37.6 per
cent of the families paying a rent of less than $30 per month.

Another way of presenting the potentialities of the housing market,
from the point of view of the lower-income families, is to consider not
the whole population, but the renting population. In the release already
mentioned and which was issued on June 26, 1935, by the Bureau of
Foreign and Domestic Relations of the Department of Commerce, we
find the following interesting table, which is part of the report Financial
Survey of Urban Housing:

This table relates to the special study carried on by this Bureau into
the financial conditions of urban housing and extended over 61 cities
in every part of the United States. This study did not include cities of
over a million, with the exception of Cleveland, and did include five cities
of less than 25,000 population. Thus this may be a fair sampling of the
normal run of urban communities, since the number of properties studied
included some 300,000, or the equivalent of about two-thirds of the total
number of dwellings in the City of Philadelphia.

This table shows that the average proportion of families with an in-
come of less than $500 per year is 30 per cent, while those with an income
of from $500 to $999 was 25 per cent, of the total number of families
for which data was available. This means that at the time of the investiga-
tion 55 per cent of the families were receiving less than a normal sub-
sistence wage or income. If we take the budget of the normal family
which has been developed by various organizations, including the Bureau
of Municipal Research of Philadelphia, we find that, assuming a $20 per

104

EARNING CAPACITY AND THE HOUSING MARKET

month rent, there would be just enough left in the family budget of
$1,000 to keep up the common obligations required for subsistence. But
the vast majority of these families do not receive anywhere near the $999
per year and, indeed, more than half of them receive less than $500 per
year. Can we say, therefore, that there is a market for housing in any
quantity for nearly half of the population and the half that is most in
need of improved living conditions?

PERCENTAGE DISTRIBUTION OF TENANTS' FAMILY INCOME BY INCOME GROUPS AND GEOGRAPHIC AREAS*

Area and number of cities:

Total
Per
Cent

Income Groups — Tenants

Under
$500

$500
to
#999

$1.000

to

£1.499

$1,500
to
}5i.999

$2,000
to
$2,999

$3 ,000
and
Over

61 cities

ICO
ICO
ICO
ICO
ICO
ICO
ICO
100
TOO
ICO

30.8

21. 1

3I-S

29.8

23-4
4O.I

49-7
29.4
30.6
25.8

25.4

27-3
27.6

25-3
27.2
24.5

21.2
24.0
24.5
26.2

18.4
23.0
18.6
18.6

21.2

13-9
12.6

19-5

18.1
20.3

12.4
14.2
11.4

12. I
I4.I

9.8
8.6
13.1
13-3
iS-o

8.6
9-3
7-5
8.9
9-7
7-8
5-4
9-6
8.9
8.8

4-4
5-i
3-4
5-3
4-4
3-9
2-5
4-4
4-6
3-9

New England — 6 cities

Middle Atlantic — 5 cities

East North Central — 7 cities

West North Central — 10 cities
South Atlantic — 10 cities

East South Central — 4 cities

West South Central — 7 cities

Mountain — 8 cities

Pacific — 4 cities

* From Financial Survey of Urban Housing.

The Financial Survey of Urban Housing presents a cross section of
the individual communities. The average value placed upon the prop-
erties as of January i, 1934, was $4,447 per owner-occupied dwelling
and $3,142 for rented dwellings. If this connection of the financial value
of housing is anywhere near the facts and these values represent the
housing-investment capacity of these cities, the outlook is certainly not
very bright insofar as the future housing market is concerned.

Rentals are fixed by incomes and not by the desire for better housing,
although within certain limits each family tries to secure the best ac-
commodations for the rent it can pay. It would be interesting to dis-
cover by a careful study of the building industry to what extent houses
being built at the present time bear any relation in cost— I mean ulti-
mate cost— to the rent-paying resources of the people in need of housing.

On page xvii, table 1 1 of the Financial Survey of Urban Housing, again,
we find some extremely significant figures. An examination of the pro-
portion of rent to income reveals that the average in the dwellings studied
is not one-fifth of the family income but 24.2 per cent, or nearly one-

EARNING CAPACITY AND THE HOUSING MARKET 105

fourth. These figures disprove the usual belief that families pay on the
average 20 per cent of what they earn for rent. A further examination
of the figures shows that in New England, Middle Atlantic, and East
North Central cities the rents, with the sole exception of Kenosha, Wis-
consin, rise in places to as high as 30 per cent of the income.

This may lead some optimists to the assumption that we need not cal-
culate rents for the lower-income families at a rate as low as 20 per cent,
but that a higher rate is actually being paid, and therefore new housing
enterprise might be undertaken on that basis. While this may be true,
the question still remains that many families of low income pay too much
rent and that any effort to improve conditions should not be focused
upon further reducing the family budget by imposing a high rental rate.

In closing this chapter I wish to call attention to the fact that when we
speak of home ownership we are assuming a condition that in most cases
does not exist. We shall call attention to this matter in the section dealing
with financing and costs. But it is not out of place here to point out that
the Financial Survey of Urban Housing revealed that, in 51 cities for
which figures were available 55.3 per cent of the owner-occupied dwell-
ings were mortgaged and that in New England, Middle Atlantic, and
East North Central cities the proportions of mortgaged dwellings were
69.6, 66.9, and 65.3 per cent, respectively. About one-third of the
dwellings in each of these sections were owned free from debt.

Throughout this chapter I have tried to show how limited the market
for low-cost housing is. I have pointed out that wages and incomes, as
they are distributed at the present time, suggest that any advance that
might be made in the production of housing would either have to be de-
vised to meet the needs of families with incomes above $ i ,000 and con-
siderably above that figure, or else a new outlook of the whole structure
of financing, taxing, building, and managing housing will have to be
evolved. To try to solve the housing problem for the more than six
million families of renters paying less than $30 per month within the
present framework of the housing business, is a task that can not be ac-
complished. Subsidies would, of course, solve the problem in part, but
I venture the assertion that, if such a possibility existed and government
action were to be accelerated so as to bring about a major improvement,
the rise in the cost of construction, the rise in the price of materials,
and the taxes required to meet the cost would soon absorb whatever the
government might be prepared to provide by way of subsidies.

The whole answer to the question as to what is the market for low-
cost housing rests on a revision of the whole economic, technical, and
legal structure under which housing is produced and marketed, and no-
where else.

Home Ownership

CHAPTER V
HOME OWNERSHIP

Home ownership is associated in our minds with so many social fixa-
tions and traditional ways of thinking that any sane consideration of the
subject is likely to call forth attacks from all sorts and conditions of men.
The real-estate board, the speculative builder, the investment corpora-
tion, the chamber of commerce, the respectable church warden, the
preacher, the building material trade, and the recovery optimist, all will
raise their voices in a babel of protest that lack of faith in the beneficent
influences of home ownership is heresy, economic heresy, social heresy,
spiritual heresy. Indeed, the recently amended United States Housing
Act is designed to foster and promote through many devices an increase
in home ownership, by making possible the acquisition of a home on a
first payment of i o per cent of the total purchase price or cost of such a
home.

Home ownership would be justified on the following bases:

1 . If income were steady, so that the payments on the home might be
met promptly and the danger of foreclosure practically eliminated.

2. If it could be assumed that there would be no considerable need for a
change in the standard of the home for a period at least as long as it would
take to pay for the building.

3. If obsolescence of the various common uses of the building would
not antedate the payment.

4. If there were no losses in the values of the neighborhood character,
which would make continuance of occupancy undesirable or impossible.

5. If the market could easily absorb the home, in case of removal
to some other community, and if this absorption could take place with-
out serious loss of equity.

6. If the municipal and other tax burdens would not be such as to
add so great a sum to the maintenance cost as to make occupancy im-
possible.

7. If the original investment under particular economic and market
conditions did not entail price deterioration in times of depression,
and if the owner could count on disposal of his property at a reasonable
price at all times.

It is, of course, not intended that all home ownership should be looked

109

1 10 HOME OWNERSHIP

upon as dangerous, or that all the various questions raised could be
answered in any prophetic manner. It is essential, however, that some
rational consideration be given to these questions, even by the various
agencies promoting home ownership, if the tradition of the value of
home ownership is not to be completely destroyed and the market
is to be protected.

The seven bases on which the owning of a home is justified, as here
set forth, were derived from an analysis of past experiences, particularly
the experience of the last ten years, which has brought into relief the situ-
ation regarding home ownership in a manner that has probably never been
experienced in the history of real estate with the same degree of intensity.
We shall now discuss each of these bases in greater detail.

Steady Income. We have no adequate information regarding the em-
ployment of home owners, nor is there any statistical evidence of the
ranges of income among home owners. All we have is the frequency of
home ownership in the cities of the United States, and a considerable
amount of evidence that this ownership is not as certain as might be de-
sired. The most valuable facts that have been gathered regarding home
ownership and incomes have been published by the Bureau of Foreign
and Domestic Commerce of the Department of Commerce under date of
June 26, 1935.

The field covered by this study extended over 61 cities, and included,
as described on page 103, reports on 300,000 dwellings.

I am quoting this table in full so as to give, not alone the classification
of income changes, but also their distribution throughout the various
sections of the country.

This table shows clearly how drastic the decline in incomes was during
a period of four years. The more interesting fact is that this decline was
more rapid in respect to home owners than tenants. This may be due to
the fact that tenants were more foot-loose, and able to leave their com-
munities in search for employment, or perhaps it may be attributed to
the fact that larger incomes suffered a greater decline. The obvious
fact is that steadiness of income is not of necessity characteristic of home-
owning families. While the average decline of incomes in tenant families
was 30 per cent, in the home-owning families the decrease was 35 per
cent. The ranges of these declines, as stated in the above-mentioned re-
lease, from 1929 to 1933, were 17 per cent in Binghamton, New York,
to 55 per cent in Racine, Wisconsin. On the other hand, the decline in
incomes for tenant families was from 15 per cent in Richmond, Virginia,
to 47 per cent in Racine, Wisconsin.

The largest average decline took place in the East North Central sec-

E

X
X

u
Pu

£
C

HOME OWNERSHIP

AVERAGE FAMILY INCOME — HOME OWNERS AND TENANTS

113

Area and Number of Cities

Home Owners

Tenants

Yearly* Aver-
age Income

Decline
from 1929
Per Cent

Yearly* Aver-
age Income

Decline
from 1929
Per Cent

1929

1933

1929

1933

Average — 52 cities

2,269
2,746
2,183
2,251
2,152
2.27S

2,212

2,444
2,142
2,157

,478
,857
,445
,291
,436
,619

,351
i»59i

1,300

1,395

35
32
34
43
33
29

39
35
39
35

,512
,701

,556
,657
,580
,218
,218
,543
1,561
1,648

1,052
1,217
1,079
1,027
1,132
924

783
1,091

1,045
1,142

30
28

3i

38
28
24
36
29
33
3i

New England — 4 cities

Middle Atlantic — 4 cities

East North Central — 6 cities

West North Central — 10 cities

South Atlantic — 9 cities

East South Central — 3 cities

West South Central — 6 cities

Mountain — 6 cities

Pacific — 4 cities

* An arithmetic average of the averages for individual cities has been used to minimize the effect of
variations in size of sample.

tion of the country, where it reached 43 per cent for home-owning fami-
lies, and 38 per cent for tenant families. This is the section which in-
cluded such cities as Cleveland, Indianapolis, Peoria, Lansing, Kenosha
and Racine. In Table IV of the same release we find some additional in-
formation regarding the range of incomes of home owners:

PERCENTAGE DISTRIBUTION or HOME OWNERS' FAMILY INCOME BY INCOME GROUPS AND GEOGRAPHIC

AREAS

Area and Number of Cities

Total
Per

Cent

Income Groups — Home Owners

Under

$500

$500

to
#999

$1,000
to
#1.499

$1,500
to
$1.999

$2,000
to
$2,999

$3,000
and
Over

61 cities

100
100
IOO
100
IOO
IOO
IOO
IOO
IOO
IOO

25.0
18.8
28.2
28.7

21.0
22.3

31-9
22-3
27.2
24.7

21-5
19.2

24-3
22.7
22.4
19.4
19.7

19-3
21.4

21.2

17-7
19.4

18.5
16.8

19-5
16.8

iS-9
16.3
17.1

18.2

14.1

14-7
ii. 8
12.4
IS-S
I3-S
13-7
iS-o
14-3
15-8

12.3
15.0

IO.O

10.8

12.8

14.4
II- 3
14-5
ii. 6
12.4

9-4
12.9
7.2
8.6
8.8

12.6

7-5

12.6

8.4
7-7

New England — 6 cities

Middle Atlantic — 5 cities

East North Central — 7 cities

West North Central — 10 cities

South Atlantic — 10 cities

East South Central — 4 cities

West South Central — 7 cities

Mountain — 8 cities

Pacific — 4 cities

1 14 HOME OWNERSHIP

It is significant that of the home-owning families studied in 61 cities,
25 per cent of the families received an income which was far below the
level of subsistence, while 2 1 per cent of the families received between
$500 and $999 per annum, or what would be considered a low margin
of subsistence.

Now let us see what took place regarding the ownership of these
homes during the period of income decline. The Federal Home Loan
Bank Board revealed the following situation regarding mortgage fore-
closures:

RATIO OF MORTGAGE FORECLOSURES FROM 1926 TO 1937

Year Ratio Year Ratio

1926 loo 1932 389

1927 137 1933 39S

1928 180 1934 370

1929 212 1935 366

1930 235 1936 274

I931 300 1937 207

The year 1926 was taken as the normal year, and the other years cal-
culated from this normal basis. Whether 1926 was the normal year of
foreclosures might be questioned, in view of the situation in Philadel-
phia, where between 1920 and 1926 there was an increase in foreclosures
from 738 to 4,656, or 630 per cent. However, if we accept the figures
of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, the fourfold increase in fore-
closures in 1933 is sufficient evidence of the precarious situation which
home owners must face when our economic system gets out of balance.

We have no accurate figures regarding the total number of foreclo-
sures throughout the country. Estimates for the period of eleven years
between 1926 and 1937, regarding the number of foreclosures, range
from 1,600,000 to 1,700,000. This does not include the number of dwell-
ings which were saved from the disaster of foreclosures by the Home
Owners Loan Corporation. These amount to over a million dwellings,
and may cause the United States Government to become one of the
largest home-owning organizations in the world.

This large number of foreclosed mortgages has a serious bearing upon
the whole economy of many of the families affected. If in Philadelphia,
since 1920, 170,000 houses out of a total of 433,140 residential structures
went through foreclosure proceedings, it is obvious that even in "The
City of Homes," where mass production of housing has been the gen-
eral practice for many years, and where home ownership has prevailed
more commonly than in any other large city, the security in ownership

HOME OWNERSHIP 115

is very low. It almost seems as if the actual foreclosure of the mortgage
would be a relief to the ex-owners, who may now be free to move to
places where they could secure employment, and cease to cheat the family
larder in order to save the equity in the home. This is especially true
during periods of depression, when repairs can not be made, and the
deterioration of the dwellings goes to lower and lower levels, while
mortgage obligations and tax arrears mount.

The figures cited above show a steady decrease in foreclosures since
1933, the peak year. But it may well be asked: "How many of the home
owners have been saved from foreclosure by the Home Owners Loan
Corporation, only to be foreclosed later, and how many holders of mort-
gages are postponing action till such time as the market for resale im-
proves?" It is not a financial secret that many foreclosures resulted in
sales which did not cover the mortgage, and that millions of equities
vanished. An interesting study would be to delve into the subject of
losses sustained by families that started with home ownership, and lost their
homes and the whole or a major part of their equity. So far as I am aware,
no such a study has ever been made. It would tell a tragic story of blasted
hopes, and the breaking up of neighborhoods which once were designed
to furnish Utopian surroundings for families seeking decent living condi-
tions. Perhaps the most outstanding example of such a neighborhood com-
munity is Sunnyside, Long Island. This was conceived under the most
favorable conditions, without any speculative intent, and designed by
far-seeing experts in the fields of site and building plans; and the houses
were sold to solid citizens with incomes averaging about $350 per month.
Nothing could have been more auspicious, more full of promise. Yet,
as a result of the economic crisis, even this ideal community experienced
losses, bitter feeling, and the complete collapse of an ideal setup.1

There is every evidence of an accumulated shortage of housing during
the period following the end of the year 1929. The National Housing
Committee, in its pamphlet The Housing Market, estimates that two
million dwellings were necessary to meet the housing needs of 1930.
It is also asserted that, to keep up with the growth of population and
its housing needs, an additional 485,000 dwellings should have been built
in each subsequent year. Assuming that this could have been accom-
plished, the question as to the kind of dwellings that could be absorbed
by the existing market still remains to be answered. It is alleged by the
National Housing Committee that 80 per cent of the dwellings needed
could not rent or be sold on a basis that would require more than a

1See Lasker, Loula D., "Sunnyside Up and Down," and "Sunnyside Back and Forth,"
in Survey Graphic, July 1936 and August 1936, respectively.

1 16 HOME OWNERSHIP

monthly payment of $30, and in most instances much less. A monthly
payment on a home, whether as rental or payment on a mortgage, as-
sumes an income of not less than $150 per month, or $1,800 per year.
About 72 per cent of urban families do not receive that amount of
annual income. As we have already pointed out, some of the families that
do receive such an income are not always certain that it will continue
during the life of the mortgage.

Taking the census figures for 1930 we find that, of the 22,854,935
families living in non-farm dwellings, 9,805,847, or 49.9 per cent, either
pay less than $30 per month or their dwellings are valued at less than
$3,000. Only 30 per cent of these families own their homes, and 70
per cent are renters. As incomes increase, the frequency of home owner-
ship increases.2

It is obvious that the values of homes, as recorded in the United States
Census, are not reproduction values but are values based either upon
assessments or market value at the time the enumeration was made. When
we propose new dwellings to make up the existing shortage, we must also
keep in mind that, for the amount now being paid in rent, or the amount
which represents the present value of the dwelling, the same accommo-
dations could not be duplicated in new housing.

In considering the housing market from the point of view of the pur-
chaser, it must also be borne in mind that, even if the purchaser were
disposed to secure a new dwelling on the basis of his present income, if
the dwelling comes within the bracket below $30 per month or is the
equivalent of a home now valued at less than $3,000, it would of necessity
be of a less commodious and less desirable type, unless some way is
found to replace the old house with a newer and better building, at the
same or at a lower cost. This is hardly possible under present conditions.

Changing Home Standards. Assuming that a mortgage on a home ex-
tends over a period from twenty-five to thirty years, the question must
be asked: What are the possible changes that may take place in the life
of the family, which would create a hazard in ownership, or disqualify
the home as a suitable abode for the family?

The purchase of a home generally takes place in the middle thirties of
the breadwinner of the family. In all probability, he is near the peak of
his earning capacity, and the home represents an investment on the
basis of normal income. Also, most purchases are made, not during
periods of depression, but during the spells of high prosperity, when
earnings are normal, or above normal, and chances for unemployment

2 See United States Home Market, Housing Statistics and Market Quotas, Federal Housing
Administration, May, 1935.

HOME OWNERSHIP 1 1 7

slight. The standard of the home purchased bears all the earmarks of an
optimistic outlook in a period of optimism and high prices.

Among the wage earners with incomes of less than $1,500 per year,
the period of highest efficiency begins to wane toward the early forties,
and when a worker reaches forty-five his chances for steady and well-
paid employment are diminishing. In the last two years we have had a
very painful demonstration of discrimination against older workers, and
even the daily press has appealed in their interest. The fact remains that
the better the pay during the period of highest efficiency, the greater the
discrimination against those who are trained only in limited spheres of
industry, which require the type of physical exertion that advancing age
can not meet. The payments on the home, nevertheless, continue on the
basis of the highest earning capacity, over a period of a quarter of a cen-
tury or more, and soon there are difficulties in meeting payments, meeting
taxes, and in keeping up the building so that it may retain at least part of
its original value.

The house is generally purchased when children are small and are
easily housed within a certain space and number of rooms. Soon their needs
become inconsistent with the original accommodations, and either an addi-
tion is needed or the little house that was once the dream of the family
becomes cramped. Obsolescence in design and amenities often contributes
to making the home inadequate.

Assuming that the period during which the family needs change is
bridged over, and that the children grow up and leave the home, the
parents are then faced with the problem of meeting the financial outlay
for housing at a time when there is a shrinkage in resources, diminishing
ability to care for the home, and reduced requirements as to space. By
this time the home has deteriorated, so that it needs a good deal of reno-
vation to make it marketable, and the market itself has shifted to a new
type of construction which the old building can hardly meet.

I have in mind a particularly interesting example of this type of shift
in the needs and outlook of a community. About thirty years ago in the
vicinity of Yonkers, New York, an enterprising real-estate organization
bought up a tract of land and undertook to build a very well-planned
neighborhood community. Families with young children were quick
to see the advantages of a good school, ample playgrounds, large yards,
and a general atmosphere of contentment and comfort. During the first
decade the families bent every effort to make the schools as suitable to
their needs as possible, the park and playgrounds were kept up by the
payment of a special tax, and community activities were back of every
improvement that the residents felt would enhance their home life and

1 18 HOME OWNERSHIP

neighborhood relations. After thirty years the schools are no longer used
to full capacity, because the children have grown up and left, the play-
grounds are no longer of any value except for open spaces, and the
families are carrying heavy investments in homes which are too large for
them, while the community is carrying heavy tax burdens for the main-
tenance of improvements no longer in full use. This is not a unique situa-
tion. It is a very common condition, and the only reason why it has not
taken place quite to the same degree in some less costly districts, is the
fact that foreclosures have often shifted the population, so that younger
families followed older ones which had failed to meet the payments on
their homes.

Rate of Obsolescence. Obsolescence is the change in the standard of
the family, owing to improved resources, changes in its standard of living,
change in taste, or the desire for better or more suitable facilities for the
family needs. Often under pressure of salesmanship, or because of a
shortage of housing, a purchase is made which is quite out of keeping with
the needs of the family. In the case of families with higher incomes, the
margin between the minimum requirement is not so narrow as in the
case of the lower-income families, and adjustments can easily be made by
adding a room, or making radical changes in the character of the building.
Working on a small margin, and within limited possibilities of reconstruc-
tion, this is practically impossible without outlays greater than the family
can afford. In the case of rentals, the family finds itself free to respond
to its needs, and may move when the home no longer meets its require-
ments. Under ownership such a situation presents a serious economic
problem, that can only be met by incurring financial losses which the
budget seldom permits.

Changing Neighborhoods. The shift in ownership due to frequent
foreclosures, the lack of care which results from a change in either the
character of the tenancy or the ownership, the constant encroachments
of business and small industries where zoning is inadequate— all these
conspire to accelerate deterioration in realty values and neighborhood
character. Unless a more consistent method of creating permanent neigh-
borhood conditions is resorted to by the builders and developers, and
unless the cities take a hand in making their contribution toward the
adequate protection of the small investor, we have no justification for
encouraging the ownership of low-cost homes, even assuming that all
other conditions are favorable.

Absorption Capacity of the Housing Market. Industrial conditions in
the United States are constantly fluctuating. These fluctuations seriously
affect the incomes and employment of many workers. Where employ-

HOME OWNERSHIP 119

ment depends upon industrial changes, the purchase of a home means in-
vestment, which, unless it can be made liquid within a reasonable time,
ties the owner to his abode and makes removal to another community
impossible except with serious financial risk. In a town where a single
industry predominates, or where the industries are free to make important
changes in their base of operations by moving from one city to another,
few workers can afford to risk home ownership. The experience of the
workers in the cotton and the shoe industries in the New England states,
where removal of entire plants has taken place without regard to the
thousands of workers and home owners who have invested their life's
savings in a place to live, is one of the saddest chapters in the history of
home ownership. Not only is employment lost, but the greater the effect
of industrial migration upon a community, the lower is the value of the
low-cost home in the communtiy.

In the case of strikes or lockouts, where large industries with vast
resources are involved, an industry may pick up its machinery and move
to safer grounds of operation, where labor is less organized and more
willing to accept low wages. In the anthracite coal regions, and in com-
munities where the resources of the soil or subsoil are being exploited,
where there is a shift in production or a cessation of market demand
for the product, home owners are stranded with a valueless investment
on their hands and with no opportunities for employment. In such cases
mobility is the only solution, and mobility is most difficult to face when
even a small equity, ephemeral though it may be, is at stake.

Municipal and Other Taxes. In growing communities the taxes and
tax rates are constantly increasing. These include general taxes, school
taxes, county taxes, and special assessment. These often become so burden-
some that when they are added to interest on investment and amortization
there is little, if any, difference between renting a good home and the
ownership of a modest dwelling.

In my experience in community planning, where I have had occasion
to examine assessment districts for various improvements, I have had occa-
sion to find special assessments ranging from one-half to two-thirds of the
original cost of the house and lot. Indeed, in a number of instances in
California cities, I have found districts so heavily burdened with special
assessments that their totals amounted to more than the actual cost of
the home. Some of these assessments are for improvements intended to as-
sist in solving traffic problems, the location of a park at some distance from
the home, or some other improvement that may or may not help to raise
the value of such a home. In many cases the so-called improvement may
actually lower values. The method of assessment which creates districts

120 HOME OWNERSHIP

of large areas for the purpose of raising funds for some special improve-
ment is particularly vicious, if we consider the small investor who calcu-
lates in pennies when it comes to payment for a home, and never
anticipates new burdens which he can not meet.

There is no expedient way of preventing this type of assessment unless
the community is carefully preplanned and the improvements are made
only when general bond issues can be secured, or unless a pay-as-you-go
method of financing public improvements is followed. Even in this case
taxes are likely to be increased, laying another burden on the small home
owner.

Original Cost and Market Changes. As has already been pointed out,
home purchasing takes place generally in times of prosperity. At such
a time, the cost of labor and materials is high, speculative building is at
its peak, interest rates are high, and liberal profits are expected by the
developers of low-cost housing projects. Indeed, as soon as there is any
activity in the building industry, prices of building materials at once go
up, as if it were intended to slow up the process of business activity. The
result is that these short periods of booming building business accumulate
overcharges entirely out of proportion to the cost of a similar home dur-
ing normal or depression times. The payments for these homes extend
over long periods of time, carrying through two or three depression
periods, with their usual problems of unemployment, low wages, and
poor credit conditions. The small investor therefore makes his purchase
at the high tide of prices. If he has to dispose of his home, he must do so
at the time when prices are low.

Much sentimentality has been developed around the idea of home
ownership. Civic virtue, the sanctity of the family, the spiritual influence
of the old homestead, the lasting value of the family council held around
the fireside, seem to be the exclusive privilege of the home owner. Noth-
ing is said by political orators, preachers, and crooners about the tragedy
of mortgage foreclosures or overdue tax bills. Neither are the renters
given a proper place on the roster of the solid citizenry, despite the fact
that the majority of our people live in rented houses, while two-thirds
of the alleged owners are merely custodians of other people's investments.
The tenacity of the superstitions which have been built up around the
"ideals" of home ownership passes understanding. If home ownership is
to be encouraged among our wage earners, we must first liberate it from
the hazards and tragedies which characterize it today.

This is essentially a problem of bringing into some harmony the chang-
ing employment conditions, advancing age, industrial efficiency and
earning capacity, work migrations, transitions in the character, size and

HOME OWNERSHIP 121

needs of the family, with the cost of ownership. If this can be done, owner-
ship should become desirable. As long, however, as society takes no
responsibility for these changes, and is not concerned with the incidents
and tragedies of workers with uncertain incomes and without economic
security, home ownership should be avoided as a social obligation.

The time may come when provisions will be made to meet all these
contingencies, when cooperative housing will mean flexibility and se-
curity, when unemployment insurance and old-age pensions will be ade-
quate to meet home ownership obligations, and when taxation will be
shifted to the sources where it most logically belongs. When this is
achieved we shall have no concern with the problems of home ownership.
Until that time comes, the agencies which conspire to encourage and
promote home ownership are a menace to the economic structure of the
country. They are leeches sucking the lifeblood of the workers and their
families.

The Law and Housing

CHAPTER VI
THE LAW AND HOUSING

In attempting to discuss housing legislation, I am aware that there
already is much law upon our statute books which not only is unen-
forceable but is in conflict with the very purpose which the law is intended
to achieve. Thus we have laws regulating the standards of tenement con-
struction which, by their very extravagant nature, prevent the construc-
tion of housing needed by those whom the laws are intended to protect.
Again, we find many health and building regulations which, when en-
forced, place an added rental burden upon those who occupy the houses.
I know, and everyone at all familiar with present-day housing knows, that
the law has sunk down in a morass of conflicting factors which make
housing for the lower-income families unattainable and investment in
such housing unremunerative.

The newer outlook points to a housing economy which will harmonize
the requirements of the technique of construction for a decent living
standard with a planned housing economy, through which the conflict
between standards and costs to the consumer will be eliminated to the
full extent consistent with our economic system. The critics will raise
their voices in protests against such a compromise with an outward social
and economic order. To them I will say that I am not averse to any new
and workable system which they can devise and impose upon this coun-
try; but this book is written on the assumption that, even under our
present system, the use of technique, laws and economic organization
capable of improving the housing conditions of the country are within
our reach and could be used to revolutionize our methods of dealing
with this problem to an extent undreamed of even by the Utopians.

In achieving this end, law is of extreme importance. The law I have in
mind, however, is not a set of rules applicable to methods of construc-
tion. Rather is this law a system of controls which is intended to bring
into the business and industry concerned with home building a type of
social symmetry which will bring into harmony social objectives, tech-
nical skills, and economic resources with a view to leveling private
privilege to a point where it would not conflict with suitable housing
standards for the mass of our population. There is no heresy in this point

125

126 THE LAW AND HOUSING

of view, and it has been common practice in this country to strive toward
this end. In the name of the common good, we have deprived whole
industries of the prerogative of what is called freedom of contract. Under
the mistaken hope of making this a temperate nation we destroyed, with-
out compensation, the whole liquor industry; under the pressure of
economic emergencies, we forced the raising of wages and the lowering
of profits. This was achieved, not by a revolution which changed our
fundamental law, but often by reading it in the light of changing con-
ditions and by shifting the accent of constitutional guarantees from
privilege to common welfare.

Within the span of six years, from 1932 to 1938, the history of Ameri-
can legislation in a great variety of fields presents the most enlightening
lesson in the sensitiveness of fundamental law to public opinion. There
has been no amendment to the Constitution and there have been no
radical changes in the established order of fundamental institutions, but
the emphasis has been shifted from property rights to human rights.
Whether the Supreme Court of the United States has gone so far as to
accept the dictum enunciated by Charles Benoist that "against life there
can be no principles," or whether the exigencies of the moment have tem-
porarily injected into the judicial mind the necessity for easing the pres-
sure out of which revolutions are born, is of little consequence. The
fact is that, within less than a decade, the law and its enforcement have
assumed aspects which, if utilized in the interest of housing, would bring
the problem within the bounds of practical solution.

In formulating this legislation and setting up the administrative ma-
chinery for its enforcement, there is no need of abstract, philosophic
speculation. The stream of experience, the clear social purpose involved,
point the way toward a possible balance between legal control and
individual initiative that would change our present fragmentary efforts
at reform into a system of housing economy capable of wiping out most
of our slums and rehabilitating the economically blighted sphere of hous-
ing investment and its blighting effects on home life.

What shape this legislation should take must depend upon the clarifica-
tion of the objectives we wish to attain and the art of translating these
objectives into workable legislation. We no longer think of social institu-
tions or cultural patterns as phenomena capable of isolation from the
whole structure of society. Housing legislation not only must bring into
perspective the many forces which shape the character of the house and
control its environment, but must take account of the social and eco-
nomic forces woven into the pattern of life, so that there would be no
lags and no compromises with fundamentals.

THE LAW AND HOUSING 127

The spectacle of housing legislation and the bickering legislative de-
bates, with their partisanship, hypocritical phrases, and bad intentions,
should not continue. The average legislator is not equipped to clarify
the many phases of housing legislation, so that it would stand out clearly
and without those obscure phrasings which conceal purpose or leave their
interpretation to the courts. Housing legislation must become simple and
direct; these attributes should be reflected in the logical organization of
the mechanics of realization.

Law as applied to housing is a very confusing term, since many of the
acts of our legislative bodies and the machinery for their enforcement or
execution do not involve the ordinary restrictive regulations associated
with legislation. They transcend this method of social control and reach
out into a great variety of legislative and administrative acts involving
policies as well as laws, and are affected by the range of business, finan-
cial, social, and administrative policies. They relate to housing only insofar
as housing must conform to these laws, acts, and policies, in order to
come within the framework of our social and economic system.

It is erroneous, therefore, to speak of housing legislation as a system
of coherent laws which apply to housing alone. To avoid confusion and
to give housing as a public concern the broadest possible interpretation,
the Germans have used the term Wohnungspolitik, implying all gov-
ernment activity which influences housing. It is from this point of view
that we shall deal with housing in its relation to government action, and
not from the more restricted angle with which housing reformers have
been familiar up to comparatively recent time.

The public policy in housing is twofold. The first phase is the estab-
lishing of minimum standards, and the other is the creation of conditions
which would make these standards attainable. As housing involves both
the individual building and the environment in which the buildings must
remain for the period consistent with its usefulness, housing policies must
be developed in harmony with both building standards and community-
planning objectives. Thus planning becomes inseparable from housing,
and housing an integral part of planning. Any attempt, therefore, to
develop a public policy on housing must go hand in hand with a planning
policy consistent with housing needs. It is idle, therefore, to consider
housing legislation without planning legislation, and to consider the tech-
nical requirements for minimum building standards without minimum
requirements of community planning, such as zoning, transportation,
recreation facilities, market provisions, sanitation, water supply, and
so forth. True, these are essentially technical problems, but their solution

128 THE LAW AND HOUSING

depends upon such legal powers and public policies as the community
affords and dares to apply.

For the sake of clarity and convenience, let us classify the various forms
of public action which directly or indirectly affect housing. Generally
speaking, the function of public action may be divided into three distinct
ways of affecting housing:

Restrictive legislation
Protective legislation
Promotive legislation

RESTRICTIVE LEGISLATION

Under restrictive legislation must be included all effort toward restrain-
ing owners, builders, and tenants in their rights to use property and to
exploit it. This type of control may be said to represent a clear inter-
ference with property rights consistent with public interest, even though
in so doing the public control reduces the productive value of such prop-
erty without providing adequate compensation. This form of control is
exercised under what is known as the "police power." The history of
the expansion of the police power which the states may exercise reveals
an interesting evolution of legal interpretation of the meaning of prop-
erty rights, "due process of law," and, in the taking of property, the
provision "without just compensation." The various controls which have
been developed in the last century clearly indicate that the rights to
property and the limitations of its use, even where there is a loss to be
sustained by the owner, have been modified in the interest of the com-
mon good. Thus the police power is becoming a device whereby the
guarantees granted the individual by a written constitution may be social-
ized. This mechanism, which is intended to control and adjust the rights
of the individual to the needs of the group, is the most sensitive means
for taking account of human progress and for injecting into fundamental
law the newer elements which grow out of evolving social and economic
relations. In achieving this end the courts have played a major part. They
have sensed the need for change and have socialized the letter of the law
by taking account of the broader social objectives, and by disregarding
many of the traditional individualistic interpretations which interfere
with the spirit of the times and the demands of the newer concepts of
social justice. As far back as 1895, judges of the Supreme Court of the
State of California expressed this concept in a decision regulating the
location of business buildings: "If he [the owner of the property] suffers
injury ... he is compensated for it by sharing in the general benefits
which the regulations are intended or calculated to secure,"

CARL MACKLEY HOUSES, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA. A LIMITED DIVIDEND
LABOR UNDERTAKING.

THE LAW AND HOUSING 131

Technique of Construction. Under this type of regulation, the owner
or builder is expected to comply with a certain set of rules and regula-
tions which insure a minimum of safety, proper protection against fire,
adequate considerations of the various services such as water, sewers,
street access, reasonable provisions for decent family relations, and facili-
ties for carrying on the normal processes of home life.

In discussing this type of restriction we need not deal with the details
of the regulations. Standards have been set up by various cities which,
if carried out, might bring about a fair amount of decent living conditions.
There might be some differences of opinion as to sizes of windows,
orientations of buildings, sizes of courts, sizes of rooms, amount of stor-
age space, amount of open space around buildings, and a variety of other
factors which raise the standard of living and create possibilities for
making the home a more suitable center around which family lif e may
revolve. There is no scientific minimum or maximum which may be used
as a basis for this type of regulation.

A recent bulletin published by the American Public Health Associa-
tion has presented an admirable set of standards which, if applied to hous-
ing legislation, would leave little to be desired. In fact I believe, after
an experience of over a quarter of a century, that these standards are in
some respects too high for the less costly dwellings intended for the
majority of the wage-earning families. They are possible of attainment,
only, if the present structure of our housing economy is fundamentally
revised.

In connection with these standards I should like to raise my voice in
protest against another and more dangerous trend in housing legislation
and, in particular, in the planning of low-rental homes. A recent housing
enterprise, sponsored by the United States government under the pres-
sure of reducing costs to within the range of the legal provisions of the
Wagner Act, was faced with the necessity of eliminating certain essen-
tials in order to carry out the project within the allotted appropriation.
Suggestions were made to eliminate doors to closets, to lower ceilings,
and to reduce the sizes of rooms. The suggestions, while helpful in in-
creasing the number of housing units for a given sum of money, would
tend to lower standards of living, reduce the comfort of the families,
and lay the foundation for the kind of obsolescence that even private
enterprise would not countenance. No one is in favor of extravagance
in low-rental housing, but if the United States government is to stoop
to a recognition of standards lower than common decency dictates, it
had best retire from the field and let private owners carry on the task of
housing reform. If the cost of building a decent dwelling is too high

132 THE LAW AND HOUSING

for the government, there is either a serious defect in the law or in the
economic structure which the government must utilize in its housing
efforts.

Housing lasts at least a generation and, if we examine the present hous-
ing facilities of our cities and even of the countryside, we find that the
life of a home— barring changes in the pattern of the community— is more
likely to extend over two or three generations.1 It is obvious, therefore,
that unless housing legislation dealing with standards of construction takes
a forward view, we shall be imposing on the innocent generations of the
future the mistaken standards of a past generation.

I would not have the reader assume that standards of construction once
established guarantee the construction of high-grade dwellings for those
who need them. On the contrary, the stricter the legal structural re-
quirements, the fewer are the chances for such construction. The New
York Tenement House Act and its successor, the Dwelling House Act,
have worked against the increase in decent dwellings for those who are
most in need of them. This condition has prevailed in every city of the
United States where good intentions directed toward raising the legal
standards have shifted the emphasis from low-rental to high-rental dwell-
ings. I am inclined to the belief that the slum dwellers have profited least
from the laws which were intended to benefit them most.

The large number of housing laws, which reach back to the beginnings
of the last century and which have become increasingly complex and
exacting, are in their effect the best demonstration of the fact that so
important a factor in our national life can not be dealt with by isolationist
laws. Home building, which constitutes so fundamental a basis of our
civilization and which represents a synthesis of so many factors of our
economic, governmental, and cultural life, can not be affected by the
waving of the necromancer's legislative wand. Legislative action which
is confined to building regulations may become worse than useless, unless
regulations are made to bear a fundamental relation to the background
which must condition these regulations.

It must be admitted, however, that housing regulations for those who
are able to pay have benefited by the new restrictions. Many of the old
mansions were constructed without regard to either sanitation or decent
human relations. The expensive apartment buildings of the era which
preceded housing legislation are monuments to the disregard for decency
and ignorance of essential human needs. The instance of the architect
who designed the "dumb-bell tenement" and received a prize for his
inventiveness is ample evidence of the need for the establishment of legal

1See Base Maps, New York City Board of Estimate and Apportionment, 1933.

THE LAW AND HOUSING 133

standards of construction having for their object improved living condi-
tions. We must, however, differentiate between the requirements which
are intended to overcome ignorance and lack of technical skill and those
requirements which add to the burden of cost, which can be met only
by the few and removes the possibilities of benefiting the many.

Old Dwellings. In the older cities such as New York, Chicago, and
Philadelphia, the vast majority of the homes are more than a generation
old and some are as old as two and three generations. These buildings still
yield some revenue and are occupied by families with incomes so low
that rent makes serious inroads into the standard of living. These are the
dwellings which make up our slums and blighted districts; these are the
dwellings against which the housing movement is primarily directed.

In dealing with this type of housing and the regulations which should
result in improvement of conditions, most communities have resorted
to a certain minimum legal requirement involving additional expense and
consequent increases in rents. As the rental for these dwellings is paid by
families with low incomes, any addition to the rent would result either
in loss of tenancy or a drain upon the family budget, and that drain on a
low income is undesirable or impossible. Many of the dwellings still in
use are so far below standard and structurally so obsolete as to make
improvements required by law uneconomical, even under conditions
where a slight increase in rents might be contemplated without serious
strain on the family budget. The community is therefore confronted
with the dilemma as to whether the enforcement of legislation affecting
old buildings would not lower the standard of living of the tenants or
permit violations of the law out of consideration for the economic in-
terest of the owner and the tenant.

The whole problem of legislating for the improvement and control of
conditions that prevail in the substandard housing of this country revolves
around the question as to whether the regulations which the law may
provide are enforceable, and, if so, whether they should be enforced as
a matter of public policy. Some 63,000 old-law tenements of New York
City, which violate most of the provisions of the present regulations in
one way or another, have been under the jurisdiction of both the Tene-
ment and Health Departments of the city for over a generation. That
no progress has been made to meet legal requirements is sufficient
evidence that such legislation is difficult or even impossible to enforce.
Whether this is due to a recognition of the economic factors involved
in forcing the improvement of dwellings which do not produce an ade-
quate revenue to warrant such improvements, or whether it is due to
the strong opposition of tenement owners and their lobby activities, is of

134 THE LAW AND HOUSING

comparatively little importance. The fact remains that at the rate at which
improvements in old-law dwellings in New York have taken place it
would require six generations to achieve the complete compliance with
the present law. The life of the buildings now violating the law will
have expired long before the local authorities come to the end of their
legally assigned task.

We may therefore ask with full justification, What is the course that
should be followed to obtain the best results and within a time limit that
would benefit the present generation? The answer must be in terms of
law, as we are discussing legislation and not general reform.

It must be admitted at the outset that the dwellings represent invest-
ment, the accumulated assets of years of saving, and the collateral for
loans made by banks, mortgage companies, insurance companies, and
other investing gencies. They are the security which financial institutions
of every type hold for moneys which belong to a vast number of people,
mostly small investors who are neither extortionists or capitalists with
large resources. Can and should the police power be applied to these ob-
solete dwellings to the point of either imposing costly improvements or
destroying them as we destroy tainted meat or infected milk? The re-
former will say, "Yes." The financier and economist will say, "Let us
protect investment before all else. The change must be gradual."

This is the reason for the many efforts to postpone the enforcement
of many legal provisions which involve heavy costs. In the last two
years there has been a continuous struggle going on between the people
who desire to secure a reasonable improvement of living conditions in
old dwellings and the owners of these dwellings. Moratorium after mora-
torium has been granted, and in every way the laws have been modified
to gain time and avoid expense on buildings which have for years proved
incapable of yielding a revenue on moneys tied up in their financial
setup.

Under these conditions, there are certain ways of meeting the problem
from a legal point of view. All buildings which are structurally efficient,
sound, and capable of being brought within a reasonable standard of
decency should be improved at once, either by the owners or by a special
local authority made up of technicians familiar with the requirements and
methods of reconstruction applicable to such buildings. This way of
dealing with the problem has already found expression in the New York
State law, which requires that if the owners fail to make necessary im-
provements, such improvements may be made by the community and
the cost be charged up as a lien against the property. This law will prove

THE LAW AND HOUSING 135

to be another statutory provision which was a dead letter from the day
it was enacted.

The New York State law unfortunately fails to make adequate pro-
visions to establish measurable standards which would act as a guide in
determining the rehabilitating character of a structure. Also, the law does
not set up adequate machinery for carrying out the work in a manner
that would guarantee good and low-cost improvements, consistent with
the ability of the building to meet them through rentals. The law is a
worthy step in the right direction, but, like many such laws, fails to em-
body a mechanism of enforcement that will insure results.

One feature of such a law which would prove a dynamic factor in its
enforcement would be a provision placing, upon the owner and the
public authority entrusted with these improvements, the responsibility
for any injury which may result from the failure to bring about the
improvements and changes provided by law. The many deaths which
have occurred in the last three years in New York tenements because of
failure to provide adequate protection against the hazards of fire are grim
testimony of the need for such legislation. We hold railroads and other
public service agencies responsible for any injury they might inflict upon
their patrons through negligence, and there is no reason why the same
principle should not apply to houses.

Another method of dealing with obsolete districts is to make possible
the pooling of resources among owners, with a view to improving given
groups of buildings which bear some relation to each other. This would
result in the reduction of costs and the elimination of risks inherent in
the improvement of single buildings in a locality where other buildings
tend to keep rents low because of neighborhood conditions. It is quite
obvious that the drag upon a particular property of reasonable or good
character, which results from undesirable surroundings, is little encour-
agement to the owner who wishes to meet the requirements of the law
in surroundings which flagrantly violate its most elementary require-
ments.

In certain areas some buildings might be capable of improvement with-
out seriously affecting rents, while other adjoining buildings are so ob-
solescent that by no effort or investment could they be made livable or
be brought within the requirements of the law. In some cases the demoli-
tion of the obsolete buildings would bring about a rise in the general tone
of the block or neighborhood and encourage improvement of the better
types of structures. The difficulties that arise are mostly due to the great
variety of ownerships, which range from complicated estate situations to
trusteeships, guardianships, mortgage-holding-corporation ownerships,

136 THE LAW AND HOUSING

and ownership by individuals who have small holdings and neither credit
resources nor sufficient borrowing margin on their properties.
These conditions create at least three distinct problems:

1. The various ownerships are limited in their capacity to cooperate or
pool their resources with other ownerships in the neighborhood or block.

2. Many housing units are so small that their operation, from the point
of view of either economy of space or management, can not be handled
economically because of the prevailing low rents. It is quite obvious,
as was brought out in an earlier part of this book, that small units in hous-
ing can not be made as profitable as large units.

3 . The third problem that arises in connection with neighborhood im-
provements is the fact that the subdivision of land is often so erratic as to
bear all the marks of a crazy-quilt pattern. This condition often makes
any rebuilding of a given housing district impossible without a readjust-
ment of the boundary lines of individual holdings.

Arthur Holden, an architect of wide repute and a devoted worker in
the cause of housing, has evolved a method of overcoming these difficul-
ties. His efforts, extending over a period of four or five years, finally re-
sulted in the enactment by the New York State Legislature of a bill
which I shall quote in full:

AN ACT

To amend the real property law, in relation to
authorizing the sale and exchange of certain real
property or mortgage investments therein

The People of the State of New York, repre-
sented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as fol-
lows:

i. Section i. Chapter fifty-two of the laws of nineteen hundred, entitled
"An act relating to real property constituting chapter fifty of the consolidated
laws," is hereby amended by inserting therein a new section, to be section two
hundred seventy-eight-a, to read as follows:

278-3. Sale or exchange of certain real property or mortgage investments
therein authorized. Trustees, executors, administrators, guardians, committees
and all other persons or corporations holding trust funds or acting in a fidu-
ciary capacity, corporations and private bankers organized under or subject to
the provisions of the banking law, the superintendent of banks as conservator,
liquidator or rehabilitator of any such corporation or private banker organized
under and subject to the provisions of the banking law, persons, partnerships
and corporations organized under or subject to the provisions of the insurance
law, the superintendent of insurance as conservator, liquidator or rehabilitator
of any such person, partnership or corporation organized under or subject to
the provisions of the insurance law who or which own any property on which

THE LAW AND HOUSING 137

there is a building defined in the multiple dwelling law as an old law tenement
or who or which hold a mortgage or other lien on such property, may sell such
property, mortgage or lien, and may, notwithstanding any other provision of
law, receive and hold in exchange therefor securities issued by a corporation
owning or acquiring title to such property, if such corporation shall agree in
writing at the time of such sale, to reconstruct, improve, alter, repair or de-
molish such building or to construct a new building on such property, or on
such property and on any contiguous property owned or to be acquired by
such corporation.

2. This act shall take effect immediately.

This bill met with the same misfortune that befalls so many other well-
intended legislative acts. While it represented the instrumentality through
which some progress in local district improvements might be brought
about, the legislature at the same time passed other legislation which
granted a variety of moratoria on compliance with the Dwelling House
Act of New York. Thus the legislature took away with one hand what
it granted with the other.

The act just quoted is defective in many respects, but, if intelligently
used, might have marked the beginnings of economic slum rehabilitation
in the interest of both tenants and owners.

The obsolete dwelling, whether a single-family building or a multiple
building, presents the most difficult legislative problem, since it represents
according to various estimates from 25 to 30 per cent of the dwellings
of the United States and since it is inextricably entangled in a maze
of economic, legislative, and planning problems which must be solved
at the same time in order to achieve tangible results.

The following are the lines of legislative action which are immediately
needed in order to lay the foundation for far-reaching results:

i. All buildings declared unfit for habitation according to law should
be demolished as soon as due notice requirements are complied with. This
practice is neither radical nor new. In ancient Athens, provisions were

made for demolition of all buildings unsafe for occupancy. If a building

/• r L i_- • , . p .,. . f . f < .. &

is unfit for habitation, there is no justification for its continued existence

to the detriment of the neighborhood. The damage that such buildings
do to the neighborhood is both social and economic. Under zoning we
do not permit the mixing of uses which might be detrimental, either to
the living conditions or to the general tone of the neighborhood and the
security of investment on the part of other owners. The practices which
have made zoning an instrument for safeguarding the neighborhood are
no less drastic than the requirement that an owner shall not maintain
buildings in a condition which would do similar damage to the neighbor-
hood.

138 THE LAW AND HOUSING

The procedure suggested with regard to buildings unfit for habitation
would accomplish several objectives. In the first place, it would relieve
the neighborhood of the blight which results from the presence of un-
desirable buildings. The second advantage would be in the creation of
open spaces, which might add to the light and air of adjoining buildings.
And, finally, the owners would be more likely to improve their proper-
ties when the character of the district is no longer marred by the pres-
ence of undesirable buildings.

2. All moratoria granted to property owners should not be based upon
a blanket legislative enactment which affects all properties violating the
law. Instead, a commission should be established to consider each case on
application by the owners or their representatives. The commission
should grant a moratorium on the following conditions only:

(a) The building is capable of improvement to meet the requirements
of the law without undue expenditure that would make such improve-
ment uneconomical.

(b) The owner files a bond of compliance within a reasonable time
consistent with the need.

(c) If the building is unsuitable for rehabilitation, notice of demoli-
tion should be served and a time for such demolition fixed by the com-
mission.

(d) Not more than one extension of a moratorium should be per-
mitted for any one building.

(e) The granting of a moratorium should be based upon specified
improvements to be made within certain periods of time. These improve-
ments should be agreed upon beforehand and be based upon adequate
plans, to be submitted by the applicant and in conformity with the re-
quirements of the law regarding existing violations.

(f) No moratorium should extend over a period of more than two
years.

(g) At the expiration of such a moratorium the commission should
proceed toward making the improvement of the building, the cost to
be met by the owner. In cases where owners fail to meet the demands,
the community should meet them and place a prior lien on the prop-
erty for the amount involved.

New York State already has a law providing for the improvement of
properties where the owners fail to comply with the provisions of the
housing requirements for old-law tenements. This, however, has not
been put into operation, and the machinery for its enforcement is in-
effective.

THE LAW AND HOUSING 139

3. Referring again to the act which provides for the pooling of hold-
ings in housing, it would seem, in order to make such a law operative,
that it is not enough to make it permissive, but it must be made com-
pulsory where there is a concerted effort on the part of a substantial
ownership interested in bringing about a general improvement in the
block or neighborhood. In order to lend force to such an effort it is
essential that the following legal provisions be enacted:

(a) Where 60 per cent or more of the land within a certain area is
held by property owners desiring to pool their interests, the remainder
of the ownership should be included in the proposed improvement
project.

(b) Where such owners refuse to participate or where they set the
value of their property too high, there should be some method provided
for arbitration which would fix the property values, and the method
adopted should be based upon assessments one year prior to the time the
project is conceived or application for incorporation made.

(c) Any group of owners may initiate pooling proceedings, provided
the total ownership represented is not less than one-third of the super-
ficial area contained in the proposed project.

( d) Where the owner refuses to participate, condemnation proceed-
ings shall be initiated by the municipality on the same basis as any pro-
ceedings for a public improvement.

(e) The municipality may acquire such areas as may seem desirable
for road improvement, open spaces, public buildings, parks, recreation
centers, or other public uses.

(f ) Where conditions justify financial participation on the part of the
local government, loans should be provided by the municipality at a rate
of interest not to exceed the rate of interest paid by it on loans for public
improvements, and the amount so loaned should constitute a prior lien
against the improved properties.

(g) The municipality should have the power to borrow money by
issuing bonds for the purpose of furnishing loans for rehabilitations of
properties. These bonds should not be counted as part of the indebtedness
of the municipality and its statutory limitations.

It should be understood, of course, that any improvements projected
under legislation permitting the pooling of interests should be in harmony
with the existing legal requirements for construction, and that they
should follow a plan of land utilization and building development con-
sistent with modern standards. Planning commissions, housing authori-

140 THE LAW AND HOUSING

ties, and building departments should play a part in determining the
economic and social feasibility of each project.

Land Replanning. Attention has already been called to the many cases
of irregularly shaped divisions, the bad street arrangement, and the lack
of open spaces in many of the older and built-up areas of our cities. Slum
clearance, as such, is not always desirable or economical. It is often de-
sirable, however, to replan a district in order to improve its ground plan
and secure other desirable and necessary improvements by way of roads,
adequate and economical building sites, recreation fields, school sites, and
so on. Where such conditions exist, the municipality should have the
power to step into the breach and assist in creating a more orderly de-
velopment. This can be accomplished by the use of the municipal cor-
poration, which could act as the repository of all of the properties
to be replotted. To achieve this end, the planning body, in cooperation
with any existing official housing authority, might select a particular
section of the community for replanning and replotting. Once such an
area is selected, the authority, planning commission, or other special
official agency could proceed to examine the resources and potentialities
of the district in light of local needs and its relation to the community.

These facts and possibilities having been established and a plan of
development evolved, the official body could proceed in one of several
ways:

1 . It could take over the whole area and assume full responsibility for
its redevelopment, with the understanding that each property owner
would have restored to him either the amount of land taken or land
equivalent to it in value. Lands used for public purposes would be paid
for at a fair rate consistent with values which prevailed prior to the under-
taking of project.

When property owners reject participation in the proposed replanning
or desire to dispose of their land prior to the consummation of the
project, the municipality should have the power to acquire the property
and to dispose of such portions as might not be needed for public use.
This latter procedure is more or less in line with the process of excess
condemnation or marginal eminent domain, which has been made possi-
ble by constitutional amendments in about twelve states of the Union.

2. Private action could be legalized along the same line by giving cor-
porations or other legally authorized bodies the power to organize such
improvement projects. These bodies would have the power to utilize
the powers of the municipality in the acquisition of land, adjustment or
restitution of lands, and the payment of compensation for properties
taken over, and would exercise through municipal authority the right

THE LAW AND HOUSING 141

of eminent domain for purposes of condemnation of lands and buildings
which are needed for the replanning and reconstruction of the area. Mr.
Clarence S. Perry has suggested, in a modified form, this method of
handling replotting problems. I am inclined to the belief that Mr. Perry's
suggestion relates rather to a general undertaking of housing on a large
scale than to the problem of replotting and redeveloping existing and
fully built-up areas.

There is no reason why both of these methods should not be used in
the same community and for the same purposes.

I have elaborated rather fully the various legislative acts and possible
administrative procedures which might be evolved for the removal and
control of substandard housing, because, in my estimation, the old house
still remains the most difficult and most important problem in housing.
Many of the new buildings have at least some of the advantages of recent
advance in standards of construction and care. The old dwelling stands
in the way of new development, and it houses the people who are least
able to meet the cost of the higher standards required by law and new
techniques of construction.

Building Sites in Builtup Areas. We should deal with land use for
specific buildings first. The relation of a particular building to its site must
be considered from the point of view of available light, hours of sun-
shine per day in the course of changing seasons, the space available for
recreation, landscaping, the conservation of vistas from the various win-
dows, and so on. It is therefore of importance to control each individual
site according to its own peculiar conditions and surroundings. This
means a careful consideration of the site in its relation to its own capacity
for development and in its relation to other buildings and sites in the same
general area. We can easily conceive of a building complying with all of
the existing regulations but falling quite far below a reasonable standard,
if its surroundings are such as to make the legal standard inadequate for
the peculiar condition and location of the building site. A very tall build-
ing in a given neighborhood may effect adversely large numbers of blocks
insofar as sunshine is concerned. An overcrowded lot adjoining a pro-
posed building site may nullify the original intent of modern legislation.
This situation presents a problem in legislation which has so far escaped
attention in this country. In view of the fact that our cities are developed
by degrees and that building enterprise is spasmodic and sporadic, there
is frequently a juxtaposition of buildings varying in standard according
to the legislative requirement of various times. Most of the residential
buildings in our cities are a generation or more old. Their construction is
therefore of an obsolete type in most cases, insofar as existing law is con-

142 THE LAW AND HOUSING

cerned. A new building in an old neighborhood, although fully comply-
ing with the law, would be affected materially by the adjoining struc-
tures as to light, vistas, open space.

Under these conditions existing laws, while reasonably adequate to
meet modern needs where all buildings meet the same requirements, may
be inadequate when viewed in the light of the adjoining development.
This condition suggests two important points:

1. Where an admixture of building standards exists, each building
should be dealt with in the light of its immediate surroundings, and a
building authority of some kind should be set up with power to pass
upon plans on an individual basis and with power to require modification
and increases in the minimum standards required by law.

2. New construction should be encouraged on sites in areas which are
either undeveloped or where the magnitude of the enterprises would be
sufficient to transcend the limitations caused by undesirable neighboring
land use.

Lot-Use Restrictions. There are no suitable rules or practices for meet-
ing the various types of uses which can be applied to the subdivision of
land into building sites. The usual subdivision is standard, and each lot
is about the same size as any other lot regardless of the type of building
to be accommodated. Thus a single-family dwelling will have a site simi-
lar to that of a small apartment of four or six stories. Where buildings
exceed the requirements of a standard lot it is frequently necessary to
resort to a combination of lots which very likely do not meet the best
planning requirements. This often results in building designs which fail
to meet the functional purpose for which they are intended in an en-
deavor to fit structural forms into site dimensions which have no relation
to the proposed use of the building.

This standardization of lot sizes has been one of the most serious diffi-
culties in the way of proper site planning for buildings and has been
developed with complete disregard for land-use economy which might
be derived from a more flexible system of land subdivision. In consider-
ing such flexibility it should be remembered that light and sunshine de-
pend both upon the orientation of the street system and upon the fact
that northern climates demand a greater distance between buildings for
light and sunshine than the temperate zones. Where great heat is a factor
other considerations should guide the land subdivision requirements.
Regulations which would meet the conditions in one community could
hardly be copied without consideration of local conditions in other com-
munities.

The various housing authorities, the Federal Housing Administration,

THE LAW AND HOUSING 143

and the United States Housing Authority have developed standards
which, under present-day conditions, are satisfactory for most purposes.
It must be admitted that there is no absolute and immutable standard
established by science as to what is the best and most consistently scien-
tific standard. Within certain ranges of maximum and minimum require-
ment, experience has shown that the standards established by these
agencies are reasonably adequate for all purposes. The real difficulty
arises not so much in the fixing of standards of adequate land coverage
and building location, as in the fact that there is a great deal of fluctua-
tion in land values to which the standards of site use often are sub-
ordinated.

It seems obvious that congested areas are more in need of open spaces
and proper protection of the light, air, and ventilation requirements than
the less congested areas. Indeed, the more recent zoning provisions of
many of our cities have added to the restrictions of use, height, bulk and
area specific limitations as to number of families per acre. The most
effective way of meeting the problem of land sweating and the trends
toward congestion is to incorporate into the building codes certain regu-
lations affecting population or family unit capacity and make the build-
ing department responsible for their enforcement. I know it will be
argued that this is an encroachment on the zoning regulations. It must
be remembered, however, that zoning regulations are often very general
and are established prior to the actual use of a particular site, while the
building inspector faces the reality of actual use and has at his disposal
all of the plans and specifications necessary to formulate a judgment of
the suitability of the building to the site and its surroundings.

It is not inconceivable that the future restrictions regarding the use of
land will be based not alone on specific regulations relating to the use
of the site, but on the relation that this site bears to community facilities
which would make its use consistent with these facilities.

The fact that a particular area has been zoned for apartment purposes
would not justify the development of such a site so as to intensify the
congestion on a street adequate for a less intensive use. Neither is it
reasonable to assume that an apartment zone which provides no play
or recreation facilities, should be heavily congested with families whose
children would have only the streets and limited backyard space as
playgrounds.

Such considerations may sound Utopian at this moment, but the trend
in this direction has been clearly established and there is no longer any
serious doubt as to the relation that each home or apartment should
bear to the human needs, the business activities, and the services which

144 THE LAW AND HOUSING

are part and parcel of the whole process of living. The time must come
when in matters of building regulations we shall have to particularize,
more minutely, the use of each parcel of land in an endeavor to bring
construction restrictions into greater harmony with the peculiar charac-
ter of each building site as part of the community pattern.

I am aware that these norms still remain to be developed and that the
mechanics of control of land use through legislation are still in the
crudest state. There is also no doubt that the manner in which housing
investment and development is tied up with the necessity for encourag-
ing private enterprise presents serious obstacles in the way of a socialized
formula for land control and land use. Nevertheless, my experience of
more than two decades in zoning and planning work has proved that
many of the good intentions which zoning represents are destroyed by
a limited conception of the fundamental intent of zoning— namely, the
creation of the orderly use of land as a part of an orderly community.

Land Subdivision. In recent years, owing to the fabulously rapid sub-
divisions of raw land intended to cater to the exodus from the centers
of our cities, a great expansion of residential territory has taken place.
At the present time the total land subdivision in the vicinity of cities is
sufficient to rehouse all of the people of the United States.

This excessive development of new lands has, in some cases, been car-
ried out without the supervision of legally constituted authorities, and
where such authority did exist, the standards accepted were often on so
low a level as to lay the foundation for new slums.

Overexpansion has not been motivated by a need to accommodate
new population or to meet the shortage of housing. Most of it was in-
tended to provide suburban residential areas for families with large in-
comes who were anxious to improve their environment by a flight from
the conditions of urban communities, or who felt the need for having
homes in both urban and rural surroundings and were therefore willing
to assume the additional cost of a rural home. The laws need to be con-
cerned very little with this type of development, as they are luxury under-
takings in connection with which entrepreneurs followed the dictates
of demand and for which the market afforded ample compensation.

Within the last two decades, however, there has been an unprece-
dented development of subdivisions which were essentially motivated by
speculative opportunities for exploiting the prevailing movement of popu-
lation from the cities to less congested areas. Most of these have been
badly planned, inadequately serviced, and in some instances located in
areas undesirable for subdivision purposes.

Much of this land subdivision has taken place in outlying areas and

THE LAW AND HOUSING 145

outside municipal boundaries. The latter subdivisions are due largely to a
desire to escape the more exacting regulations of our cities. It has generally
been assumed that our cities are already overbuilt and that there are no
open areas available for new developments. The fact is that there is ample
open space in our cities, many of which still contain thousands of acres
of undeveloped land. New York City still has about 85,000 acres of open
land and is less densely settled than London, Paris, or Berlin. The real
problem in land subdivision is economy and social purpose. The millions
of building sites created by the land-development booms of past years
have often failed to meet both these requirements. The subdivisions
which were created in unincorporated areas frequently had for their
main objectives avoidance of municipal taxation, escape from the stricter
city regulations, and development costs required in incorporated and
settled areas.

But while the subdivision developments often escape the higher re-
quirements of the city by creating settlements in the open country, the
cities must face many obligations which these settlements entail. Thus,
in the past, additional highways had to be built, resulting in the increased
requirements and decreased convenience of transit facilities. These land
developments have in most cases failed to reduce the cost of living, seldom
improved standards, and disorganized the balance of community services
upon which the economic structure of the city was based.

To avoid the conditions which have prevailed in the past, legislative
enactment seems desirable. All subdivisions outside incorporated areas
should first be approved by both state and county planning commissions.
The following questions are involved in such approval.

1 . Is the land suitable for the type of subdivision proposed?

2. Is there a market for this type of subdivision?

3. What additional burden will the community have to carry in order
to make such a subdivision meet the standards of decent living conditions
and adequate services, such as schools, playgrounds, sewers, water, roads,
and so forth?

4. Would the additional burden be justified from the point of view of
the future population, tax resources, the trends of general community
growth?

5. What effect would such land subdivision have upon the larger com-
munity?

6. Are the resources of the sponsoring organization sufficient to insure
reasonably complete development, so that purchasers may take no undue
risks?

146 THE LAW AND HOUSING

7. Is the standard of construction to be used adequate to insure pro-
tection against deterioration and eventual slum development?

8. Will the revenue from taxes insure a self-sustaining community
which would meet the essential requirements of community living and
its continued existence and development?

9. Should the community fail, are there any provisions for the salvag-
ing of the individual investments on an equitable basis?

The answers to these questions depend upon careful examination of
the local situation and a knowledge of the conditions in the local com-
munity regarding the need for such developments and their ultimate
value to the individual investor as well as the community as a whole. At
the present time, even though there may be adequate evidence that there
is no need for further land subdivision, the cities, townships, or counties
have not the power to prevent their development. It is the creation of
legislation making this power available that will help to safeguard over-
development of land subdivisions. Such restrictions are at present in vogue
in Germany. What is needed is not subdivision laws in the ordinary sense
of the word, but regulations such as are often imposed on corporations
which sell stocks or bonds in the market and must satisfy some official
body as to the purpose of the corporation and its justification as a matter
of policy. The granting of permission to develop unsubdivided lands is
not unlike the granting of a public service franchise.

LIMITS OF SUBDIVISION REGULATIONS

While there is great variation in subdivision regulations they are on the
whole limited to specific restrictions which, in view of the fact that the
final development can only be inferred rather than predetermined, must
of necessity remain very general in character. Lot subdivision, zoning,
and the provision of various services are included in greater or lesser de-
grees in the restrictions and regulations affecting land subdivision. New
York State has recently enacted constructive legislation dealing with the
whole problem of land subdivision, and other states have made similar
efforts in the direction of developing methods of control. The conflict
between private property interests before subdivision, and the individual
lot ownership after subdivision, coupled with the problems of overcom-
ing the uncertainties of future development, make this type of legislative
control quite difficult.

Reference has already been made to the matter of lot subdivision,
which is quite difficult to harmonize with the eventual needs of the new
community in view of the almost prophetic knowledge that is required
to anticipate in detail the location and type of development that will take

Photograph by Louis H. Dreyer,

RED HOOK HOUSES, BROOKLYN, NEW YORK. UNITED STATES HOUSING AUTHORITY
IN COOPERATION WITH THE NEW YORK HOUSING AUTHORITY.

THE LAW AND HOUSING 149

place in a subdivision. Predetermination of the development of a new
subdivision can be made effective only when and where the demand for
the land is immediate and the use coordinated on lines consistent with a
corporate organization the purpose of which is not immediate profit but
long-term investment.

As the whole problem of subdivision is dependent upon future use of
land, subdivision must follow a carefully conceived zoning scheme, rather
than zoning following subdivision. This is seldom the practice except in
rare instances of enlightened development and without the compulsion
of the law. In my estimation no subdivision which fails to comply with
strict and detailed zoning plan requirements can be designed with due re-
gard to the interest of future property owners and the requirements of
buildings according to their particular purpose and use.

This is not the place for a full discussion of subdivision regulations. The
aspect of the problem with which we are essentially concerned is that
there should be an adequate planning commission organized in each
governmental unit in which a subdivision is to be undertaken, and that
its jurisdiction should be of sufficiently wide scope to cover large areas,
including the cities, so that localized interests would not override the
interests of the larger community. The other important consideration is
the need for wide powers of subdivision control, so that the supply of
such subdivisions may bear some relation to the existing market.

ZONING

Zoning and housing. The whole field of housing has been brought
within the control of zoning, at least in the urban communities of the
United States. Unfortunately, the application of zoning as a factor in
establishing policies of land-use control and of developing an orderly
geographic classification of community functions, has been realized only
in part, and in the smaller rather than the larger communities.

A discussion of the many advantages to be gained through zoning
does not belong in this book. However, from the legislative point of
view, the power to zone has been so well established by a generation of
masterly court decisions that its full import as a means of controlling
community development should have been realized long before this time.
The failure to realize this is due to a mistaken conception of the ad-
vantages that may be gained from the crowding of land as against rea-
sonable control, which would make land use correspond to community
needs and the continuity of their social value.

Another consideration which has interfered with a more workable
symmetry between physical plan and zoning has been the expectation

150 THE LAW AND HOUSING

that population increases would continue indefinitely either through inter-
migrations between communities or immigration from abroad. Neither
of these expectations has been realized. The normal increase in the popu-
lation which results from an excess of births over deaths is insignificant
and promises to be even less important as the time goes on. In view of
these conditions it is quite obvious that zoning may follow existing trends
of population increase, and may disregard booms and wishful thinking
of the kind that the realty boards and chambers of commerce are publi-
cizing in order to keep up prices and attract business. Size rather than
order and stability seems to have gained the upper hand in zoning
procedure.

A confidential report by the New York City Mayor's Committee on
City Planning issued at the end of 1938 contains the following statement
regarding present-day zoning in New York City:

"On the other hand, within the developed residential areas 77,000,000 resi-
dents can be accommodated. If the use maps were to be brought into line with
reality by greatly reducing the business areas and increasing the residential
areas, some 273,000,000 residents could be accommodated without violating the
zoning law."

This number of people represents more than twice the population
of the United States or about a tenth of the population of the earth.

The whole legal machinery now employed in most of the larger cities
in the matter of zoning is ample to bring about vastly more desirable
results than have been attained in the last thirty-five years. The difficulty
has been that the scientific basis for zoning has been neglected, while
legal provisions have been amplified to a high degree of efficiency and
legal workability.

It is not new and more stringent laws that we need, but the ability to
relate zoning objectives to fact-finding technique which would make
zoning not the guess work of consulting experts but the application of
the science of urbanism to the orientation of community land use in
the future. This means that the planning commissions must pass from
the status of civic indulgence and controls, which are a blend of political
pressure and good intentions, to one of integrated administrative func-
tioning with resources and technical staff to carry on the work. This is
already being done in some communities, but the whole financial set-up
and administrative machinery for zoning are still in most communities
a form of concession to civic pride, a conspicuous dole to the good citizen
whose respectability can be used as a show-off, while the politician and
land speculator run away with the spoils.

Boards of appeal. It is conceivable that, in restricting the use of

THE LAW AND HOUSING 151

land either as to type of use, height, land occupancy, or bulk, conditions
arise which need individual adjustment. These adjustments are in many
Eastern communities entrusted to a board of appeals. This is a body made
up of another set of "prominent citizens" with a sprinkling of officials
and with one member strategically placed on the board as a tie-in with
the more "rational and businesslike interests." These boards consider all
deviations from the strict enforcement of the zoning ordinance. I have
watched the operation of these boards for nearly two decades and have
come to the conclusion that many of them are usurping the functions
of the zoning boards and not infrequently defeat the purposes of the
zoning ordinances. The difficulty arises not from the power to vary a
provision of the zoning ordinance, but from the fact that the zoning
commissions or boards have, or are expected to have, a reasonably clear
conception of the general scheme which is intended to be applied to the
community. The boards of appeal are concerned with a particular piece
of land which does not fit into the general zoning plan. I am quite ready
to admit that deviations must be made from time to time, but this should
be done by the same group that has developed the plan, and not by
another group which acts in an independent capacity and often without
full knowledge of the whole zoning scheme.

It is quite true that where a deviation is too much in conflict with the
public interest, recourse can be had to the courts. It must be remem-
bered, however, that such recourse takes money and time, and many
property owners can afford neither of these. The owner who expects
to gain from such zoning variations is always in a better position to state
his case than the average property owner, who can not.

I have seen cases where, in anticipation of certain zoning restrictions,
the board of appeals would grant a variant and make possible the con-
struction of buildings which completely upset the general zoning plan
of the district. All future legislation dealing with zoning should place in
the hands of the zoning boards the power to grant variants, and the
conditions for such variants should be clearly defined, so that the com-
mon interest would take full precedence over individual inconveniences.
Mr. Edward M. Bassett, an outstanding authority on zoning, has been
the main advocate of the boards of appeal in this country. No one can
doubt the zeal and sincerity of Mr. Bassett in this matter, and his book
Zoning gives a splendid outline of the ways in which zoning commissions
and boards of appeal should operate. But I was unable to find in the book
a satisfactory explanation for the division of functions between the boards
of appeal and the planning boards.

152 THE LAW AND HOUSING

MUNICIPAL LAND OWNERSHIP

Lying between the type of legislation called protective which we
are about to consider, and the restrictive law relating to housing which
we have just discussed, is the consideration of the community as a land-
owner and as a factor in permitting or restricting land use in the interest
of the community and in giving a semblance of orderliness to land
improvement by either public or private initiative.

The ownership of land by the community, whether this be a munici-
pality, township, county, or state, is generally associated with ownership
for public use. Indeed, it is not only ownership for public use, but for
a specified use in advance of acquisition. This condition has made it
impossible for communities or governmental entities to secure lands for
contemplated future developments or improvements without a clearly
preconceived plan. No account is taken of future contingencies, changes
in the trend or community needs, or other conditions against which com-
munity land ownership might be a protection.

Land acquisition in advance of a predetermined plan for its use would
be of value in the following respects:

1. The present cost of lands for preplanned purposes could be reduced
sufficiently to make possible the planning of services at a land price which
would make adequate space available without overtaxing the resources
of the community. Thus schools, play spaces, parks, public buildings of
various kinds, roads, and so on, could be planned and located at the
proper time without consideration of the heavy land cost.

2. By acquiring large parcels of land the community would be in a
position to plan or replan whole neighborhoods without having to resort
to litigation and heavy expenses of land assembly, which have in recent
years become one of the most serious obstacles to slum clearance and
large-scale housing.

3. By the power to acquire and eventually resell or lease such lands
for private development and use, the city, or whatever legal authority
might be reselling the land, would be able under deed restrictions to
establish standards of improvement and services not possible under ordi-
nary legal regulations. This method of resale would tend to avoid irre-
sponsible and undesirable land uses.

4. The power to acquire lands for later use would prevent ex-
tensions and other premature developments which are a detriment to
the community as a whole and are bound to create substandard living
conditions.

5. In the matter of locating various public open spaces, the commu-

THE LAW AND HOUSING 153

nity could acquire lands and wait till the time when the need arises for
developing them. In this manner it would be possible for the munici-
palities to synchronize the development of services in relation to such
lands as surround these areas and to dispose of lands when they are ripe
for use.

6. If any profits are to be derived from publicly owned lands, these
could be applied to the cost of improvements, thus relieving taxpayers
of some of their tax burdens.

7. With the power to acquire land in advance of need and to dispose
of it when desirable, the community would be able, when the oppor-
tunity is afforded, to provide necessary areas for large-scale housing
projects, regardless of whether these are to be undertaken by private or
public agencies.

It is understood, of course, that all such land purchases should be
carried out under the direction of a public agency aware of the possible
advantages to be gained from each purchase, and that the body entrusted
with this task would consider the needs of the community in every
aspect and in relation to the general plan of development which the
community is following. This does not of necessity have to be a detailed
plan, but it must be based upon sound social and economic principles
applicable to the community affected.

The main value of legislation which will free communities from the
restrictions of land acquisition and allow them to purchase, condemn,
or acquire land through gifts or tax delinquency sales, is to be found in
the freedom which the community would secure in determining the
land policy of its own development. To a certain extent this already
exists in "excess condemnation." The power of "excess condemnation"
of land, however, is tied in with preconceived improvements and does
not leave the community free to expand these powers beyond a small
marginal area located next to a proposed improvement. The principle
is more or less the same— namely, acquisition and resale or lease— but its
applicability is quite restricted in comparison with the broader policy
which is suggested here.

PROTECTIVE LEGISLATION

I am aware that any law which is intended to afford protection to one
party in a transaction becomes restrictive in relation to the other party
against whom protection is needed. However, the classification of a law
depends upon its purpose rather than upon its effects when enforced.
Some of these laws are intended to protect the tenant, others the land-

154 THE LAW AND HOUSING

lord, and still others the individual homeowner. All of these types of
protection present peculiar problems, reaching from financial relations
to the moral character of the individual inhabitant of a particular type
of dwelling. We shall not take the time to deal with all of these laws.
Most of them have come about because of conditions, forces, and influ-
ences which bear no special relation to the quality of habitation or to
the more important tenant-owner relationships which affect housing in
its stricter interpretation.

Rent Laws. These are among the most familiar and the least used of
protective laws. They are intended to protect tenants from undue rent
increases caused by an actual or alleged shortage of housing, as occurs
after some calamity like a flood, a war, or a financial crisis, which delays
the building of dwellings in keeping with need. In essence rent laws
are not housing legislation in the strictest sense of the term, as they are
seldom applied to protect tenants from exploitation under normal con-
ditions. They are based not upon limitation of profits but on meeting
emergencies which are common to the entire community or a consider-
able portion of it.

Indeed, under the present conditions when a shortage of housing has
accumulated over a period of nearly a decade of the depression, no city
or state has taken the initiative to prevent raises in rents because of
shortage. To be sure, the tenants in the lower-income groups have on
their own initiative created a surplus of housing by doubling up or
leaving the more congested areas, thus keeping rentals and the supply of
houses in some relation to the demand but not the need. This has kept
rents from soaring despite the lag in construction enterprise.

Rent-control legislation is as important as legislation dealing with trusts
and similar price-fixing private enterprises, since housing is the least
flexible of marketable products and is an essential of life which every
individual must have. Rent-control laws should find their justifications
in shortages which may be created by other social and economic con-
tingencies which are not an "act of God."

Rent-control legislation should be based not upon investment but upon
the average return which properties yield under normal conditions. Any
general increase in rents in a given district where the lower income
families live, may make serious inroads on the living standard of the
people.

Abatement of Violations and Rent Laws. Every city contains dwellings
which violate the law to a greater or lesser extent. Many of these viola-
tions, either through neglect on the part of the authorities charged with
law enforcement, or because of moratorium legislation which makes en-

THE LAW AND HOUSING 155

forcement impossible over a given period of time, have been in existence
for long periods of time. Under the pressure of public opinion or be-
cause of some calamity, as the burning of people in tenements lacking
fire protection, there comes a time when law enforcement can no longer
be avoided. The carrying out of the provisions of the law, however,
requires additional investment of some magnitude and makes it necessary
to raise rents.

The authorities are therefore faced with the necessity either of neg-
lecting law enforcement or of protecting the tenant against rents which
he is not prepared to pay. The only other alternative is to seek another
place of habitation of lower standard. It is at this point that rent legisla-
tion might be effective. Indeed it could be made a two-way legal mech-
anism for the improvement of conditions. In the first instance, it is not
inconsistent with good public policy to make rent paying conditional
on compliance with the essential requirements of the law, such as fire
protection, proper repairs to avoid accidents, and minimum requirements
of sanitation regarding water supply, toilet facilities, and so on. Violations
recorded by the law-enforcing authority should be made sufficient evi-
dence of non-compliance within a given time and should result in in-
ability to collect rents by legal means. I am aware that by this method
it would not always be possible to promote improvements, because often
the shortage of low-rental housing keeps tenants from moving even
though conditions of living are substandard. This method would bring
about a condition, however, in which the owners would at all times be
uncertain of their rents unless they comply with the law.

The other form of rent restriction is to prevent rent increases in build-
ings complying with the law and to fix the date before which such in-
creases could not take place without permission from some housing
authority. This method of rent control would relieve the law-enforcing
agency of the fear that such improvements would affect the tenants un-
favorably. It would also result in closer cooperation between the authori-
ties and the tenants. Indeed, I am looking forward to the time when the
tenants would relieve the housing reformer of his many activities in the
interest of good housing and take up the work on their own initiative
and under their own organizations. The difficulties which the tenants
have to meet in keeping rents from rising while securing some improve-
ment of their living conditions can be partly reduced as law enforce-
ment proceeds.

Another form of rent control is the kind imposed upon limited-
dividend housing corporations which receive tax exemption from the
municipalities for certain periods of years. It is conceivable that income-

156 THE LAW AND HOUSING

tax exemption on investments in low-rental housing might not be out of
place, provided rent controls could be coupled with such exemptions by
both the state and the federal government. Such tax exemption has never
been tried in this country.

Relief and Rent Control. There is one other form of rent control which
could be used as a means of encouraging compliance with the law. This
type of control relates to the rents paid out of relief funds. In the City
of New York around $38,000,000 a year has been paid in rents for relief
families. This represents a gross return on about $380,000,000. It goes
without saying that the refusal to pay rents in dwellings which violate
the most elementary legal requirements would result in many improve-
ments affecting the lives of families which would otherwise have little
voice in forcing these improvements. It is conceivable that relief agencies
could be helpful even to the landlords by advancing money for improve-
ments at a low rate of interest, the amount loaned to be refunded in
rentals which relief families would bring and also by making provisions
that, after the improvements have been made, no rent increases would
take place for a reasonable period of time. This form of legislative and
administrative control has never been formulated into law.

There are therefore two effective ways of using rent control, namely,
to prevent a shortage of dwellings from affecting rents, and the pro-
motion of improvements as a factor in rent collection.

Financing Laws. Building enterprise depends not so much upon the
cost of construction or the maintenance charges as upon the cost of
financing. The difference between a 5 per cent interest rate and a 6 per
cent rate spells the difference between housing the most needy or the
less needy families, if all financing costs must be reflected in rents. On
the other hand, if financing is placed under restrictions that are too
severe to encourage investment in housing, the supply of housing is
bound to be reduced and the rents for existing houses increased. Any
legislative effort in this direction must therefore guard against defeating
its own purpose. Let us see in what respects these dangers can be avoided.

All loans on dwelling houses, whether for individual occupancy or for
rent, should be limited to a fixed rate consistent with profitable invest-
ment so far as housing is concerned. A 4!/z to 5 per cent rate should not
detract from the available resources which should be directed into this
channel. With government insurance of such investment at cost, the risk
is reduced to a minimum. As the risk is reduced, interest rates should be
reduced to a point comparable with investment in public bond issues.
This method of encouragement of investment and control of profits
should apply to all housing and not alone to low-cost enterprises.

THE LAW AND HOUSING 157

It is my impression that many of the transactions of the Federal Hous-
ing Administration could reasonably apply a profit control which would
greatly aid in bringing the rent of new or improved dwellings within the
reach of families now living under undesirable conditions.

The cost of financing, the charges for special legal services, the record-
ing of deeds and various other forms of procedure which are necessary
as a preliminary to the undertaking of construction, should be simplified
and standardized, so as to reduce all costs to a minimum consistent with
the enterprise. Bond issues and the sale of stock on buildings should be
made a part of the marketing methods of real estate business procedure,
and the sale of such stock should be subject to the approval or a separate
division of government equipped to pass upon the desirability and paying
power of a particular housing enterprise. Such a procedure would protect
investors and spread the housing investment load, so as to make possible
large enterprises with the cooperation of a large number of small investors.

Government credit should be made available at a low rate of interest,
or at an interest rate which would cover the cost of money use to the
government agency plus a small service fee. The resources of the Postal
Savings, which the federal government has at its disposal, and the funds
which are to accumulate from the Unemployment and Disability Insur-
ance in both federal and state treasuries, should in part be made available
for housing purposes. This does not imply government housing enter-
prise, but the promotion of private enterprise under conditions of financ-
ing which would provide a steady flow of housing investment credit
and interest rates which would reflect government credit. In other words,
the public authorities should not take over the financing of housing, but
should act as a balance between the charges that private investment makes
and the charges which housing can carry under normal conditions of
investment risk.

Other sources of housing investment are savings banks and insurance
companies which have at their disposal large sums of money, a consider-
able portion of which is invested in real estate of some kind. These
institutions make loans for profit at interest rates consistent with the
money market. Under proper insurance-risk provisions, tax exemptions,
and legislative enactment, these financial institutions could be required
to invest a certain portion of their deposits in low-rent housing. It is a
well known fact that during the periods of prosperity much building
was undertaken to meet luxury needs. When the depression came, the
market for luxury housing suffered, while at the same time there was
and there still exists a shortage of low-rent housing. Many of these in-
vestments in luxury housing have proved unprofitable. It would not be

158 THE LAW AND HOUSING

out of keeping with public policy to legislate in the matter of insurance
and savings banks investments, so that the funds of millions of small
investors would be invested in low-cost, low-rent housing, at a rate
consistent with the revenue-producing power of such housing. German
law provided that 10 per cent of the assets of such financial institutions
be invested in housing. In this country the per cent of investment in
housing might remain flexible so as to meet the needs of the market in
matters of money, resources, and housing needs. The authority which
is to be created to determine investment validity in the issuing of stocks
and bonds for housing, should have jurisdiction over insurance and sav-
ings bank investment. The function of this official agency to be estab-
lished by the individual states should determine not only the validity of
the investment, but also the standard and class of construction to be
undertaken according to need. This may mean an elaborate organization
with a research staff and expert service. In the end, however, the investor
would take little risk and the home purchaser and renter would be pro-
tected against housing shortages, which result either from the building
of dwellings least in demand insofar as rental ranges are concerned, or
from fluctuations in the building investment market.

Mortgage Regulations. The methods of financing housing in the past
have, to a large extent, been responsible for much of the survival of old
buildings. The fact that most mortgages were placed upon property as
a source of continuous income for a given period of time, after which
the full amount borrowed was due, is responsible for a good deal of our
housing problem. As the day of reckoning was far off, revenue and ex-
penses were not based on calculations which included amortization at the
expiration of the mortgage. Indeed, many loans were made on valu-
ations which could hardly be considered as contemplating amortization.
Increased land values in the course of the life of the mortgage were a
consideration in the original loan. These conditions have resulted in many
foreclosures in which both the owner and mortgagees were the losers.
It would seem that insofar as low-cost housing is concerned, at least,
mortgages should be protected by clauses which would provide for a
gradual amortization of loans on housing. This would make money for
housing more fluid, and at the same time it would protect both the equity
of the borrower and that of the lender. There is little reason for making
loans without provisions for gradual amortization. The Federal Housing
Administration has set the example of gradual amortization. The present
need is for legal provisions which would require all legally authorized
lending institutions to make loans under conditions which provide for
the amortization of the loan within a reasonable length of time. Most

THE LAW AND HOUSING 159

loans for housing are made by financial institutions under public control.
Legislation requiring amortization could be made part of this control.

PROMOTIVE LEGISLATION

This type of law is intended to give aid where aid would do the most
good in producing and maintaining the best housing in the interest of
the people most in need of such housing. There are many forms of this
type of legislation, most of which have been tried either in the United
States or in some other country. I shall take them in the order of their
importance.

Tax Exemption. This form of promotive legislation is planned to en-
courage the building of certain types of dwellings designed to meet a
particular need at a particular time. When the Great War was over,
many countries, including the United States, devised means for encour-
aging building in order to keep up with the demand and make up the
deficiency caused by the construction lag during the War.

In the City of New York alone, tax-exemption legislation encouraged
in the Borough of Queens a great building boom which resulted in
enough construction to accumulate, to date, a deficit in uncollected
taxes, because of exemptions said to amount to from $250,000,000 to
$300,000,000. Had this method of promoting construction yielded an
amount and quality housing equivalent to the amount sacrificed by the
community in taxes, the sacrifice would have been well worth the ex-
periment. Unfortunately the granting of tax exemption merely resulted
in the construction in most instances of jerry-built dwellings which be-
came obsolescent long before they served their purpose. Indeed, this
form of tax exemption, instead of benefiting those who were to be housed,
enabled the promoters to divert the benefits into their own pockets as
they resold the tax-exemption privilege to the consumer. This practice
has not been continued, but the lesson was well paid for by the taxpayer
of New York City.

The main objective in the granting of tax exemption is the promotion
of investment in low-rental housing. The policy above outlined failed
to achieve this end, and the question is, should we abandon tax exemp-
tion or should it be modified in order to attain the desired results and to
benefit those most in need of these benefits?

It is obvious that, if tax exemption is to be granted on individual build-
ings, the individual merits of each structure in relation to the benefit it
will yield to the occupant should enter into consideration. No building
should be tax-exempt in advance of its actual operation or occupancy
by individual owners or by tenants. The rental to be charged should be

160 THE LAW AND HOUSING

fixed on the basis of the exemption so that it will become virtually a rent
subsidy, rather than a tax subsidy. These subsidies should be limited
strictly to habitations intended for the very lowest income group and
should not reach into the higher brackets, as they so often do.

The exemption from taxation often is applied to buildings and not to
the land upon which the building stands. Whether this is more or less
in line with the theory that land values are public values and should
meet their tax obligations as a form of repayment for values received
through the development of the community, is not very certain. The
fact is that it is the practice. It may also be due to the fact that as long
as land values remain under the normal tax system there is an induce-
ment to make the land productive by building upon it. After the build-
ing is constructed, however, there does not seem to be any reason for
the differentiation, except that it makes the tax exemption smaller than
it would otherwise be.

The whole system of tax exemption, except in the case of small single
dwellings occupied by the owners, does not seem to me to be justified.
If we are to consider tax exemption as a form of rent subsidy, it would
seem simpler to create subsidies which would be directly beneficial to
the occupants. Any roundabout way may promote construction, but it
may not reach the neediest of families.

There are still other objections to tax exemptions. In cases where older
buildings must compete with new and tax-exempt buildings, the disad-
vantage to the old buildings is far out of proportion to the difference in
the character of the investment and works to the disadvantage of the
older buildings. A further objection is to be found in the fact that tax
exemptions, 5 applied on a large scale, may affect the local budget to
the extent that the usual services which a community generally renders
may have to be reduced to the point where an advantage gained in
housing may be counteracted by a disadvantage in the lowering of the
efficiency of other needed services.

In the case of limited-dividend corporations, where it is clear that all
profits derived from the ownership of dwellings will be limited to a speci-
fied and reasonable yield and the rest will be used in the reduction of
rents, tax exemption is justified, provided this reduction in rent affects
families with low incomes and is not extended to the upper-income
groups.

As has already been stated, the general practice of fixing limited divi-
dends on housing investment at 6 per cent does not seem justified. Most
of the loans on housing not favored by tax exemption privileges are made
at between 6 and 7 per cent under normal money-market conditions.

THE LAW AND HOUSING 161

There is therefore no reason for granting special privileges on any in-
vestment changing the market rate of interest.

There is one form of tax exemption which I believe would find justi-
fication when applied to housing, and that is state and federal income-
tax exemption. These exemptions could be applied to owners of housing
projects which have been recognized as essential to the community and
which serve the lower-income groups in a manner not met by other pri-
vate enterprise. There seems to be no reason for tax exemption of govern-
ment bond owners, where the proceeds have been used to meet the cost
of specific public services if housing, when built and maintained as a
public service and at a profit as low as that derived from government
bonds, is not exempt from income taxes.

Subsidies. In recent years there has been some confusion between
government effort to promote housing and the more direct financial
assistance which has been afforded by various government agencies in
improving housing conditions for underprivileged families. It is quite
obvious that any government service which has to do with the setting
up of housing standards, helping in furnishing economical designs, devel-
oping site plans, and in forcing the destruction of undesirable housing,
is not subsidy. It is essentially a service which the government feels called
upon to render in the interest of the common welfare, and is in line with
the services rendered in agriculture, mining, public health, and so forth.

Nor can it be said that legislation enacted in order to keep the cost
of housing within reasonable bonds is subsidy. Legislation fixing maxi-
mum interest rates, limiting the prices of materials through control of
trusts dealing in building materials, is not subsidy. It is merely the effort
of the government to prevent the exploitation of the have-nots by those
who have. Even where the government is directly concerned with facili-
tating the financing of housing enterprise, but where the government
expects either to be reimbursed or merely to play the part of an inter-
mediary between financial institutions and the borrower, there can be
no question of subsidy. Such service as is being rendered by the Federal
Housing Administration is not subsidy, even if the government were to
meet all the expenses of its administration.

In many cases the government makes itself responsible for bonds issued
for housing purposes, thus taking the risk involved in such investment,
but with the expectation that the bonds would be redeemed and interest
charges paid out of the revenue to be derived from the investment. This
can not properly be designated as subsidy. A subsidy is, therefore, a grant
of money or other privileges and advantages which have a money value

162 THE LAW AND HOUSING

intended to make possible the performance of a service or the creation
of a commodity which would not otherwise be made available.

Capital Subsidy. This is a subsidy consisting of a given amount of
money granted to either a public or a private agency for the purpose
of securing certain results. In the case of housing there has been con-
siderable question as to the right of specific government agencies to grant
housing subsidies. That question no longer agitates either the legal pro-
fession or the housing reformers. Subsidies have been granted and are still
to be granted under the United States Housing Administration, as pro-
vided by the Wagner Act. The original fund allocated to this arm of the
government has been and will continue to be increased. The United
States Housing Administration, in fact, promises to become a permanent
federal agency concerned with housing, just as the Housing Division of
the Ministry of Health of England has become the prime mover in all
housing activity, as to both standards and finance.

The $520,000,000 which the United States Housing Administration
was granted in the original act, however, provides that any investments
which are made should be administered by local housing authorities.
This involves additional legislation which would provide the local hous-
ing authorities with the powers to handle the properties subsidized by
the federal government, and with additional powers to expand the bene-
fits to be derived from federal funds by supplementary resources derived
from state, county or municipal sources. By 1938, eighteen states
had enacted legislation providing for the appointment of local housing
authorities. Most of the laws were sufficiently liberal to make possible
almost any enterprise in the field of housing finance and management,
while others are more restricted. The New York State law is particu-
larly liberal and should make it possible to surmount most difficulties
that might stand in the way of public initiative in promoting housing.
The enabling act which provides for the appointment of local housing
authorities contains provisions regarding condemnation of land, bond
issues independent of the municipal debt limit, management and rent
control, and research possibilities. The main defect in the act is to be
found in the failure to provide specifically for inclusion by the munici-
pality of the authority's budget, so as to insure adequate staff and other
expenses.

In providing capital subsidies the tendency is to base such subsidies
on some specific percentage of the cost of the buildings, regardless of
the cost of the land, the fluctuation in the cost of materials and labor,
and the resources of the families to be served. It is quite obvious that,
where slum clearance is to be undertaken, the payment for demolition,

THE LAW AND HOUSING 163

the coverage of the cost of the land (which has usually reached a high
figure), and the resources of the families living in slums would require
a much higher capital subsidy to attain the same results than could be
attained in open areas, where land is cheap and the class of people to
accommodate have larger resources from which rents could be paid. A
dead-level standard is therefore likely to stand in the way of housing,
rather than to promote it. The United States Housing Authority no
longer follows this policy of fixed subsidies, and state and local govern-
ments, it is hoped, will follow the example of the federal government.

As the New York City Housing Authority has pointed out, the ques-
tion in that city is how to meet the difference between $11 a month
per room, which is the minimum at which housing can be provided in
New York, and $6 a month per room, which is the maximum that under-
housed families in New York can pay.2 In other cities, the difference
between rent that must be charged as fixed by the cost of a decent dwell-
ing and the rent actually paid may be different, and thus the subsidy
may require a different basis. Subsidy legislation should therefore be
sufficiently flexible to meet all conditions, and should not be hedged in
by minimum or maximum limits. If the authorities in charge of the vast
sums of money required to subsidize housing can be depended upon to
administer the law, they should be trusted with the task of making such
adjustments as circumstances demand. These adjustments might be made
to meet changes in the cost of materials, wage scales, land costs affecting
total housing costs, and the regional characteristics which play a part in
both standards of construction and climatic conditions.

Interest Subsidies. Rents are calculated on the basic cost of money, plus
maintenance, administration costs, and amortization of capital invest-
ment. Assuming a capital investment of $1,000,000,000, a rate of interest
of 5 per cent, and considering the normal costs of land and construction
at an average of $5,000 per apartment, a gross return of 10 per cent on the
investment would mean a rent of $500 per annum. The sum of $250 per
annum would be devoted to covering the actual interest on the investment.
Should the federal government, the state, and the municipality combine
to meet the interest rates on such investments, the total annual cost of
the interest to be met would be $50,000,000 per year, which divided by
three would place a responsibility of $16,666,666.67 upon the various
governmental entities assuming the responsibility for this type of subsidy.
Certainly this is not a very large sum of money. Indeed, with government
investment insurance and the use of government credit methods in bor-
rowing money, the interest rate could be reduced to 3 1A per cent or

2 See What Price Subsidy? New York Housing Authority, 1937.

164 THE LAW AND HOUSING

$35,000,000 per annum, an amount which the various government units
could certainly carry without serious interference with budgetary bal-
ances. Whether this amount is to be included directly in the budget, as
would be the case with the share of the states and federal government,
or whether it is to be derived from a special tax on business buildings or
other property, is a matter of detail. The fact is that rents could be re-
duced to one-half their present range without serious financial difficulties.
As amortization progresses the contribution of the amount originally
guaranteed as to interest may be applied to new housing enterprises of
a similar character. By adding capital subsidies on land or buildings to the
interest subsidies to the extent of the original cost of land and buildings,
the amount of the subsidy covering a flat 35 per cent of the total cost,
it would be possible to build $ i ,000,000,000 worth of dwellings, the in-
vestment from private sources being $650,000,000, on which the interest
cost would be $22,250,000 per year. Is it not conceivable that this coun-
try by a combination of the various government units could meet three
or four times this amount without difficulty?3 The reduction in rents
under this plan would for the first time in the history of this country
come within the reach of a large number of our lower-income groups.
Such a procedure would increase the supply of low rentals and afford an
opportunity to reorganize the building industry, reduce costs, and raise
standards. I am aware that the subsidy in capital investment would not be
a full saving in rent because of maintenance requirements, but it would
materially reduce rents. In this manner the $5 and $6 per room rental rate
could be brought within the reach of a very large number of American
families.

From a legal point of view, there are many questions to be solved in
the matter of sources from which both subsidies, the direct cost subsidies
and the interest subsidies, should be derived. The tax on business property
which New York City has secured the right to impose through the state
legislature may be practical in this great metropolitan center, but it might
prove less practical in smaller cities. Consumer taxes such as have been
suggested at various times can hardly be said to have the popular appeal
that other forms of taxes have, if any taxation has popular appeal. But
whether the funds are to be derived from taxes on sales, or from additional

8 The New York State Legislature enacted the Occupancy Tax Bill, which permits the City
of New York to impose a tax of from $2 to $6 on premises within the city, according to size,
in order to provide funds for the payment of interest on bonds for low-rental housing. The
act is contained in Chapter 395 of the Laws of 1938. By constitutional amendment New York
State has recently made provisions for $300,000,000 to be used for housing purposes in the
state. Other states will certainly follow the example of New York.

:'

THE LAW AND HOUSING 167

taxes on business property which stands to benefit from better housing
and building activity, or whether it is to be an addition to the regular
budget of the governmental entities concerned, will have to be settled
by experience. It is certain that by a combination of federal, state, county,
and municipal financing the total burden could be so distributed as to
make it practical without material additions to normal tax rates. These
forms of subsidy may require a considerable amount of new legislation
and possibly constitutional amendments, in order to protect any enter-
prises of this kind against the vagaries of court litigation and court de-
cisions. If the home is in any way a determining factor in health, family
stability, safety, and so on, it is certainly entitled to play a part in the
general expenditures for such purposes through the medium of housing.

Rent Subsidies. Rent subsidies have been granted for a long time in
the United States, but the objectives have been rather in the direction of
saving dependent families from being deprived of shelter rather than
toward the promotion of better housing. The City of New York alone,
during the height of the depression, paid out around $38,000,000 a year
in rents, and in many instances these rents went to owners of dwellings
which were violating the law in many respects and exposed the tenants
to a great variety of health and accident hazards. The type of rent sub-
sidy I have in mind, which is recognized— particularly in England— as a
justified method of promoting good housing, is a rental subsidy which is
intended to cover the difference between what tenants can pay or are
paying in poor housing and the cost of decent dwellings.

In my own estimation, rent subsidy in the form of relief is hardly con-
sistent with American methods of dealing with individual families which
are in every way self-supporting, but which although appreciating good
housing lack the revenue necessary to pay the rents required. If rent
subsidies are to be made part of the program of promoting the construc-
tion of low-rental housing, it should be handled rather as a grant to the
landlord covering the difference between a fixed return on the investment
and the rentals that can be obtained from families living in such dwellings.
Indeed, it is quite possible that certain owners would be willing to build
dwellings for the low-rental families with the understanding that these
rents are to be fixed by the local housing authority, which would estab-
lish a sliding scale of rents to be fixed for various income family groups,
the government making up the difference between the normal rentals for
the apartments and the rentals which are considered consistent with in-
dividual family incomes.

This form of subsidy would present some difficulties because of the
possibilities of political influence and the necessity for making annual

168 THE LAW AND HOUSING

appropriations. However, there is no reason why the administration of
such a policy of rent subsidies should be discarded simply because it has
possibilities of political mismanagement. We have removed politics from
many government activities in the last generation, and the transactions in-
volved in housing-rent subsidies are not too complex to lend themselves
to effective scrutiny. This form of subsidy embodies both the features of
differential rents and rent subsidy. These can be applied more effectively
in combination than as separate forms of subsidy:

Land Subsidies. One of the most difficult problems in the development
of housing projects of any considerable magnitude is the assembling of
parcels of land adequate for such projects. Indeed, the cost of the land
is often greatly out of proportion to the value which such land has when
used for low-rental housing. One form of subsidy which the government
might undertake is the acquisition of lands in large parcels at a low price
and the turning over of those lands to private enterprise for use in low-
rental housing. This would make the total housing cost fit into a rental
pattern consistent with the rent-paying resources of the families to be
housed.

If the land policy which we suggested in another part of this book is to
be carried out, many of the communities would be in a position to reduce
the whole problem of land costs to a minimum, even though the charges
for such land represent the actual cost to the community. It would be
largely a matter of wise planning in land acquisition rather than a matter
of land grants in the form of subsidies.

Improvement Subsidies. When a housing project is of sufficient magni-
tude to constitute a small community, more or less independent of the
surrounding developments or areas, it is conceivable that the undertaking
be planned jointly with the city, so that the community would meet all
of the essential costs of equipping such a community and leave the actual
housing to the authority or private agency undertaking the project. The
cost of roads, the providing of open spaces, the acquisitions and develop-
ment of parks and playgrounds, the construction of school facilities,
sewers, water and fire-protection services, all might be undertaken by the
municipality, the town, the county, or the state, or a combination of these.
This should be done so that actual investment would be confined, inso-
far as the housing is concerned, to the cost of construction and to such
charges for the site as might be necessary under particular circumstances.

The forms of subsidies discussed above indicate the extent to which
various government agencies can serve housing through investment di-
rectly or indirectly in housing projects. Some of these investments are
self -liquidating, while others represent a service which the government

THE LAW AND HOUSING 169

feels called upon to perform in order to raise the standard of housing, to
promote an adequate supply of low-rental dwellings, and to bring into
harmony the rent-paying resources of the people with the type of dwell-
ing that would guarantee a reasonable standard of home life.

It has been alleged that it would be cheaper to rehabilitate slum areas
which already contain within their neighborhood the various services,
facilities, and improvements essential to housing development rather than
to make new investment in outlying areas. Such an allegation can hardly
be accepted as valid in most cases. In the slums the underground services
are often obsolete and in need of replacement, and the playgrounds are
inadequate or wholly lacking. The schools are often overcrowded, obso-
lete as to construction and educational requirements, while school build-
ing sites are without sufficient open space. If we are to think of housing
not alone as a replacement of old buildings by new ones, but as a general
rehabilitation of the surroundings and community amenities, it is obvious
that the clearing of slum dwellings is not enough.

If we take into account high land costs and the necessity for reconstruc-
tion of services and amenities in the slum areas in order to bring about
fundamental changes in the way people are served both inside their homes
and in the neighborhood, a new and different set of economic considera-
tions must be included in the calculations of the cost of slum clearance.
If the same housing and neighborhood conditions can be created by
slum clearance at the same cost per housing unit in the slum as in the
outlying districts, no one would gainsay the advantage of clearing up our
slums. If, on the other hand, the families to be rehoused under a specific
appropriation are to be less numerous and the surrounding neighborhood
conditions are to remain of the same low standard as before the clearing
away of the old buildings, it is obvious that in the interest of the slum
dwellers the peripheral development of housing would be more desirable.
I am aware that this would not help to rehabilitate investments in slum
buildings, but that is not a housing problem. It is a problem in private
finance, in replanning for uses which would absorb present slum land
values and the salvaging of investments which were not justified, and are
not justified at present, in view of their failure to produce the revenues
which their valuations would justify in other enterprises. The govern-
ment never comes to the rescue of bad business investments in other fields;
why should the burden therefore be carried by the government and the
poor in salvaging bad business in housing?

It should not be assumed that these subsidies or services are a form of
charity or relief to the poor. The fact is that, under our present eco-
nomic system, the lower tenth of our families could never be served by

170 THE LAW AND HOUSING

any housing movement short of such free housing as was provided under
the socialist regime of Vienna, where rental rates were intended merely
to meet the cost of the actual care of the buildings. In my own view,
housing is a public necessity, like shipping, roads, and a water-supply and
waste-disposal system. The question is not who is to pay for it, but how
it is to be provided. The responsibility rests with the governing bodies,
and the cost should be met by the people as they meet all other necessities.
This brings within the range of public service a minimum housing stand-
ard for all families, and it is as essential as the minimum standards of
health, education, or public safety. It may take amendments to the fed-
eral and state constitution, changes in our tax system by legal enactment,
laws fixing responsibilities for housing finance which would involve all
forms of local, county and state administration, and possibly a new legal
interpretation of property rights and property values more in keeping
with the housing market and minimum housing standards.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

i . Housing regulations. The body of restrictive legislation which cities
and towns have enacted in the last thirty-five or forty years has tended
to keep costs at high levels, without bringing building technique into
harmony with the advance in the manufacture of building materials. The
brick manufacturers, the roofing material industry, the insurance under-
writers, and others engaged in deriving profits from the building indus-
try, have often combined their forces to impose legal requirements which
are not essential in the construction of low-rental housing, but which
have nevertheless persisted under the pressure of strong local and state
lobbies. The federal government has recently made some efforts in the
direction of simplifying and reorganizing building methods, but no effort
has been made to apply these methods to the revision of our housing and
building codes. Safety has often been overstressed to the disadvantage of
living comfort, and fire hazards have been used as an excuse for imposing
heavy costs upon the building industry. The stress has, however, been
largely upon the protection of buildings rather than human lives.

It would be to the advantage of the whole building industry, and par-
ticularly to low-cost housing, if the states or a federal commission with
regional offices were to engage in the revaluation of our housing and
building codes in the light of new techniques and costs, as well as in re-
gard to the matter of bringing new materials into uses where such ma-
terials would improve the functional value of housing, while simplify-
ing, expediting construction, and reducing cost and maintenance charges.
An official testing bureau at Washington with an adequate staff would be

THE LAW AND HOUSING 171

of inestimable value in keeping the construction industry in step with
technological progress and national economy.

2. Tariff laws. There is little reason for the present fluctuations of
building material prices. The cost of production may change slightly
from time to time, but the changes in the prices of materials are largely
due to a nervous market, which takes advantage of every increase in
the demand. It would seem that as the demand increases, production also
would increase to keep up with demand, thus keeping price levels steady.
Unfortunately the reverse is true in this country. As soon as consumption
drops, prices drop, and as soon as it increases, prices rise. The government
of England has devised a method of building-material control which
keeps the balance between consumption and prices. The tariff can always
be adjusted to meet the increase in prices in a manner that stabilizes the
market and keeps prices at an even level. It is my understanding that this
device is not used, but it is an emergency tool not without value in over-
coming the machinations of a controlled market. No one desires to sub-
stitute imported materials for local products, but as a means of price con-
trol in the interest of low-rental housing it is worth consideration.

Cooperatives and the Law. In this country cooperative organizations
have made scant progress. The whole mechanism of our business methods
has confined cooperative activity to special phases of business where the
retail production of certain commodities requires assembling and servic-
ing in order to meet the requirements of the market insofar as quantity
and quality are concerned. The raisin growers' association, the orange
and other fruit growers' associations, and the milk cooperatives are ex-
amples of this kind. They are essentially devices for assembling and mar-
keting goods. In housing, cooperative activity has been very limited and
has been practiced, with a few notable exceptions,4 by the higher-income
groups.

By proper legal mechanisms and financial advantages, cooperative hous-
ing for the lower-income families might be made effective. Some of these
are as follows:

1. Low-interest-rate loans to cooperatives with resources ample to
guarantee the safety of these loans.

2. Exemption from taxation of land and buildings where rentals are
below a certain fixed maximum and where the standards are satisfactory
to the government loaning agency.

3. Exemption from corporation taxes.

4. Provisions for a simple government-supervised system of insurance
which would cover investment, fire, accident, and any other form of

*The Amalgamated Clothing Workers' Union constructed two very successful projects in
New York. Also, the Full-Fashioned Hosiery Workers Union in Philadelphia has carried
through a housing project with the aid of government funds.

172 THE LAW AND HOUSING

required and beneficial insurance which could be carried on by a com-
bination of cooperative agencies.

5. The creation through government initiative of savings bank facili-
ties which would be directly related to housing cooperatives, wholly or
in part, with the powers to raise funds for cooperative housing projects.
These funds would be insured and the interest limited to a reasonable rate
consistent with the productive capacity of cooperative housing. Such a
banking system might be made a part of the postal savings system, thus
placing the credit of the United States Government in the position of
guarantor of housing funds accumulating for housing purposes of a co-
operative character only.

We have had very little experience in the United States with this type
of housing finance and ownership, and it is not safe to forecast the methods
that should be followed. We can learn much from Scandinavian and
English experience, but no doubt our mode of doing business would re-
quire many adjustments to meet our conditions. However, the coopera-
tive presents a vast field of useful activity which would in part make the
workers take the initiative in solving at least a portion of their own
housing problem. Much of our housing effort has been directed by people
who invested in housing as an economical venture. The cooperatives
would offer the workers a chance to participate in improving their own
living conditions.

SUMMARY

The discussion regarding housing legislation which is contained in this
chapter is not intended to be exhaustive. It merely indicates the variety
of fronts upon which the problem must be attacked. It is not enough
to play hide and seek with the interests organized to profit from the
business of building and renting houses. No sooner has the reformer
secured the enactment of one law than the real-estate interests, through
their lobby, secure another to counteract its effects. Nor is government
subsidy in its many forms enough to bring up the standard of housing to
a level consistent with our civilization. The economic structure which
shapes the destiny of housing is too complex and too thoroughly inter-
woven with a vast number of interests and institutions to be reoriented
easily toward improved housing standards. A legislative program must
be as comprehensive as the radius of the factors which determine its
efficacy. It must extend from the simple regulations as to minimum of
sanitation and safety to the credit system which makes financing pos-
sible and to the planning regulations which make investment safe and
lasting. These vast ramifications of housing law I have endeavored to
present as briefly as the subject permits.

Urbanism and Housing

CHAPTER VII
URBANISM AND HOUSING

Civilization is inseparable from urban living. Without cities civiliza-
tion is inconceivable. All striving toward national unity, all expression
of social synthesis, all the streams of creative power and the elements that
transform natural resources into vital human services, must seek their
full realization in urban rather than in rural communities.

The negative attitude toward our cities, which places upon them the
blame for our social and economic ills, is born of our failure to realize
that criminality, high mortality rates, confusion and congestion, are the
byproducts rather than the fundamental characteristics of urban living.
These evils, so frequently confused with city living, are essentially due to
the failure of modern civilization, and indeed of the civilizations of the
past, to fully evaluate the potentialities of communal living and the
changing and advancing technical skill which might be applied to the
transformation of urban environment, so that it might keep pace with
advancing social order. The culture of cities is not to be viewed as morbid
or decadent. The unreadiness of society to make the necessary sacrifices
essential in the mating of new philosophies and outlooks on life with
physical well-being, as expressed in a well planned and well ordered city,
has stigmatized urban living as unnatural and undesirable. Indeed, the
line of demarcation between urban and rural living is bound to become
more and more blurred as the rural communities and their inhabitants
become aware of the values inherent in the kind of intensive cultural life
which the cities afford.

I do not look with apprehension upon the depopulation of rural com-
munities. They are merely the symptoms of the desire of rural people
for a fuller life, which rural communities fail to offer. When the whole
of this country becomes entirely urban, not in the methods and kinds of
production, but in the ways of living, we shall have achieved full civili-
zation. For urbanism is essentially a way of life, which brings into play
all of the achievements in the sciences, the arts, the skills which make
life productive and safe and convenient, into a clear-visioned set of ob-
jectives, in which human life becomes sacred and human effort a con-
tribution toward the welfare of the whole social order.

The conditions which have caused cities to become insensible to the
demands of normal living may be listed as follows:

175

176 URBANISM AND HOUSING

1 . The incoherent growth of our cities, due to the too-rapid increase
in population, and to economic activity under a laggard adjustment be-
tween physical plant and the load of human requirements which it must
carry.

2. The failure to control this growth according to a predetermined
concept of the essential requirements of urban living.

3. The more rapid application of technological advance to industry
than to life.

4. The precedence granted to individual property rights over the right
to decent living.

5. The misconception of the value of transit that produces increased
transportation facilities instead of trying to reduce the need for trans-
portation.

6. The regard for the efficiency of a particular service as a mechanical
device rather than as a social tool.

7. The farming out of public services to private enterprise, such as
transportation, water supply, gas, electricity, communication, and other
services essential to the orderly and economical growth of communities.

8. The failure to safeguard the interests and welfare of the smaller com-
munities, and the concentration upon the larger centers of population.

9. The lack of coherent regional planning, as opposed to the methods
of metropolitan planning, which is designed to subordinate the smaller
to the larger community.

10. The lag in urbanizing the rural and semi-rural communities insofar
as the value of the good life is concerned. This has led to migrations from
the less populous to the more populous centers.

1 1 . The divergence in the economic conditions, technological ad-
vance, wage scales, labor-dispute control, migrations of industry, and
the periodic economic changes because of the so-called business cycles,
which result in shifts in population from city to city, from region to
region, and from rural to urban and urban to rural areas.

1 2 . The lack of government restraint in permitting expansion of munic-
ipal entities beyond their capacity to use the land economically and to
serve it efficiently.

These, it seems to me, are the essential causes of our deplorable urban
conditions and of the development of unsatisfactory and uneconomical
methods of administering and serving the interest of housing and other
community needs.

Rapid Increase in Population. We have already pointed out in our
chapter on population that the growth of our cities has been more rapid

URBANISM AND HOUSING 177

than have been the means of absorbing that growth. In the thirty years
between 1900 and 1930, the cities of the United States have added 39,-
000,000 people to their population. This increase represents 80 per cent
of the total increase in the population of the United States during the
three decades following 1900. It must be admitted that many of these
gains have been brought about by normal growth of communities which
had, in the course of three decades, increased in population to justify
their classification as urban communities. There were also the expansions
of many cities beyond their boundaries in order to absorb urban, semi-
urban, and rural population, either for the purpose of capturing addi-
tional territory for taxation purposes, or out of a desire to rise in the
census classification of cities. Whatever the cause, the fact remains that
69,000,000 people live in cities, most of which have been unprepared to
absorb the population which they include. To make preparations for the
absorption of a population one and one-half times larger than the original
number of people living in these cities during 1900, meant a task of re-
construction to which we were obviously not equal, and for which we
were unprepared. This is undoubtedly the fundamental cause of much
present-day confusion, and the task ahead seems almost unsurmountable.
The difficulty is not so much in lack of planning ability and skill as in the
vast investment which the present-day cities represent, and the vested
interest created by the very fact that the faster the increase in population,
the more rapid is the enhancement of the alleged values of these vested
interests. The rise in the money value of these vested interests depends
for its realization upon the very factor of population which was respon-
sible for the lag in the adjustment of the physical plant to social needs.

Control of Growth and Mode of Living. The race for population in-
crease had no corresponding counterpart in preplanning. Land could be
overloaded to take care of additional population or industrial and com-
mercial activity; residential areas could be transformed or rebuilt, or
merely abandoned to more intensive uses. Not until very recently have
cities made any effort in the direction of controlling these chaotic
changes. Intensification of uses, and misdirected placing of certain busi-
ness and industrial activities to meet the exigencies of immediate private
profit, with utter disregard for the long-range interests of both public
and private investment, have been common practices.

Zoning came into use in the latter part of the last decade of the nine-
teenth century, but its advance has been so slow and so completely at the
mercy of private interests, that in many cases it became a form of real-
estate racket, even while pretending to provide adequate protection for
both investor and the people at large. Even to this day, zoning has not

178 URBANISM AND HOUSING

reached a point of efficiency where it can be safely counted upon to
serve the best interests of the people. Every city has accepted some kind
of zoning regulation, but much of this has been wholly out of harmony
with actual needs, and in some instances has become merely a tool with
which politicians can play at granting favors. This is true not alone of
the larger cities but of smaller communities, where the honest and pur-
poseful work of planning commissions is distorted and nullified by boards
of appeal which deliberately misread the law and distort its purpose.

Where neighborhoods have gained a certain integration and developed
social values consistent with the needs of the residents, again and again
the pressure of population and the desire to capitalize the economic value
of this pressure have destroyed the advantages inherent in such neighbor-
hood integration.

Whatever planning has been done has been designed to alleviate prob-
lems arising out of the lack of control, rather than to anticipate problems
that might arise. Thus, transit facilities had to be developed to meet exist-
ing congestion, which had no justification from the point of view of
orderly settlement. Suburban development took place, not as a normal
choice of a particular mode of living, but as a means of escape from in-
tolerable conditions that had overcome the city. Playgrounds which were
ample for the normal life of settled communities, with ample space, soon
became necessities which had to be carved out of heavily built-up areas
at enormous costs. Schools, which were originally adequate for the spe-
cific neighborhood, suddenly became inadequate, and additional space
had again to be wrested from the highly commercialized and heavily
taxed areas, in order to provide for the most elementary needs of the
children of school age. Country once open was soon transformed into
highly speculative real-estate enterprises, covered with buildings intended
to derive the largest revenue from the smallest possible space. The coun-
try was pushed farther and farther out of the reach of the people, thus
making additional park spaces essential. These park spaces also had to be
created out of built-up areas that could only be acquired at a heavy -cost,
and at a sacrifice of property yielding necessary taxes to the community.

Thus the reconstruction of our cities has been going on in a fragmen-
tary manner, and without changing the antiquated physical pattern
designed to serve a simple community. A complex set of communal
functions has had to be superimposed upon an outworn community
structure.

Technology and Ways of Living. One of the most startling and dis-
tressing inconsistencies of modern society is the advance of technological
methods and skill in the production of goods, and the contrasting lag in

URBANISM AND HOUSING 179

the application of technology to the planning, replanning, and reorgani-
zation of the ways of living. Indeed, many of our present-day ills are
the result of the too-rapid application of technology to the production
of goods. This has resulted in the removal from industry of ten or more
million workers, victims of "too much technology." It is a strange para-
dox that, while the application of the most advanced knowledge and skill
to the improvement of our cities would bring about a corresponding rise
in the standard of living, the application of the latest techniques to in-
dustrial production tends to accelerate and improve the efficiency of the
production organization, and to reduce the number of those who might
benefit by this advance.

Indeed, the obsolescence of production machinery is so rapid that
often a mechanism which in one season is the last word in quantity and
quality production, becomes obsolete and ready for the junk pile in the
next season. Not so with our homes and our communities. The more
cluttered they become, the less efficiently they serve the purpose of liv-
ing, the greater the number who flock to their precincts, the more slowly
they lend themselves to those changes which are known to be in the in-
terest of the inhabitants.

Modern science has let loose many forces, the uses of which are in-
tended to serve mankind. Unfortunately these forces have been more
commonly applied to the mechanics of manufacture of goods rather than
to the creation of good conditions of living. R. Buckminster Fuller, in
his recent book Nine Chains to the Moon, contributes a very interesting,
though somewhat fantastic, discussion of the vast implications which
science would suggest in dealing with the problem of shelter. These im-
plications might be carried further into the field of community planning
and of all the services which are required in civilized society. I wish
there could be devised a numerical index of the rapidity with which tech-
nology is applied to the production of things, as compared with the appli-
cation of a parallel development of technological knowledge to the
welfare of the human being, and in particular in regard to the lag in
its application to communal living. We know, and are continuing to
explore, the ills of disorganized communal living, but the great exploration
still remains to be undertaken. This exploration lies in the field of social
dynamics, which consists in the transformation of the sources of modern
technology into forces intended to serve a general social purpose.

The development of the present mechanistic and scientific age has
brought about a regrettable confusion between civilization as a social
achievement, and progress as an expression of the knowledge and skill
to achieve results. The latter only assumes significance as its benefits can

180 URBANISM AND HOUSING

be leveled downward to the last and humblest member of society. As long
as progress remains the privilege of the few and may be used as a nega-
tive force, it makes no contribution to civilization.

Property Rights and the Right to Decent Living. The most serious
obstacles in the path of communal reorganization and the development
of adequate living conditions are the concepts of property rights in land
and buildings, franchises and special privileges, which the community, in
its ignorance or lack of foresight, has allowed to fall into private hands.
In the industrial and commercial sphere of enterprise a change in the
demand, a new development in the method of production, a new trend
in the habits or fashions of people, must be met without any claim to
compensation for losses sustained. But in the matter of land or buildings,
or grants of special privileges derived from the community, any new
need, any change in trends, new discovery or new demand, must be met
by heavy payment out of the public treasury, not alone for the new im-
provement, but also to cover the loss due to the obsolescence of the old
ones. The line of demarcation between what constitutes a public menace,
and what is merely socially obsolescent and in need of replacement, is
very difficult to draw. Our legal machinery and fundamental laws are
designed to protect the values that are, rather than the values that can be.
The city in its struggle to emerge from its archaic state must face not
alone the losses sustained through its own mistakes, but also the cost of
the mistakes of the private individuals who, through their own ignorance
and disregard of the public well-being, have derived an advantage which
is in conflict with the public interest.

If ever a new way of living is to be evolved in our urban communi-
ties, it will be made possible only through a new concept of the privi-
leges of real property rights, in which the common good will play at
least as much of a role as the individual owner's interest. We have al-
ready made small beginnings in this direction in our zoning and, to a
certain extent, in our planning laws, but these beginnings are essentially
theoretical, and find little application in fact.

A New Transportation Economy. Our modern systems of transpor-
tation are perhaps the saddest of urban spectacles. We seem to accept the
theory and practice that the greater the transportation facilities, the more
advanced is the community. We fail to realize that transportation is
essentially a makeshift, an effort to overcome confusion by carrying
people and goods to and from the places where they should have been in
the beginning. In New York City alone, the number of passengers car-
ried by the various local transit systems, including the Hudson Tubes,
amounted to 3,420,999,488 in 1937, which at a five-cent fare amounts

URBANISM AND HOUSING 181

to over $171,000,000, or around $24 per year for every man, woman,
and child living in the city of New York. Dr. Martin Wagner, the bril-
liant city planner of Berlin, now teaching at Harvard University, has
pointed out the grave fallacy of this great waste of investment and energy
in transporting people. He designed an interesting cartoon in which he
demonstrated the fallacy of providing for transportation in the morning
in one direction, and in the evening in another direction, and pointed
out that while the transit system must be built to carry a peak load, its
service on the basis of this design is confined to perhaps two hours in the
morning and two hours in the afternoon, leaving the remaining eighteen
hours inactive. This condition can be verified by anyone who will take
the trouble to board a subway or elevated train at any of the hours which
are not heavy-load hours. Ten-car trains, carrying loads which could
easily be served by two or three cars, are running on the lines, using
labor and equipment which represents an annual waste— a waste which
could not be justified on any business basis.

On September 14, 1938, the Board of Transportation of the City of
New York submitted to the City Planning Commission a proposal or
plan for the construction of additional facilities for this great metropolis,
which would involve public expenditures amounting to $827,000,000.
Just what this additional expenditure is to achieve in the way of improv-
ing living conditions does not seem to be stated in the proposal. It is evi-
dent from the plan that a greater centralization of traffic would become
possible, and that the center of New York City would become more
accessible than at the present time. The main expenditure is obviously
intended to extend present lines of travel to outlying areas. Just what
effect this will have upon the already overloaded land use of the center
of New York is not part of the consideration of this plan. Similar projects
are contemplated by other cities throughout the country, and yet there
is every reason to believe that what is needed is not an increase in facili-
ties or a cutting of the time required to reach the center of the city, but
an integration of the individual areas of these cities as self-contained and
functionally self -integrated communities, where travel would be reduced
to a minimum and the distribution of population would be in harmony
with decent working and living conditions.

Efficiency and Service. In projecting any planning scheme for a given
community, the approach is generally clinical, treating of some specific
problem that has arisen out of neglect, unforeseen changes, overexploita-
tion of land, lack of public control, and similar conditions. The result
has been that a great deal of modern planning has been confined, with
a few notable exceptions, to the revamping and readjustment of facili-

182 URBANISM AND HOUSING

ties which have become unwieldy. The advance of the automobile has
diverted most planning from the creation of decent living conditions to
the development of streamlined traffic facilities, designed to make travel
safe, to save time, and to facilitate mass movement. It has been found,
however, that the more efficient these arteries of travel become, the less
efficient become the city streets, which have not been designed and have
never been intended to absorb more than the traffic originating in the
locality. The rigidity of the urban pattern is constantly in conflict with
the easy flow of outside traffic, which makes the periphery of the city
accessible in the same measure as it makes the city street unbearable.

The investment in parkways and boulevards has reached a point where
it is a serious question whether the cost of these boulevards can any
longer be borne by those who wish to take advantage of them by moving
out of the city. I have already pointed out that in Westchester County,
in New York State, there has been such a heavy burden placed upon the
properties that in order to justify the investment it will be necessary to
raise land values to a point where there would not be enough people of
sufficient means to purchase the land for housing or other purposes. The
result looming upon the horizon is that people who find the areas served
by these streamlined highways too costly move still further out into
the country, in order to be able to acquire land outside the zone of high
taxes and high land values. Thus the expenditures made by one com-
munity serve people in communities not subject to the heavy obligations.

A glance at the map of any metropolitan district will show that all,
or a major share, of the modern automobile roadways are planned in di-
rect relation to the metropolitan city, and not for the purpose of facili-
tating intercommunity travel within the area outside the metropolis.
These roads are, of course, technically very efficient, but socially they
serve the exact contrary purpose, namely, to accelerate congestion where
it already exists, rather than to distribute population, and all the essentials
for its independent living.

There is no doubt that the engineering skill and the vast sums of money
devoted to expanding traffic facilities to the periphery of our cities have
been productive of better travel, and have stimulated shifts in the popu-
lation from the center of the larger urban communities. They have also
brought the city population into closer contact with the open country.
In many cases, communities which geographically belonged in the sphere
of influence of the larger city, but which were isolated because of lack
of travel facilities, have now come to be more active participants in the
family of metropolitan settlements.

The question still remains, however, whether this improvement of

Photograph by George H. Van Anda*

DUNBAR APARTMENTS, MANHATTAN, NEW YORK CITY. BUILT FOR NEGRO OCCU-
PANCY BY THE ROCKEFELLER INTERESTS.

URBANISM AND HOUSING 185

travel will continue to present the advantages which the technicians and
the planners had intended that they should afford to the population seek-
ing a refuge in a suburban life. Already the tenement and apartment
house builder has invaded the countryside, and is repeating the methods
of construction and imposing the mode of life of the city, upon the
suburban dweller. Again and again the land speculator and the hope-
ful landowners, to profit from the flight from the city, are seeking the
advantage of land overcrowding in an environment which is essentially
rural in character. Are the suburban communities going to have the
foresight and the courage to save the heritage of rural and suburban con-
ditions, or are they going to yield to the speculator and speculative en-
terprise the advantages which are the only justification for the exodus
from the congestion of city life? Recent developments do not seem to
justify this hope.

More and more it is found that local communities are merely stopping
places in the shuttling between the bedroom and the office or factory,
and are not, in the strictest sense of the word, communities or neighbor-
hoods. This disintegration of communal life, and the consequences of
divided communal interest, are leading to serious social and political diffi-
culties, and are absorbing much of the leisure which modern methods
of production and reduction in working hours have made possible.

It is my contention that we are devoting too much time and money
to making transportation easy, and have done practically nothing to re-
duce the necessity for transportation and the integration of communal
life. As long as this is the prevailing policy, housing will remain merely
shelter, no matter how well planned, how sanitary, or how convenient.

Farming Out of Public Services. Rent is represented not only by the
return that must be expected from an investment in buildings and
grounds. Transportation to and from work, light, heat, telephone, water
rates, gas— all form part of the cost of the shelter which people in all in-
come groups must meet. The struggle to emancipate communities from
the control of these services as private enterprise has been going on for
a long time. In many communities it has become a corrupting influence
in local, state, and national politics. Public service corporations have be-
come notorious as stumbling blocks in public enterprises, and in many
cases it has been found that the location and distribution of industrial
enterprise have been controlled by power and water rates, transit costs,
and similar services. This situation has worked a hardship in the free dis-
tribution of industry, and has interfered with the free distribution of
population and the effort to plan for such distribution.

This is not the place to discuss in detail the policies regarding public

186 URBANISM AND HOUSING

services and their administration. The literature on the subject is rich
in suggestions, and the legislative efforts to control private enterprise in
public service are ample evidence of the importance of the problem and
of the difficulties which stand in the way of adequate solutions. If, how-
ever, housing is to receive the full benefits which lie within the scope of
broad community-planning policies, a new national approach to the fi-
nancing and control of public services must be evolved.

In the matter of heat, light, and refrigeration, many studies have been
carried out which would seem to indicate that by cooperative effort, or
by public ownership of power, many ways could be devised whereby
the production of light and power might be made to produce adequate
heat as a byproduct. This would become a significant factor in reducing
the cost of living and, in particular, in reducing the cost of maintaining
homes, which reduction would be reflected in the rent.

Small Versus Large Communities. The present-day tendency of popu-
lation movement is from the smaller to the larger centers. There is also
a tendency of the population in the United States to drift from the cen-
ter to the periphery of the country, in particular towards cities near the
Great Lakes and the oceans.1 As the largest opportunities and diversities
of employment are centered in the larger cities, this drift of the popula-
tion tends to pile up in congested areas. As agricultural unemployment
increases, and the specialized small-town industrial centers lose their sta-
bility through fluctuations in employment, the people of the lower-
income groups tend to go to the larger cities, while the classes with rising
income tend to drift toward the outlying areas of the same centers of
business and industry. The fact is that the poorer population can not
afford to live in the outlying districts because they can not afford the
incidental services essential to modern living. The well-to-do classes have
their large incomes to pay for transportation; they have resources so that
they can support private schools; they have apartments in the city where
they can remain overnight in case they wish to enjoy some special enter-
tainment or social activities; they have their own libraries and radios,
their intimate friends, week-end parties, and a great many of the advan-
tages which the poor can not pay for. Indeed, a community of workers
outside of an established community would be confined to living, in the
communal sense, within the level of the taxes which they can pay, in
order to meet their community needs, such as schools, churches, play-
grounds, hospitals and so forth. From the economic point of view it is
not only impractical, but inadvisable, for the workers to migrate to com-

1McKenzie, R. J., The Metropolitan Community, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New
York, 1933.

URBANISM AND HOUSING 187

munities outside the larger agglomerations of population because, as
Lewis Mumford puts it: ". . . the prime obstacle to urban decentraliza-
tion is that a unit that consists of workers without the middle class and
rich groups that exist in a big city, is unable to support even the elemen-
tary civic equipment of roads, sewers, fire department, police service and
schools."

The whole structure of our large city civilization, despite its many
shortcomings, is setting the pace for the essential community equipment
which the smaller cities should have and can not afford. The small towns,
unless they are made up of an admixture of a wide range of income
groups, can not carry on and maintain a standard compatible with the
simplest needs of community functions. The creating of workers' colo-
nies is therefore of little value as a method of decentralization, unless
such communities can be subsidized out of funds coming from taxes paid
by other communities. Such a procedure would, in the nature of things,
be quite inconsistent with democratic principles and difficult to carry out,
because of the administrative problem of establishing minimum standards
for those communities and the amounts of subsidy necessary. This
method would certainly be objectionable, since it would tend to create
class distinction in communities, as we now have it between individuals
and local groups. Economic ghettos we have had in good measure. We
need no more of them.

If anything is to be done for the smaller communities, the objectives
must be built around the idea that communities can, and should, be
rounded out social and economic entities, in the development of which
the wealth produced and the profits made would yield adequate taxes to
meet all of the requirements which a modern community needs.

Our smaller cities have suffered from a megalomania which has affected
their entire outlook as to the type of development that is needed, and the
controls which would bring about stability, economy, and efficient ad-
ministration. The cry has been for larger and larger populations, more
industries, and the capture of business. Thus the peace and orderly de-
velopment of living conditions have been sacrificed to the attraction of
business and industry. Subsidies, tax exemptions, prostituted zoning proj-
ects, and vast expenditures for roads have taken the place of the more
important services for the protection of health, leisuretime resources,
and development of an integrated community life. The larger cities have
been battling with the problems arising from congestion and confusion,
while the smaller cities have yielded to the hypnosis of megalopolis, only
to realize confusion and lose their individuality.

Lack of Coherent Regional Planning. Under the stimulus of, and with

188 URBANISM AND HOUSING

subsidies coming from, the federal government, a good deal has been
done to formulate a new policy of regional planning. Whether this effort
will bring about an understanding of the relation between the open coun-
try and the communities within specific regions, remains to be seen.
For the moment there seems to be a tendency to confuse the objectives
of metropolitanism and metropolitan planning with those of the newer
regionalism. The distinction between these two concepts might be for-
mulated as follows:

Metropolitanism is a concept of community relations in ivhich a spe-
cific population center controls the welfare and destiny of a group of
outlying municipalities and other types of settlements.

Regionalism is a geographic concept in which a specific area is actually
or potentially capable of social, economic, and cultural exploitation
within the limits of our technological and cultural capacities, in the in-
terest of human well-being, in which each community plays an inde-
pendent role while contributing to the welfare of the whole.

This concept of regional development would tend to emphasize the
values of each community and its possibilities as a creative and coopera-
tive entity, rather than its subordination to the interest of a specific cen-
ter of population. Indeed, the tendency of the metropolitan center, as has
been pointed out, is to communicate its form and pattern to the smaller
communities, rather than to encourage individuality and specialization.
The distinctive community is slowly being absorbed either politically or
by imitation of forms and methods into the pattern of the metropolis,
while the population seeking such distinctive characters moves on. Thus
we have a constant migration of people in search of an environment
free from the blighting influences of the metropolis. Our metropolitan
areas are replete with communities of this kind, which in their transition
have taken on the antiquated pattern of the metropolis.

If housing is to become the focal point around which the community
is to be planned, and the stability of settlements is to be protected against
the blight, deterioration, and waste of unnecessary changes demanded
by pressure from outside, there must be a greater emphasis upon the spe-
cific character of individual communities, and in particular those com-
munities which have not become engulfed in metropolitan meshes. In-
stead of the dead level of the metropolitan pattern, we must begin to
conserve those values and dissimilarities which, by their nature, are the
justification for the existence of these communities. In the regionalism
of the future the "unlike community" will play a more important part
than the communities without distinction or distinctiveness. If we are to
overcome the economic and cultural lag in various parts of this country,

URBANISM AND HOUSING 189

if we are to exploit rationally the resources of the vast areas of this conti-
nent, we must establish a dynamic regional symmetry in which the
human values would be capitalized, and the social level of all classes would
be raised.2

Lag in Urbanizing Rural and Semi-Urban Communities. Before we
discuss the urbanization of these communities, it is essential to define
what we mean by urbanization. Students of urban life in this country
and elsewhere have had great difficulty in defining what an urban com-
munity means. The United States Census has changed its definition of
urban communities as those which have a population of 8,000 people to
those which have 2,500 people. Prof. Walter F. Willcox endeavored to
evolve a new definition by basing his criterion of urbanity upon density
of population. For the convenience of enumeration and classification
these measurements answer the purpose. If, however, we are to consider
urbanism in its true sense, we must seek the definition elsewhere.

Urban living is a way of life, not a way of being governed, not the
measure of the proximity of our neighbor. There are cities in the United
States which, when considered in the light of the way in which people
live, belong in the primitive category of poor rural communities and
backwoods areas, which have none of the advantages of living together,
except in the fact that they share the same disadvantages. "Urbanism"
in the true sense of the word, characterises a cooperative aggregate of
people, regardless of the distance between their homes, which enjoy
insofar as possible the many amenities which modern technique and
modern civilized ways of living demand.

The proverbial red schoolhouse, the neglect of the simplest require-
ments for the protection of health, the absence of facilities for com-
fortable living and social intercourse and the creative use of leisure time,
the failure to provide hospital care, the inaccessibility of cheap light and
fuel, the lack of organization for the care of dependents, and the hazards
of unemployment or partial employment— all are more characteristic of
lack of urbanness than of density of population. While we spend mil-
lions of dollars and much effort in trying to derive some order out of the
chaos of unplanned communities, and are concerned with the drift of
people from the country to the city, we completely overlook the fact
that the only way to stop this rural exodus is by making the rural and
semi-rural communities worth inhabiting. Much of our housing prob-
lem has its origin in the movement of population to larger centers. The
one way to prevent this movement is to refocus our interest and atten-

2Aronovici, Carol, "Regionalism, A New National Economy," in Columbia University
Quarterly, December, 1936, pp. 268-278.

190 URBANISM AND HOUSING

tion upon the way of life which makes this exodus necessary. The ur-
banization of the rural and semi-urban community is the solution.

For the present we have no way of measuring the diffusion of urban
advantages in rural communities. We know that the housing of the farm-
ers is not above reproach. We are aware of the fact that ill health re-
ceives scant care, and hospitalization is not always within the reach of
large numbers of people living in rural or semi-rural communities, and
that many other advantages are not available. In the next census it would
certainly be desirable to incorporate in the records facts giving some
measure of the disadvantages which the population living in the smaller
communities, or in sparsely settled areas, must face. Such a measurement
of the rate at which urban advantages are diffused among the rural and
semi-rural inhabitants of the country would undoubtedly give a new
vision of the problem of the rural exodus and its causes.

Employment Conditions, Migrations, and Business Cycles. Anyone
familiar with recent conditions of employment in many of the industrial
cities is aware that families or single individuals have been going from
community to community in search of work. To be sure, the PWA and
the WPA have been responsible for a certain amount of stability in com-
munities where industry has failed to provide employment, and where
the other services incident to industry have been forced to curtail activ-
ity and reduce the number employed.

In the case of many industrial plants in New England, labor condi-
tions and the lure of cheap labor in other parts of the country have
encouraged the migration of industries, leaving thousands of workers
stranded in their home communities. This is particularly true in indus-
trial towns where the migration of industry destroyed the main source
of employment of the community. President Roosevelt and his New
Deal may bring about adjustments in wage scales, and provide new
mechanisms for the adjustment of labor relations so as to reduce the
hazards of industrial migrations, but so far little has been accomplished
in this direction. Housing and employment are inseparable, and any dis-
turbance in employment opportunities must of necessity disturb the
housing market. If gypsying in industry is to be tolerated on a large
scale, housing will be seriously affected.

The President of the United States has recently raised his voice in the
interest of the workers of the South. More than an interest in the prob-
lem is necessary to arrest the fugitive industries which are always ready
to abandon one city for another in order to gain an advantage in wages
and labor relations. If we disregard this fact, we can hardly expect work-
ers to settle down and become homeowners. Neither can we expect the

URBANISM AND HOUSING 191

building and financial interests to provide decent dwellings, if the secur-
ing of tenants and the collection of rents are ephemeral hopes that can
be dashed at the will of the large employers. Let us not assume that the
movement of industry in recent years denotes a tendency toward decen-
tralization, a change in the distribution of industry desired by many
social reformers, but rather that the movement of industry has its roots
in other than humanitarian promptings.8

The migrations of population have many causes. The suburban move-
ment, the increasing rate of unemployment, the seasonal occupations of
many workers, the destruction of land and other natural resources upon
which employment depends— all are responsible in varying degrees for
migrations which interfere with the stability of communities and aggra-
vate the housing problem. When, during the Great War, munitions pro-
duction made new opportunities for employment, the Negro population
of the South sent many of its members to the great cities of the North
and Northwest.

Chicago is a very interesting example of the results of this type of
labor migration. The riots which followed a few years ago are sympto-
matic of the conditions which are brought about by these changes in
the character and numbers of people demanding cheap housing and
additional services. The riots which took place in New York City's large
Negro district (Harlem) are typical of the conditions that arise when
a low-income group, and in particular a racial group which must confine
its habitat to a specific and geographically limited area, increases more
rapidly than the accommodations which are available.

Migrations of people are often the result of business cycles, with their
consequent demand, or reduction in the demand, for labor. When immi-
gration into the United States was still free from the present drastic re-
striction, the business cycles responded to the size of the immigrating
(and emigrating) groups.4 The same conditions prevail with regard to
the industrial population, which responds to the demand for labor in
various parts of the country, or leaves communities which for some rea-
son are slackening their demand for labor. The migratory labor needed
in harvesting crops has created a serious housing problem which has
never been met; with few exceptions, there has never been a serious
effort to meet it. The one notable exception is the California Commis-
sion of Immigration and Housing, which was created as a result of riots
in the hop-raising districts of the State. That conditions have not been

3 See Creamer, Daniel B., Industry Decentralizing, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1935.

4 Jerome, Harry, Migrations and Business Cycles, New York, National Bureau of Economic
Research, 1936.

192 URBANISM AND HOUSING

remedied, however, is evidenced by the many disturbances which have
taken place recently in California, and by the medieval attitude of the
farmers, who are interested in getting cheap labor and are unwilling to
assume any responsibility of its welfare.

All the labor troubles in the farm areas of the San Joaquin Valley and
the San Bernardino and El Centre districts are not due entirely to fail-
ure to provide decent housing for itinerant workers. Housing, however,
is an important factor in the frequent labor troubles. Where seasonal
workers are concerned, every device of oppression, disregard of human
rights, and vigilante methods is used. The workers are homeless, vote-
less, and without the resources or prestige to fight their own battles. The
seasonal agricultural worker everywhere, but particularly in California,
is a pariah, and he receives the treatment that the pariah of ancient times
received, both in housing and in his employment relations.

How any possible combination of employment of a seasonal nature
could be fitted into a pattern of living which would establish a more
permanent relation between the workers and their jobs, and between the
families of these workers and some kind of a permanent home with a
stable community relation, is difficult to determine. It is possible, how-
ever, that some combination between industry and agriculture might be
evolved, and that a new way may be found to provide intermittent em-
ployment and continuous citizenship so essential to self-respect and self-
protection.

Expansion of Municipal Boundaries. The nucleus of a city is, by vir-
tue of this circulatory system, a fixed entity, insofar as its capacity to
handle the movements of population, raw materials, and finished goods
is concerned. Any additions to the load that might result from the acqui-
sition of new areas, from the increase in the density of population, or
from increased commercial or industrial activities, must find their coun-
terpart in an expansion of the traffic system, either through street widen-
ings, subways, and elevated roads, or through underground traffic ar-
teries which are needed to supplement the street system and its capacity
load.

The delay in transit, the difficulties of safe and easy access from one
part of the city to the other, the problems of traffic control, and the
cost entailed in such control and policing, are insuperable problems,
which no city has so far been able to meet in a satisfactory manner.
Traffic engineers have labored long and anxiously to make a thirty-six
foot street do the work of a seventy-foot street; police officials have de-
vised rules and regulations so strict and complex that strangers in new
communities must be instructed in new ways of guarding their safety in

URBANISM AND HOUSING 193

crossing streets and in driving their cars. Budgets for traffic police have
increased at such a rate that money needed for playgrounds, schools, or
the protection of life and property through adequate policing, has been
sacrificed to the demands for making traffic less confusing, less hazardous,
and less time-consuming. The sum total of the achievement to date
seems to show that the old law of not being able to have two bodies
occupy the same place at the same time still holds.

In spite of these difficulties, cities are still annexing territory, are still
extending their tentacles into the outlying districts, and incorporating
within their municipal domains new and unnecessary areas for the mere
vanity of becoming "the largest city" in the nation, the region, the state,
or the county. If annexation did not interfere with the integrity of com-
munal entities, no serious consequences would result. There might even
be advantages in the larger outlook of a bigger municipality, in the form
of better educational, cultural, and service possibilities. The fact is, how-
ever, that this larger view seldom, if ever, is fruitful. There is merely a
new conquest, a new set of people to pay tribute to the inefficiency and
heavily burdened administrative machinery of partly obsolete, confused,
and highly centralized cities. The crude "shoestring" development of
many of our cities is one of the most deplorable manifestations of this
trend. As the radius of travel from the center to the periphery lengthens,
the shadow of blight also lengthens. The newly annexed areas soon de-
mand new roads, sewers, and transit facilities which must be provided.

No one can object to the expansion of cities. There are advantages in
large cities. The measure of these advantages is not, however, in their
size, but in the manner in which they can function as places in which
to live, work, and play with comfort, convenience, and safety.

The last generation has witnessed a widespread movement for city
planning intended to recapture the economic and social values lost be-
cause of new conditions, and the failure to conserve what was valuable
in the old communities. The main difficulty with the replanning of these
communities has been not so much a lack of technical skill, or an un-
willingness to spend vast amounts of money in order to make the needed
changes. The real difficulty has been the fact that we have never evolved
a philosophy of urban planning consistent with modern needs. Whether
we accept the modern trend toward a megalopolis or whether we are
inclined to encourage decentralization of population and its activities is
of comparatively little importance. We must realise, however, that com-
munities are essentially mechanisms intended to facilitate civilized living.

Housing reform begins and ends with the interpretation of life that
finds civilization in the pattern of the community, its capacity to func-

194 URBANISM AND HOUSING

tion in rhythm with the modern life, and is sensitive to changes brought
about by new ways of living, working, and sharing in social achieve-
ments. Without community planning, city, county, state and regional,
designed to implement modern ways of living and to be adjustable to
desirable changes, the housing problem can not be permanently solved.

Architecture and Housing

CHAPTER VIII
ARCHITECTURE AND HOUSING

Perhaps it should be assumed that a book on housing should not ven-
ture into the difficult and illusive question as to the place of the architect
in this field. From time immemorial the architect has been building
monuments, churches, palaces, and, occasionally, homes for the leisure
classes. Some of these homes are still occupied by their original owners,
while others have been handed down to families for whom no one can
build with profit. In fact, until very recently, the architect has had little
to do with the housing of the workers. His was a luxury profession. In
the building of the cheaper dwellings the jerry-builder, the small con-
tractor, and the developer played the major part.

But conditions are changing, and the architect is beginning to play an
important part in shaping the destiny of housing. It is upon him that
the evolving of a technique, consistent with a modern philosophy of
housing, depends. On the whole, he is not prepared for the task. This
fact is easily ascertainable by an examination of the many abortive efforts
which, in recent years, have afforded the architect opportunities to prove
his worth as a designer of workers' homes.

Recently I visited a new large-scale housing project. In size the project
is sufficient to accommodate the population of a fairly large Western
town. In design, however, its sinister monotony gave the impression of
a well proportioned set of warehouses. It was an orderly set of masses
and spaces, free from ornamentation, adequate as a "living machine"
but devoid of any vestige of the poetry of living. No one could take
exception to the general plan. It was a solution, but it obviously was not
the solution that satisfied the normal human desires for "belonging," the
craving to escape regimentation and the rigidity of pattern which our
cities have accepted as standard. As a warehouse for human beings it was
safe but not soul-satisfying.

It is for this reason that I am venturing upon a discussion of the role
the architect and his professional and artistic skill must play in giving
to the means of living, vital expression consistent with our civilization.
For the present it must be admitted that the confusion of purpose in
housing has been more serious in its accumulated achievement than the
previous failures to find the means for achieving the purpose.

197

198 ARCHITECTURE AND HOUSING

The enemies of modern architecture are the three most hackneyed
expressions of modern building. Functionalism has so overwhelmed the
architect that he has mistaken the forms that look like function for the
ability to perform these functions. We all have seen homes which are
so "functional" in structure that one feels that the architect was con-
cerned more with the aseptic and mechanistic character of his creation
than with the more subtle and diversified demands for individualized
life. Indeed, this complete yielding to mechanistic forms, whether effi-
cient or not, has led to the consideration of housing as essentially a
mathematical and engineering problem. The conservation of what is
best in human behavior and in the highest sense humanly functional has
been overlooked. This is why the engineer has usurped the architect's
prerogatives as a builder.

Another difficulty has arisen from the acceptance by the architects
of the doctrine of international architecture. I can not see what inter-
national architecture actually means, unless it is the license to abandon
all sense of accumulated native culture and to translate all design into
simple and often monotonous lines, which free the architect from any
obligation to interpret the spirit of his people. On the outskirts of the
City of Vienna about ten years ago several so-called international archi-
tects were given the opportunity to build a group of dwellings. Each
architect followed his own fancy in designing the building assigned to
him. It was the most disheartening illustration of the desire to differen-
tiate international architecture. The result was an agglomeration of in-
genious but uncoordinated admixtures of structural types, which bore
witness to the flexibility and vast possibilities of engineering skill, but
had no relation to the spirit of community life and its integration as
a living unit. There is no "international architecture" just as there is no
"international" folklore or "international" pattern of human behavior.
There are, of course, expressions common to all mankind, but that does
not mean that a nation does not require and maintain standards of com-
fort, convenience, sense of space, sense of ways of living, that are its
own. To assume that there is an international architecture that serves
all purpose is like assuming that there is an international way of living
to which all peoples are ready and willing to fit their own individual
and group behavior.

This leads us to the next aspect of architectural endeavor: the mech-
anistic method of design which gives precedence to mechanistic methods
of producing shelter which disregards the mechanics of advancing civili-
zation. Buckminster-Fuller's Dymaxian house is the most striking illustra-
tion of this trend. Here we have a very ingenious engineering device for

ARCHITECTURE AND HOUSING 199

living whereby the machine is given the place as a guide for life, instead
of making life the guide for the machine.

The main objective in housing is not to simplify life, but to reduce
the mechanics of living to the simplest and easiest terms, so that life
may become richer, more complex, and more in harmony with its pur-
pose. It is not the function of the architect to confine human experience
to an architectural mold. Rather is it the function of the architect to
free and broaden the possibilities for human experience, by making his
task conform to the trends and craving for human experience. Any hard
and fast device, therefore, whether in the manner of using space or in
the manner of imposing devices, which would tend to force mathe-
matical formulas and technological devices which tend to fit life into a
mechanistic pattern, is not architecture but a Utopia of forms rather
than a Utopia of life.

Camille Mauclaire, in U Architecture va-t-elle mourir, gives a hint of
this kind of thinking in relation to modern ways of building: "There
is no worse barbarism than that which believes itself scientifically right."
No one would ignore what modern mechanics has given to the comforts
and conveniences of living, but no one can claim that these mechanical
devices have made any great contribution to civilization, unless they
have served to release the forces and potentialities of man so that he
may enhance his own place in society and devote himself to those tasks
that will bring in their wake new values to life itself.

If the architect is to recapture from the engineer his place as a builder
of homes, he must prove that this place rightfully belongs to him, not
because of some artificial division of labor which has grown out of a
tradition, but because he has a contribution to make which is peculiarly
inherent in his training, experience, vision, leadership, and because he
has a capacity to interpret human life in ways which the exactness of
engineering can not grasp or use.

Already the universities and colleges which afford training in archi-
tecture are seeking new methods and new outlooks in the architectural
profession. Courses in housing, city planning, site planning, slum rehabili-
tation, regional development, community rehabilitation and reconstruc-
tion, and a great variety of other lines of study, have been introduced
into institutions which for years had guarded their beaux-arts traditions
with dogged tenacity and contempt for the vulgarities of common re-
quirements of everyday living. The plaster casts which had been so
conspicuous in the halls of architectural learning have found their way
into hospitable ash cans, and the competitive efforts of the students to
design tombs or copy freak buildings have been abandoned. New moti-

200 ARCHITECTURE AND HOUSING

vations, new outlooks, new philosophies, are finding their way into cur-
ricula which were believed to be immutable and final.

I have before me a special issue of the Architectural Record, one of
the most progressive monthly publications devoted to architecture in
this country, and one of the most enterprising. This issue, which ap-
peared in September 1936, contains a series of articles, reports, and
opinions, and some interpretations of the modern way of teaching archi-
tecture. The most striking part of this special issue consists of opinions
given by deans of schools of architecture regarding the new ways of
teaching and the new problems which architecture must face in this
teaching. I shall pick at random a few of these pronunciamentos, as
indicative both of the resistance to the new trends and the willingness of
many to meet conditions with new ways of training.

Dean George S. Koyl, of the School of Fine Arts of the University of
Pennsylvania, writes:

While new problems influenced by current economic and social conditions
enter the present-day practice of architecture, such problems do not merit
drastic changes in the educational policy at this time. . . . The architect has
at his disposal an assortment of servants to do his bidding such as never before,
so much so, that if not properly trained he may lose sight of their relative
importance and be carried away with their novelty.

Dean E. R. Bossange, of the New York University School of Archi-
tecture and Allied Arts, says:

He [the architect] must be more conscious of community requirements and
social conditions, of problems of transportation and circulation. But, above all,
he must be capable of sensing and idealizing the human need.

I can not refrain from quoting in part the statement by Dean Hudnut,
of Harvard University, in which he says:

If the business of an architect is to discover some attributes of beauty in the
life of his time and to express this beauty by a harmony between his con-
structed forms and the life that flows through them, then it is reasonable to
expect that every student of architecture shall attain so far as it is possible a
clear and objective view of the world around him; of the structure of society
and the intellectual currents that determine that structure.

One only wishes that the aspirations of the last two writers quoted
could in some way permeate not only the curricular set-up of our schools
of architecture, but the spirit in which the student approaches his new
training and, after training, his professional responsibilities.

It is generally agreed that while there are still many schools which
devote a great deal of time to the Five Orders as compiled by Vignola
from the work of Vitruvius, the impact of modern industrial and eco-

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ARCHITECTURE AND HOUSING 203

nomic changes has had the effect of reorienting much of the educational
trend in the training of architects.

We are concerned here mainly with housing and with the methods
of approach which the architect must employ in order to bring his work
as a builder into harmony with his objectives as a creator of conditions
of living which would be in tune with the times, both as to social fitness
and as to economic reality.

We have analyzed the housing market from the point of view of the
ultimate consumer. Let us for the moment analyze the market for archi-
tectural service. There are in the United States today approximately
24,000,000 non-farm dwellings. Most of these are in cities and towns.
If we consider their obsolescence at the rate of 2 per cent per year, thus
calculating the average life of every dwelling at about 50 years, we shall
have to replace about 480,000 dwellings each year. This in itself is a
task worthy of any profession to consider as a service worthy of spe-
cialization. Assuming the investment in each house at about $4,000, we
have a source of architectural employment of $1,720,000,000. If to this
we add the number of dwellings needed to take care of the annual in-
crease in the number of families, at least another 480,000 dwellings would
have to be added each year.

With nearly a million homes needed every year, the field of archi-
tectural service should not go begging. Needless to say, much of this
construction will be carried on for some time to come by jerry-builders
and speculators, without benefit of architecture. However, there is still
a vast field of service to be rendered and, the greater the development
of sound economic principles of housing finance, the broader will be
the conception of neighborhood life and community coordination, and
the more likely we are to have need for socialized architectural practice.

To bring about a coherence between the objectives of housing in its
broadest implications and the architectural profession, two lines of en-
deavor must be developed. The first is the evolving of a clearly defined
professional attitude toward housing as a specialty, which must carry
with it a full appreciation of the social import of housing architecture
and the relation that this architecture must bear to the whole fabric of
community activities and services, in the light of the limits and poten-
tialities of technological skill and sound economic principles. This is not
easy to achieve. Indeed much research is still necessary in order to develop
a set of principles, standards, and practices which would place housing
architecture in its proper relation to the scope of its service and to the
social philosophy which every profession should formulate as a basis for
its function in the framework of the social order.

204 ARCHITECTURE AND HOUSING

The second task for the architectural profession is to undertake ac-
tive participation in creating conditions of law, economy, and stand-
ards compatible with their technical capacity to plan and build. This, it
may be said, is in the province of politics and propaganda. I readily admit
this to be the case, but we do find the medical, engineering, and legal
professions taking an active part in molding the structure of society, so
that professional efficiency and progress may be attained in the interest
not alone of the practitioner of these professions, but of society which
they serve. Indeed, some of the publications which have met with the
greatest success among the architectural periodicals, have already opened
the way for such activity, but more than publications is needed. The
architect must become a militant factor in all movements which may
contribute toward his prestige as a creative force in improving home
and living standards and in making the application of these standards as
widespread as possible.

The setting up of standards must follow a logical sequence of both
reasoning and activity.

The Social Motive. Le Corbusier, in one of his aphoristic outbursts,
says: "The modern home is nothing else but walls with storage space
on the one hand, chairs and table on the other. The rest is encumbrance."
Thus have many of the modern architects tried to reduce the home to
its simplest terms. The European countries have traveled a long way
from this oversimplification of the task of designing and building homes.
Indeed the walls and chairs and tables are the last and the least important
aspect of architecture. It is their relation to the whole complex process of
living that determines whether they are architecture or merely building.

In analyzing many of the housing projects which have been created
in the United States and in Europe in the last generation, I find myself
asking the question, "What are the problems which the architect has to
solve and in what way has he solved them?" As there is seldom a
sense of finality about the answer one finds in great works of art, I
am led to the belief that the question has never been stated and, there-
fore, there has been no answer in the work of the architect. Looking
upon the architect not only as a creative artist, but one whose creative
ability, more than in any other art, must reflect a clearly definable pur-
pose, it seems to me that architecture must begin with the ability, the
skill, and the knowledge required in defining this purpose. There are
three fundamental elements that the architect must face in stating his
problem, and this is particularly true of housing. These elements are
people, space, and time.

People. We assume that the architect will take some account of the

ARCHITECTURE AND HOUSING 205

number of people who are to be housed and the make-up of the families.
But when I speak of people, I have in mind a broad interpretation of
the meaning of the word. The people, as numbers, have long ago been
a factor in planning, but their way of living, their needs in relation to
the labor they are engaged in, and the implementing of a well understood
and clearly creative leisure, have seldom been given full consideration.
We have of course considered health and transportation to and from
work, as well as playgrounds for children and open spaces for adults.
But these do not begin to convey the meaning of the term. The place
where one lives must afford not only the simple essentials connected
with life, labor, and leisure. It must understand and interpret the more
subtle human relations, the vast differentiations in behavior, the impor-
tant sources of harmony or conflict in neighborhood contacts, the vari-
eties of resources which could be utilized, the many conditions which
lead to waste or conservation of energy, cooperative ability, and common
action. The home and its environment are the most potent ecological
factors in individual and family life; they are the breeding ground for
many manifestations in the social life of the people which may be rea-
sonably well oriented and controlled through housing and neighborhood
design. It is this kind of understanding of what people are, what their
reactions might be, and how they are affected by their home environ-
ment, that comes under the study of people. The superficial yielding
to fashions, the whim of the reformer, or the requirements of some
special class, have brought housing within the pale of reform theories
and removed it to a large extent from the more normal field of creative
social endeavor. Housing is not a corrective alone; it is a dynamic force
for progressive living, or it can be made so by design.

Place. In speaking of place, I do not mean the site of the house or ag-
glomeration of houses. I mean its entire relation to the community, its
place in the pattern of industrial and commercial distribution, its rela-
tion to the open country, its character as a place where homes could be
built and maintained in an environment subject to the least deterioration
and having possibilities of that neighborhood unity which is so rare in
even our best housing developments.

It is not enough to know how to build or even how to design a great
mass of homes in proper relation to each other. One must know that
there is a clearly definable strategic location of housing which has to do
with drifts of population, with the ebb and flow of industrial develop-
ment, with the convergence of traffic, with the opening up of hazard-
producing streams of travel. One must know that improvements which
may be to the benefit of the city as a whole, may mar the effectiveness

206 ARCHITECTURE AND HOUSING

of the privacy and comfort and peace of the residents of a section which
is intended to meet all these needs. The architect, or those whom he
employs to furnish him with the necessary data upon which to base his
housing objectives, must be sensitized and enlightened regarding these
dangers to the future of a proposed housing scheme, so as to avoid the
pitfalls which destroy the economic and social values of many a well
intended undertaking. The coefficient of land value for housing pur-
poses is not the same as the coefficient of land value for all other purposes,
and it is this coefficient that the architect must learn to find.

In a series of articles which I published in 193 2 in Real Estate, I pointed
out the various difficulties which arise from the assumption that the lo-
cation of either housing or business is no longer a matter of values and
business opportunities, but a scientific field of inquiry in which a great
variety of factors must be taken into account, and in the determination
of which the public authorities have a responsibility much greater than
the landowner or the building investor. What we need is not momentary
fitness, but the kind of foresight that would keep the community from
undergoing shifts and changes which jeopardize both social and economic
values and make community interpretation impossible.1

Time. The element of time which we are here considering has to do
with the lasting character of the buildings and also with the lasting char-
acter of their surroundings.

It has been said that the longer a building lasts, the cheaper it is in
the end. That is of course true, so long as the structure remains fit for
the use for which it is intended. The fact is that a building is more eco-
nomical, if it lasts only as long as it is useful and in harmony with the
progress of the times. A glance at the map of New York City and
particularly Manhattan Island, will show that the vast majority of dwell-
ings have survived more than a generation. It is well known that many
of these dwellings are survivals of the dark ages of the railroad and
dumbbell tenement. The first attempt to improve housing conditions by
legislation was made in New York City about a century ago. My fa-
miliarity with housing conditions in some eighty cities in the United
States justifies the assertion that the greatest source of our housing evils
is the lasting quality of the buildings which make up our residential areas.
Business buildings, hotels, factories have passed in rapid succession from
one form to another, and in many cases a business building which has
lasted over two decades is looked upon as a relic. In housing, the process
of obsolescence is recognized as a means of reducing rents only when
there is an ample supply of housing, but the buildings are preserved with

1Aronovici, Carol, Real Estate, Chicago, January 9 and 23, 1932.

ARCHITECTURE AND HOUSING 207

all the tenacity which property rights and the lack of responsibility of
the owner for the welfare of his tenants warrant.

While every epoch in industry and business requires a new type of
building, and economy and efficiency demand that such a building be
provided, generation leaves to generation the pestilential and obsolete
homes of the past. The architect has, of course, to conform to certain
essential requirements of safety and endurance in buildings, but this does
not justify the projecting of expensive structures which would outlast
the service they are intended to render. This may sound like a plea for
flimsy construction, but it is in fact a plea for a careful revaluation of
the methods of construction with its heavy investment burden, which
in the end results in a social liability due to this very lasting and sub-
stantial construction.

A generation of progress that does not reflect itself in improvements
in the home is a generation partly wasted. Let each generation have its
own way of living, expressed in its own way of building. It is only when
we have learned to junk houses as we have learned to junk factories and
office buildings, that we shall have attained full realization of the relation-
ship between the ways of technical progress and ways of home life.

While we consider the necessity for shortening the life of buildings
in some relation to their time of usefulness, it is important to see to it
that this time element is guarded with the utmost care and forethought
in relation to the neighborhood and the community. In other words, the
architect who undertakes to formulate the objectives of a housing enter-
prise must examine every phase of the community and its dynamic forces
for change, so as to synchronize the life of the structures with the pattern
of the community, insofar as its lasting qualities are concerned.

Housing is therefore not only a problem in building design, but also
is a problem in urbanism: a problem which may require not only knowl-
edge and understanding of the facts but skill in providing safeguards
and community implements to render the housing safe from the accidents
and incidents of sporadic changes caused by lack of forethought. Dr.
Walter Curt Behrendt, in his book Modern Building, says: "Building, as
a function of the community, is a social art. It is from society that the
architect gets his task, it is society that gives him the stuff that has to
be molded into form."2

"But," the architect would say, "we are not sociologists or economists
or experts in human culture. We are designers and builders. Let the
sociologist, the economist, the social ecologist and all the other students

2 Behrendt, Walter Curt, Modern Building, New York. Harcourt, Brace and Company,
1937, p. 22.

208 ARCHITECTURE AND HOUSING

of the social order tell us what they want and we shall know how to
build."

This is hardly the answer. There are no longer lines of demarcation
between the social sciences and the professions, except as the scientist
furnishes the basic principles upon which the accumulation of social
facts must be based in order to make a professional service of value. This
is true of law and medicine, engineering, and all the other professions
which have to do with service. Indeed, business is slowly coming to the
realization that good business is good social service, and that industry
which neglects the social implications and obligations toward both em-
ployee and consumer has no place in a civilized commonwealth.

What is expected, therefore, of the architect is a new outlook, a new
realism, a new form of creative design which would become the syntax
of home building. When the architect has reached the point where he
can use the elements of people, space, time, and economic reality as the
material out of which to develop housing design, he will have interpreted
life, and, by interpreting, will have served it. There is no greater art
than this.

Housing Education

CHAPTER IX
HOUSING EDUCATION

With the growing popularity of housing as a subject of study, and
with the expanding possibilities of professional service in this field,
schools, colleges, and universities have undertaken the organization of
departments, or sections of departments, devoted to the study of housing
and training in housing service. The federal government has recently
opened up many opportunities for this type of public service; states and
municipalities are making new and substantial provisions for housing
study and for the planning and development of housing projects. Thus
it is evident that a new line of technical service is making new demands
upon our educational resources.

Education, however, is not concerned with the technical skills and
knowledge required in the carrying out of a task. Its purpose must go
beyond the established theories, principles, and practices of the past. It
must pave the way toward a dynamic and progressive checking of
these theories, principles, and practices, so that they may be verified
and revised or discarded and replaced by new ways of thinking and
serving. Within less than a decade, our whole outlook with regard to
the place of housing in the social structure has changed. Our whole
social and legal point of view has found expression in a new philosophy,
a new methodology, and a new economy. These are neither final nor
even fully in accord with the realities of the present day.

If we are to undertake housing education on any large scale, it is there-
fore essential not only to train students in the established practices, but
to make sure that the practices which they are led to believe are the
best for the moment, may not become obsolete by the time they are
free to become leaders and practitioners in their professions.

Unlike medicine, law, engineering, or even the usual practice of
architecture, housing implies not alone the method of building, but the
vast array of factors which make building possible under conditions
insuring the best results. The man or woman engaged in housing must,
therefore, realize not only the relation of technical skill to the job in
hand, but the relation of this skill to the possibilities for making it count
in the interest of those who are to be benefited.

If housing work is to assume this broad aspect, it is essential that

211

212 HOUSING EDUCATION

the trainee be familiar with all of the social, economic, legal, political,
and psychological factors which may affect his work and which, in
turn, he may help to clarify and amplify in order to make his work
effective. Housing, as has been repeatedly said in this book, is not a
machine for carrying on the process of physical living. It is the physical
mold into which must be fitted the whole complex set of activities and
relationships which insure physical and spiritual well-being. It is not
confined within the walls of a house or an apartment, but includes all
of those essential amenities of human relations which extend to the neigh-
borhood and the community. Looked upon from this point of view,
housing education transcends the practices commonly assigned to the
training of architects, and includes the whole science of living within
the home and the community.

How to make this philosophy effective, we do not yet know. But
considerable experience is being accumulated by educational institutions
and by those called upon to express, in terms of site and building plans,
their philosophies of home and neighborhood ways of living. There is
still much to be learned about the process of giving to living quarters
the esthetic form in which social values would reach their fullest real-
ization.

Hilaire Belloc, in his characteristically whimsical book on Paris, gives
an interesting and sensitive characterization of his approach to the study
of the City of Paris:

For what shall a history of Paris do? It should, to have any value, show the
changing but united life of a city that is sacred to Europe; it should give a con-
stant but moving picture of that "come and go" of the living people in whose
anxieties and in whose certitudes, in whose enthusiasms, and in whose vagaries
are reflected and intensified the fortunes of our civilization.

It is not the city plan, or the monuments, or the shops, but the life
of the people and their ways of using and changing and expressing their
lives through the city, that counts. Fragmentary housing reform that
produces a few more dwellings, or provides subsidies for a few thousand
families incapable of attaining a minimum standard of housing, may
alleviate the lot of a few, but it will not lay the foundation for a civic
culture the history of which will be worth recording.

Assuming that the point of view which I have endeavored to outline
can be made the basis for housing education, let us see whom we need
to educate. If we could bring ourselves to look upon the need for hous-
ing as the Middle Ages looked upon the construction of a cathedral,
and if we applied to the purpose the same communal cooperative devo-
tion and purposefulness of design, we shall gain some conception of the

HOUSING EDUCATION 213

wide sphere of influence which would have to be embodied in a hous-
ing program.

We have at first the occupant, the tenant, the owner of the home.
He must be educated in the ways of living and using his home. His con-
ception of the right to live decently, and his articulate demand for the
kind of home that will bear ample relation to his needs, is of prime
importance. This task can not be accomplished without reaching down
into our educational system, as represented by the public schools, and
moving upwards into the press, the public platform, the church, the
club, the radio, the theatre, and the moving picture. One can not hope
to approach the ideal without making the realization of this ideal con-
ceivable and attainable. The teaching about slums and blighted dis-
tricts, and the benevolent efforts of the rich and powerful, are just so
many phases of a negative social economy, which removes the individual
most concerned from the field of dynamic cooperative effort to attain
an adequate standard. We have had too much of the superimposed
philanthropic effort, appeal to sentiment, and division between those
who have, and those who can not have, what civilization through sys-
tematic organized effort could attain.

If an educational program regarding housing is to be evolved that
will last and be fruitful, we must begin with the men and women from
the time they become conscious of the need for shelter, and set their
course in the direction of the type of house they should have, the way
a home can and should be used, its place in the pattern of community
life, its relation to the masses and spaces which make up the commu-
nity, and the interplay between living, working, and the use of leisure
time, as they are implemented by city, town, or village, or even in the
open country.

We must, of course, be concerned with the slum, but this should
not be the basis of housing education, any more than crime is the basis
of our social organization.

The development of a housing philosophy in the consciousness of
the masses is, however, not a simple problem of adding courses to our
overburdened school curricula, or the setting up of propaganda ma-
chinery. The present need is for an enlightened leadership free from
dilettantism or hobbyism. Already we have too many leaders who do
not know where they are going, and many others whose leadership has
for its goal a mild meliorism, which will bring about just enough im-
provement so that we would not move too rapidly in bringing about
necessary fundamental changes.

Before we undertake housing education, therefore, it is important

214 HOUSING EDUCATION

that we take stock of the kind of leadership we should develop, the
agencies which have a contribution to make toward the setting up of
practical and attainable objectives, and the eventual equipment that lead-
ers should possess.

Colleges and universities, schools for social workers, technical and
specialized schools of engineering, architecture, business administration,
government, law, public health, can play a part in the development of
housing leadership. Even teachers' colleges may find a vast opportunity
for bringing, within the range of the new pedagogy, the study of
housing as a pivotal point around which a great system of coordinated
knowledge may be built to the advantage of useful learning and of civic
and social vision.

It is well known that the techniques of housing construction, such
as those practiced by the engineer and architect or the ordinary builder,
have long been divorced from the more inclusive considerations of
human needs and community structure. The educational imperative of
the new training should tend to restate the economy of the home as a
dynamic force in creating and conserving human values. The technician
would be powerless, however, to achieve these ends without the aid of
leadership in law, government, finance, and a social outlook which
would lend vision to honest purpose.

Many educational institutions, either because of a realization of the
importance of housing, or because of the newer consciousness of the
need for housing reform, are actually carrying on educational work
intended to develop housing leadership and technical skills. Whatever
the motive of this new development in educational specialization, the
important consideration must be the principles which underlie the pro-
fessional or educational objective.

Perhaps we could best clarify this point by raising a number of ques-
tions, the answers to which will depend upon the type of education
contemplated, and the kind of leadership that may be expected to shape
the future of American housing.

1. Is housing education to deal with the immediate opportunities for
service in improving and modifying the lot of the underprivileged, or
is this education to be directed toward a new outlook upon home life,
home standards, and the relation of the home to the entire community?

2. Are the present social, economic, and legal limitations to be ac-
cepted as the framework under which housing improvements are to be
achieved, or is housing to be taken as a basis for such fundamental
changes in our social structure as will make the reorientation of our

HOUSING EDUCATION 215

entire community economy the basis for a new and better way of
living?

3. Is housing education to be departmentalized as a profession, or is
it to be made the means of synthesizing the vast ramifications of this
subject in the remoter fields ranging from finance to social psychology?

4. Is technical training to be limited to the development of skills, or
is it to be made a part of the newer outlook, which is concerned not
alone with the laws of construction, but with the principles which har-
monize skill with social purpose?

5. Is housing to be looked upon as a new field of professional reform,
or is the study of housing to be brought within the scope of all profes-
sional and business training, which may have some part in shaping broad
housing policies.

Whether an educational institution approaches housing as a task
intended to develop professional services, civic leadership, or business
methods, the answers to the above questions will determine our way
of living in the future.

It should not be assumed that the broad knowledge, skills, and ex-
perience required in housing may be centered in the training of a single
individual. Specialization will be necessary, both for the purpose of de-
veloping the peculiar qualifications of individuals, and in the interest
of high standards of service. In view of these considerations, the follow-
ing lines of specialized training might be undertaken:

i . Clinicians. It would be the business of the clinician to gather, clas-
sify, analyze, and evaluate the social and economic facts of a given com-
munity, neighborhood, city, or individual project. He must be able
to formulate a program consistent with the realities of all the factors
that may lead to practical results. This would mean a knowledge of
the economics of land, the financial resources and problems involved
in securing funds and assuring their safety, a knowledge and understand-
ing of the promotive and restrictive legislation that may be called into
play in improving conditions, a general knowledge of the economic
status of the tenants or future home owners, and their rent-paying re-
sources. He must be aware of the movements of population and their
effect upon the stability of housing investment. He should have a
knowledge of city planning and zoning insofar as they affect the char-
acter and location of housing enterprises, and a knowledge of many
other aspects of our social and economic life as they affect the home.
This group of clinicians should find a field of great usefulness both in
public and in private enterprise. The day of slumming is over, and
legislating the slums out of existence has proved a tedious and almost

216 HOUSING EDUCATION

fruitless task. The training of the clinician in the wider implications of
housing as a socio-economic problem may refocus our housing economy
in a manner that will produce beneficial results for both those to be
housed and those whose business it is to derive a profit from housing
others.

2. Leadership. The most casual examination of our present business
methods, our ways of legislative control, our planning technique, and
the general manner in which the providing of housing has been carried
out by both private agencies and public enterprise, suggests the need
for leadership, not alone in what should be done but in altering the
mechanics of doing it. Our laws, our taxation system, our methods of
safeguarding investment, our ways of fostering public participation in
housing finance, can not— judging by past results— be assumed to be
adequate. A large number of changes in these methods must be effected
before we shall have built up public policies and private practices which
would make better housing possible. To achieve this end, leadership
of an enlightened kind is essential.

3. Technicians. It is the task of the technician to give physical form
to the synthesis of all the forces which, when combined in their proper
relation, will produce housing. It is therefore important that the tech-
nician be not only a designer of sites and buildings, but that he make
that design the expression of all of the possibilities afforded by a given
condition.

Architecture is, of course, an art. Its main function has heretofore
been the lending of a sense of fitness to utilitarian purposes. To this
form of professional skill must be added the element of function in
terms of specific conditions— social, economic, personal, and communal.
Thus design must not be functional, merely as a dwelling in a social
vacuum. It must express relationships, the radius of which should ex-
tend to the physical pattern of the community and the pattern of society.

To achieve this the technician must speak the same language as the
clinical student of housing. He must be able to incorporate, in the
conception of his plan, his conception of human life in human rela-
tions. He must keep in mind not only the present, but a changing, com-
munity and advancing standards. He must be aware of the limitations
of investment and management economy. In short, he must transform
the art of building into a social synthesis which transcends the narrow
limits of mass and space.

4. Management. While housing management has long been a field
of employment demanding special ability and knowledge, it is only
within the last few years that it has gained standing which may lead to

HOUSING EDUCATION 2 1 7

the development of a new profession. Government housing has given
a certain zest to the training for this profession, and much of the in-
formation and experience of the past is being assembled into a coherent
set of principles which, at least in the past, have governed management
practice.

In view of the fact that management plays an important part in the
social as well as financial success of housing enterprise, the training of
housing managers should find a place in the field of housing education.

Heretofore management has been a service called for after the build-
ing was constructed and ready for occupancy. As the problems of de-
sign are solved more and more in human and economic terms, the
problems of management, at least insofar as they may depend upon the
physical plant and equipment, must be met before and not after the
design of the building is completed. In fact, this is the present practice
in the design of some of the government housing projects.

It is difficult to outline all the functions which housing management
may include. Past experience has shown that it is not merely a matter
of rent collection, building care, and the incidental services connected
with tenant-owner relationships. In its broadest implications, particularly
in subsidized or government housing, where service is at least as impor-
tant as revenue, management must deal with many human relations, in-
cluding the relations of the families to each other, the incidents and
accidents of sickness, unemployment, leisure-time use, and many similar
aspects of life. The management under these conditions becomes a
human-relations service, in which the manager may be called upon to
exercise many functions. He must be ready to advise and assist in matters
of relief, employment, hospitalization, child discipline, domestic rela-
tions. The training of managers must, therefore, take on a new social
aspect which borders on a great variety of social services, or he should
at least be familiar with every service available in the community that
may be called upon to assist in solving the problems of the tenants.

Efficient housing management implies not only knowledge, but ex-
perience and tact in handling human problems. The manager is in most
cases the determining factor between failure and success of housing
enterprises. He must have peculiar talents for this work, but must be
trained so that his talents may be used to the best advantage.

SUMMARY

We have seen that the creation of conditions conducive to high hous-
ing standards is dependent upon knowledge and experience reaching into
nearly every social and technical science. Economics, political science,

218 HOUSING EDUCATION

sociology, law, engineering, medicine, city planning, education, busi-
ness management, social service— all make their contribution toward
the setting up of standards and their practical realization. Indeed, the
field of research and the fields of practical service afford opportunities
for employment so vast that almost every professional school could
with profit set up courses in housing, insofar as these professions may
be able to make a contribution toward housing. The schools of archi-
tecture and the schools for social work have so far had a monopoly
in this type of educational effort.

I believe that universities and colleges would render a valuable serv-
ice to society if they were to set up housing institutes in which the
educational and research resources of the entire institutions were to be
coordinated. This would afford the students of housing access to every
authoritative source of information which touches upon housing. At the
same time, the teaching staff would find a field for contributing their
share of knowledge and experience to the solution of the most press-
ing problem of the day.

The Housing Survey

and
Housing Research

CHAPTER X

THE HOUSING SURVEY

AND
HOUSING RESEARCH

It may seem presumptuous to include in this book a chapter on sur-
vey and research in housing. However, after a careful study of some
hundreds of housing surveys ranging in scope from a few families to
the Real Property Inventory, which covers real properties in 64 cities
throughout the United States, I am persuaded that some clarification
is necessary of the relation between housing surveys and research in
the same field.

NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE SURVEY

Professors Odum and Jocher, in their otherwise fine work An In-
troduction to Social Research* state that the survey "is an inductive
method— that it is built up from the particular to the general." It is
this misconception of the survey that has led to so many assumptions
as to the value of the survey and has often resulted in mistaking sur-
veys for scientific inquiry. The fact is that no survey which is intended
to be used for the devising of a particular set of reforms or improve-
ments proceeds from the particular to the general. Rather is the process
reversed, so that, assuming certain generalizations, a measuring of social
facts is undertaken in order to ascertain the extent to which these facts
measure up to the preconceived and presumably accepted generalizations.

Taking the field of housing as our immediate concern, it is obvious
that a housing survey like any other survey must approach its task with a
well-assorted set of generalizations. It is only by this method that we can
discover to what extent these generalizations can be fortified in devising
measures for the improvement of existing conditions. We believe, for
example, that substandard housing is bad for the health, and we pro-
ceed to find out to what extent bad health is more common where
housing is substandard. We are convinced that delinquency is a result
of a bad home environment, and accordingly we attempt to demon-
strate that families in the slum areas are more particularly prone to fur-

1Odum, William W., and Jocher, Katherine, An Introduction to Social Research, Henry
Holt and Company, New York, 1923, p. 249.

223

224 THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH

nish a high quota of juvenile and other forms of delinquency than the
better-housed families.

One of the more recent developments in the housing survey field is
the generalization that bad housing places a greater burden upon munic-
ipal budgets than does good housing. In New York City and in Cin-
cinnati surveys of slum areas proved beyond the shadow of a doubt
that the taxpayer's burden in the slum areas is greater than in the better-
housed sections of these cities. Home ownership is another of those super-
stitions which pass for sociological generalization and which have so
often misguided "practical" housing specialists into survey enterprises,
in order to demonstrate that the social conditions in areas where owner-
ship is relatively light are less desirable.

The main difficulty with the housing survey, as with surveys in other
fields, is the fact that a survey requires a stock of generalizations from
which to proceed and that often these generalizations have been arrived
at, not through careful scientific research, but through devious ways
representing a combination of traditional beliefs, prejudices, habits of
thinking, sentiment, social superstitions, and ignorance or deliberate mis-
representation of the fundamental principles, forces, and processes which
determine a particular condition or set of conditions. A survey is often
merely evidence that, under a given set of wrong assumptions or gen-
eralizations, one can build up a set of facts which would justify action
in harmony with these assumptions. If the assumptions are wrong, the
action is bound to be wrong, regardless of the mass of facts accumulated,
their accuracy, or apparent close relation to the objectives desired.

The colossal failure of this country to evolve a well-rounded pro-
gram of housing reform is clear evidence that the survey in this field
has failed to supply the necessary evidence and the scientific back-
ground for a far-reaching and effective program. We have had agitation,
propaganda and honest effort in many directions, but when, in 1932,
we were faced with the task of utilizing an economic crisis as a spring-
board for a housing program, we were as much in the dark as if we
had never had any surveys.

It should not be assumed that the surveys have been entirely without
scientific value, but where such value has been derived, it was the result
of a careful coordination between scientific generalizations and social
diagnosis. I shall go even further and grant that, in many cases, surveys
have helped to correct and thoroughly reorient scientific thinking, as
the result of an accumulation of facts not otherwise available. The funda-
mental error in the survey is not its accumulation of facts, but its assump-
tion that these facts are intended to promote social action rather than add

THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH 225

to the mass evidence essential to the formulation of new principles and
generalizations.

Another fallacy of the survey is the assumption that the measurement
of separate social entities is possible without considering the close relation-
ship of social institutions. The danger that arises from assuming that an
immediate relationship between conditions existing within a circum-
scribed field of social life represents the cause of this condition has not
often been obviated by our surveys. That there is a close correlation be-
tween bad health and housing can easily be proved statistically, but that
this ill-health is caused by bad housing is still a question that has not been
fully answered. Again, it is obvious that delinquency is prevalent in the
slums, but that delinquency has any relation to the condition of stairs
or the existence of an adequate water supply is not so certain. The survey
is therefore faulty insofar as it fails to test its assumptions in the light of
the social and allied sciences before following a line of reasoning which
correlates cause with effect. The facts may be accurate, the measuring
standard may be beyond reproach, the terminology may be borrowed
from the latest and best scientific vernacular; and, yet, the conclusions
may come dangerously near destroying the real objective sought in im-
proving existing conditions.

I may seem to insist too vehemently upon the necessity for testing the
relation between cause and effect, but I have seen from long experience
too many reforms which have defeated the very purpose for which they
were intended because those who presumed to gather the evidence on
which to base such reforms were novices in the field in which they were
engaged and mistook facts for evidence. Often facts of unquestionable
value to science may, at the same time, be a positive menace to construc-
tive social action. It is therefore important to discriminate between a sur-
vey which is intended to contribute to the sum total of factual knowledge
and enriched scientific experience, and the survey which contemplates
social action.

The latter type of survey is justified only when, in the gathering,
classification, and analysis of the facts, it extends its field of investigation
over a sufficiently long radius of social causation to avoid the incidence
of a too-narrow interpretation of cause and effect. Only thus can a pro-
gram of social improvement be harmonized with the social processes and
scientific outlook.

The survey is not the invention of American social workers. The prob-
lems that have arisen in civilized society have long ago been subjected
to careful and minute study, and the results have been utilized either in
enriching the factual material upon which social theory may be based

226 THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH

or in propounding social panaceas intended to reduce the social inequality
or injustice which every social order affords. The history of the survey
may be traced to Plato and his Republic, but we shall only attempt briefly
to consider the more recent efforts in this direction and the specific
manner in which these may be distinguished from our more modern
American method. For the earliest examples of surveys we must go to
England, where John Stow first attempted a study of the City of Lon-
don. He published A Survey of London in 1598, a most accurate and
carefully compiled chronicle of the city, its history, geographic char-
acter, and existing conditions. This represented the first effort in the
direction of giving a picture of a particular community in which every
aspect of the life, labor, and resources of the people was considered.
It was also the first time that the word "survey," so far as we know,
was used in connection with such a study. This was not an effort to advo-
cate reforms, but merely to state facts. Twenty-seven years later Samuel
Purchas published a work of a similar nature, but here we find more than
mere statement of fact, as revealed by the title of the work itself, which
reads: Purchas, His Pilgrim; or Microcosmus, or the Historic of Man,
with the Methods of His Generation, the Varieties of His Degeneration
and the Necessity for His Regeneration. Here is a title that should make
the average surveyor green with envy. As Purchas was chaplain to the
Archbishop of Canterbury, his title can be attributed to divine guidance.

The man who, in my estimation, made the largest and richest contribu-
tion toward the technique and scientific outlook of the survey is Pierre
Guillaume Frederic Le Play, who, in 1855, published his Les ouvriers
europeens (The European Workers). This was a study carried on dur-
ing leisure periods in his life, when he travelled from- village to village in
order to ascertain, not some specific facts about a particular problem,
but to gather data on the life and labor and physical environment of the
working population.

This was no task conceived under the impetus of reform, but rather
an exploration into the realm of living carried on by a skilled engineer
concerned with people and their ways of living. It was not until nine
years later that he attempted, in his work Reforme sociale en France,
to lay down some principles of reform which, in the light of his compre-
hensive and first-hand studies, seemed necessary. How great an influence
Le Play had upon social investigation is difficult to tell. There is, how-
ever, no doubt that his influence upon social thinking has been largely
in the direction of clarifying the intimate relationship between the in-
dividual, the family, and the geographic environment. Indeed, this form

THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH 227

of social thinking affected even the literature of the latter part of the
nineteenth century, of which the most outstanding example is Emil Zola's
Les Rougon- Mac quart, a twenty- volume work in which the history of a
family is made the vehicle for a minute study of the social, economic,
political, and cultural life of a whole people.

So important was Le Play's work considered that a society for its con-
tinuation was organized first in France and later in England. Both of
these organizations have rendered valuable service in encouraging sur-
veys and in directing public opinion, not alone toward their value, but
also toward the type of technique that avoids the pitfalls of dealing with
problems in insulated social segments.

While Le Play's work was essentially confined to personal observa-
tions, it must be emphasized that few surveys can be carried on by this
method. In the first place, the time factor often must be reckoned with,
especially when an investigation covers a considerable territory and in-
volves the recording of many facts. Frequently surveys are undertaken
under the leadership of a skilled investigator, who must seek help from
others less capable and less familiar with the object of the investigation.
This means evolving methods of fact finding which can be employed in
delegating the task of observing and recording to others. Certain methods
of observation and measurement must therefore be found which would
make possible the delegation of investigation to a staff who may be de-
pended upon to select and record facts which, in the end, would have
a common value, regardless of the personal equation of the investigator's
knowledge or skill. Quantative measurement of specific facts commonly
definable is therefore the most important consideration in a survey. In
this respect, statistical methodology becomes essential but, at the same
time, extremely dangerous.

Taking their cue from the development of mathematical science as
applied to social phenomena, a galaxy of thinkers have tried to apply
mathematics to social phenomena, in the hope of evolving some kind
of a science of social mechanics. Although there is no intimate connec-
tion between housing and mathematical calculations as applied to human
society, it may not be out of place here to review very briefly the efforts
in the direction of calculating social phenomena in quantitative terms.

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), the French philosopher and mathematician
who evolved the theory that environment is a factor in determining jus-
tice, also developed the theory of probability, which, when applied to
social phenomena, makes possible social forecasts. It was Jacques Ber-
nouilli (1654-1705), the Swiss thinker, however, who connected the idea
of probability with the idea of regularity in social events. He was perhaps

228 THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH

also the most advanced in the matter of relating "civil, moral, and eco-
nomic" phenomena to the technique of measurement, or mathematics. In
England, we find William Petty (1623-1687), in his Political Arithmetic,
applying statistical data to political events and social phenomena. Around
1662, John Graunt developed the first mortality table ever prepared
in any country. Dutch mathematicians of the seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries went a good deal further than Pascal in their efforts
to interpret social, or rather historical, facts as having a causal relation
to each other and a certain continuity. This was the result of the influence
of one of the greatest philosophers of that time, namely, Gottfried Wil-
helm Leibnitz (1649-1716), who anticipated this development in social
thinking. Buffon (1749-1789), in his Natural History of Man, used
mortality tables as a basis for his arguments. Depercieux (1703-1768),
who wrote an essay entitled, The Probability of Human Life, made the
first effort toward giving some idea of longevity. J. L. Lagrange (1736-
1813) developed his Essay on Political Arithmetic, using much of La-
voisier's work in his calculations. Laplace (1749-1821) and Joseph
Fourier (1769-1839) developed the idea that statistical measurements
are essentially a mathematical tool used in the development of social
science.

In Germany, a very interesting development in the study of social
phenomena took place when Peter J. Suzmilch (1707-1767) decided that
statistical measurements might be used in the development of social laws.
The philosopher Kant went further and demonstrated that, no matter
what free will may do in the case of individual action, the group acts
with certain regularity and precision which can be statistically measured.
The French statistician Quetelet (1796-1874) advanced still further in
the development of the relation between various social phenomena by
evolving the concepts of "average," "maximum," and "minimum." Karl
Marx took much from Quetelet, in particular the idea that there is a
close relation between social, moral, and political phenomena and the
economic structure of society. Quetelet further developed the theory
that, while population might advance in geometric progression, as pointed
out by Malthus, this increase is retarded by obstacles which eventually
tend to bring population to a standstill. Here is a clear deduction, purely
mathematical, which we find to be working out in every civilized country.

This brief review of the development of the study of social science
through quantitative measurement is intended to show the evolution of
social measurement theories, and is important as a basis for both research
and survey work. Statistical measurement is essential in determining
scientific symmetry in social phenomena.

THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH 229

The survey is intended to give the key to this symmetry and, in its
full development, might give rise to a new science or method of "social
meteorology" or "sociometry," which would have for its purpose the
measurement of the state of civilization and the extent to which this
civilization has permeated the masses of the people and has served to bring
them within reach of the resources of social progress and civilization.
That is all that the survey could aspire to be when it is developed beyond
the narrow confines of a given problem to be solved within a limited
pattern.

HISTORY OF THE SURVEY

With characteristic minuteness the Germans started to develop an his-
torical school of surveys which dealt with the evolution of certain social
manifestations. Bucher in Germany, and his contemporary, Brentano,
began certain economic studies of specific problems rather than general
economics while Ratzel was at work on his theory that geography is
a very potent factor in the development of the social order and of racial
traits.

The geographic factor, which was so fully developed in Germany by
Ratzel, was not without preparation. The English Ordnance Survey was
begun in 1745, when it was discovered that the country was unprepared
to meet rebellion. In consequence, the war office of England undertook
a geographic survey of the Scottish Highlands. At the end of the eight-
eenth century, Napoleon frightened the English into extending this work
to other parts of the country. After Napoleon was safely lodged at St.
Helena, the army officials lost interest. By this time, however, it was found
that the maps were of value in making local improvements, for recording
titles, mortgages, taxation, and so on. It was not till 1815, the year of
Waterloo, that the work was complete. It has been revised and kept up
to date ever since.

The relation between geography and the social sciences became more
and more obvious, and the survey idea in relation to geography found
increasing support. Patrick Geddes, who was perhaps the leader in the
survey movement of England, was in the meantime working at his civic
tasks. Geddes felt that geography was most important in planning for
human welfare, and devised the formula that we must know first the
place, next the work, and finally the folk. His influence has been felt
on three continents, and there has never been anyone who could focus
facts upon civic problems better than he could. It was under his in-
spiration that the Le Play Society was organized in England, and the
Outlook Tower in Edinburgh was his contribution to organized thinking

230 THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH

in terms of human geography. The Outlook Tower, which was the first
survey laboratory organized under the inspiration of Patrick Geddes,
combined the idea of Quetelet with the more advanced concepts of
mathematics, history, geography and the social sciences as essentials in
the development of a survey technique which could be relied upon to
give every social inquiry a scientific backing.

Out of this grew the movement for regional study, which implied a
new alignment of geographic areas based on organic, geographic and
social entities, and represented a certain symmetry between the intent of
nature and the possibilities for economic and social progress. This move-
ment has only recently found expression in America through the Na-
tional Resources Board, which is attempting a scientific breakdown of
the elements which make our civilization and their future possibilities.

In the United States, we can do no better than begin with the regional
surveys which George Washington undertook personally. Even before
peace with the British was finally concluded, General Washington ex-
plored the Mohawk route with a view to coordinating the natural re-
sources of that region with a planned economy. He reported on his
explorations to Chevalier de Chastellux, in a letter dated October 12, 1783,
and later wrote to Thomas Jefferson (March 29, 1784) regarding certain
connections which might be developed between the Ohio and Potomac
Rivers.2

The most important series of surveys in this country is represented
by the United States Census, which had its beginnings in 1790 and by
1850 had reached a degree of thoroughness and efficiency which makes
it invaluable as a means of studying the history and development of the
United States. While at its inception it had merely a political purpose,
namely, the determining of political representation, its subsequent de-
velopment reached into a vast number of phases of our national life
which makes its use for social study indispensable. While sometimes im-
portant aspects of our social life could easily have been incorporated in
the systematic canvassing schedules of the census, thus laying the founda-
tion for accurate knowledge of our social conditions, pressure from
various sources and the point of view of the director and the census
board stood out against such widening of the scope of the census. How-
ever, much has been accomplished and constant extension of its func-
tions promises to bring about broadening views as to the social function
of this instrument of national measurement.

Aside from the United States Census, there was little concern with
the survey method in this country. The earliest record that can be

2 See Hegemann, City Planning-Housing, Vol. I, pp. 10-11.

THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH 231

found of any specific investigation of social conditions in survey form is,
strangely enough, an investigation of housing in New York City. While
traces of housing regulations are found as far back as 1647, the first
investigation was made under an order bearing the date of September
30, 1793, of the Common Council of New York.

The annual report of the inspector of health, made by Garrett Forbes,
contains information regarding housing conditions in New York and
calls attention to the high death rate which is alleged to be caused by
the filthy conditions of the dwellings. The report declared that it is to
be "regretted" that there were so many mercenary landlords who per-
mitted their tenants to live in surroundings unfit for habitation. The pop-
ulation of the city at that time was 2^70,000.

A more thorough survey was made in 1842, when Dr. John H. Gris-
com, of the Board of Health, revealed that 7,196 people lived in 1,459
cellars and that fire risks prevailed, beside overcrowding and filth. But
it was not until the Association for Improving the Conditions of the
Poor undertook its study of the housing problem in New York that
we find any record of concern with housing by a private agency. In
1846, the Association undertook a survey which was published in 1853.
Attention was called in this report to many old houses unfit for habita-
tion, the smallness of the rooms, the prevalence of boarders and roomers,
and the presence of stables in the rear of houses which had been con-
verted into dwellings.

Prompted by the findings of the Association, the New York State
Legislature, in 1856, appointed a committee to make a study of the
"tenant houses." This report re-emphasized the findings of the previous
surveys, but a recommendation for the appointment of a board of home
commissioners was not adopted by the State Legislature.

Despite these inquiries and the agitation following the riots of 1863,
which brought to public attention the conditions under which human
beings had been living, no serious effort was made to bring about funda-
mental changes in the regulation and control of housing conditions.

In 1864, however, the Citizens Association of New York, prompted
by the alarming conditions that were developing in that city, under-
took an investigation of the sanitary conditions of the city. The investi-
gation was conducted by the Council of Hygiene and Public Health.
It consumed two years and is a document of great value, both because
of its broad approach to the whole subject of health and because of
its thorough consideration of the housing conditions. Among the mem-
bers of the investigating committee we find such persons as Hamilton
Fish, John Jacob Astor, and Robert B. Roosevelt. The investigation of

232 THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH

each district was entrusted to a physician, and a uniform plan was used
in securing information and in reporting the results. The maps and
drawings are particularly valuable and should be studied, by those
making housing surveys at the present time, as samples of graphic ways
of driving home a point. This report is particularly interesting for its
accurate and specific descriptions of buildings, accompanied by floor
plans and other evidence revealing the evils that prevailed and where
they were located.

Between 1866 and 1880 we find very few instances of surveys of any
importance, either from the point of view of housing or other aspects
of social life. In France the followers of Le Play carried on special studies
of specific industries and expanded their work of family records, but
the main emphasis seems to have been placed upon perfecting statistical
methods and promoting the institution of official agencies for the gather-
ing of uniform and reliable statistical data.

However, we find that many of the European countries were becom-
ing aware of the seriousness of the housing situation. From many quar-
ters came evidence of existing evils. Thus we find Villerme, through the
publication of his Tableau de VEtat physique des Ouvriers, bringing the
matter of housing into sufficient prominence to prompt legislative action
in the interest of housing. His revelations took ten years to produce
results. A decade later Adolphe Blanqui, a distinguished economist, un-
dertook an independent study of housing conditions, and in 1866 Jules
Simon further dramatized the lot of the French worker in his relation to
the home.

In England the movement toward improving housing conditions by
calling attention to existing evils began with a remarkable report pub-
lished by Drs. Arnott, Southerland, and Smith, in which attention was
called to conditions of overcrowding in London. The subsequent sur-
vey made by M. E. Chadwick in 1 842 for the Public Relief Commission
was so impressive in its revelations that a number of societies for the
improvement of housing conditions were formed, and the first move-
ment for housing legislation had its birth. The various surveys had not
only the effect of influencing legislation, but they served as an inspira-
tion for literary efforts and various reform writings which helped to
bring housing reform into popular favor. An interesting character who
undertook to spend his life seeking a solution of the housing problem
is Arthur Rafalovitch, who traveled through the length and breadth of
Europe in order to secure some knowledge about the way to improve
housing conditions. Here is a case of surveying not conditions but the

THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH 233

efforts and experience which society has to offer, and also the evalua-
tion of these efforts and experience.

Up to 1880 certain gains in the interest of improved housing legis-
lation had been achieved in practically every western country in Europe
and in the United States. From that time on the survey shifted from
the housing field or other specific problems to the consideration of gen-
eral community conditions in relation to the poorer classes. The most
monumental work came from the pen of Charles Booth, who in 1886
began his investigation and published Life and Labor of the People of
London, in 1891-1892. Darkest England and the Way Out, by William
Booth, was published a year before Charles Booth brought out the results
of his investigations. These two surveys marked a new epoch in this field
of investigation and gave a much broader meaning to the relationship
between the condition of the poor as economic entities and their lot as
inhabitants of a community unsuited for decent living standards. Ten
years later B. Seebohm Rowntree published Poverty— A Study of Town
Life, which further developed the idea of the intimate relationships
between various social factors that determine social conditions.

In the United States, aside from a number of local studies of no great
import, we have no outstanding studies of social conditions, except per-
haps the report of the Industrial Commission, which carried on exten-
sive investigations of industrial conditions in the United States but did
not extend its field beyond the specific problems that concern labor and
industry. It is rather difficult to draw the line between studies which are
undertaken as a result of a specific interest of a public nature, prompting
the government to seek information, and surveys which either are the
result of public interest in a specific problem or are prompted by the
normal interest in the accumulation of knowledge valuable in the up-
building of the science of society. The studies we have cited so far are
significant either because of the technique employed or because they
marked a point in public policy where information of an impartial nature
was essential in devising ways and means of alleviating the conditions
of certain classes of people.

Jacob Riis, the Danish- American journalist, in his book Hoi» the Other
Half Lives, laid the foundation for a new effort in the interest of
better housing in New York City. This book, based on first hand infor-
mation of conditions and prompted by the author's sense of justice, was
the inspiration of a new awakening to the need for further study and
effort in behalf of the tenement dwellers of the great metropolis. The
activities of the Tenement House Committee of the Charity Organiza-

234 THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH

tion Society, the studies and lectures of Dr. Felix Adler of the Ethical
Culture Society, and the work of the Association for Improving the
Condition of the Poor, finally brought about the appointment of the
Tenement House Commission, which under the leadership of Robert
W. DeForest and Lawrence Veiller produced the most complete and
thorough study of New York housing conditions.

This report was issued in 1900, and in 1901 the Tenement House
Department was created as part of the machinery of the City Govern-
ment, entirely separate from the Health and Building Departments of
that city. The report was the most epoch-making document in the his-
tory of housing surveys. Nothing so thorough has been done since in
any city of the United States. So impressive was the evidence gathered
and so sweeping was the legislation enacted, that a veritable avalanche
of housing surveys followed in every corner of the country. The results,
however, were not so satisfactory as they might have been, as those who
made the surveys were often prompted by sentimental impulses without
having the knowledge necessary either to make the surveys or to frame
legislation which would meet local conditions. Often the New York
Tenement House Act was copied almost in toto in order to meet con-
ditions that were fundamentally different from those prevailing in New
York City. Indeed, there are today on many statute books laws which
emulated the original Tenement House Act of New York City, while
in New York the law has been changed in many fundamental respects
in order to remove original defects and because of changing conditions
and new needs.

One can not close the account of investigations up to the first year
of the present century without mentioning the studies of Jane Addams
at Hull House in Chicago, and Robert A. Wood's The City Wilderness,
which made upon the conscience of the nation lasting impressions as
to the conditions under which people work, live, and have their being.

The most dramatic survey with the most dramatic results in the first
decade of this century was Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, a study of the
packing industry in Chicago and the human elements involved in this
great industry. The Jungle was published in 1906; it swept the country
like a flaming torch and resulted in a great variety of public investiga-
tions and legislative enactments. This was not a survey in the ordinary
sense of the word; it was a cry out of the wilderness that thrives on the
fringes of our civilization. The cry was heard by the President of the
United States, as well as by the humblest men and women with a social
conscience.

Here perhaps it might not be out of place to comment on the value

THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH 235

of the literary presentation of social facts. Many of our surveys have
lacked the vital force of literary treatment and have been presented in
forms devoid of the quality of readability. They have often become
merely documents to be read when we prepare other documents, or to
be filed away in the storehouses of sociological facts, from which only
experts may derive benefit.

Up to 1907 there was in this country no organization of a private
nature which was intended as a clearing house for social investiga-
tion and which was not concerned with some specific problem of reform.
In that year Mrs. Russell Sage, who had the full freedom to dispose of
the Russell Sage fortune, created, under the guidance of Robert W. De-
Forest and John Glenn, the Russell Sage Foundation, the purpose of
which was the improvement of social conditions, and, especially, the
ascertaining of social facts.

The first and most outstanding single undertaking of the Russell Sage
Foundation was the Pittsburgh Survey, under the leadership of Paul
U. Kellogg, at the time editor of Charities, a social worker's publication.
It was due to Paul U. Kellogg, with his long experience and sensitive-
ness to social problems, and later to the skill of Shelby M. Harrison, who
became associated with the Russell Sage Foundation, that the Pittsburgh
Survey assumed the proportion and character of a city-wide study, bal-
anced in its social conception of main issues and without concern as to
the interests involved that might be affected by the findings. The Cleve-
land Survey followed the Pittsburgh Survey, and finally came the Spring-
field Survey. These three surveys, broad in scope, diversified as to the
character of the communities studied, and scientific in their technical
approach, are beyond a doubt among the most outstanding achievements
of the first quarter of this century in the United States.

There were, of course, many other surveys undertaken during this
period, and, insofar as housing surveys are concerned, there are not less
than four hundred in the files in the Library of Congress, the New York
Public Library, the Library of the Harvard University School for City
Planning, and the Russell Sage Foundation Library. Most of the investi-
gations are, however, fragmentary and often too closely focused upon
some specific problem limited in outlook and circumscribed in its geo-
graphic area. With the exception of such city-wide studies, as George
F. Kenngott's The Record of a City— A Social Survey of Lowell, Massa-
chusetts, and a few less meritorious efforts, we have no outstanding com-
plete community surveys.

In 1929 Middletoivn was published. This was the most thorough ex-
amination into the social life and manifestations of a city that had been

236 THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH

produced in this country.8 Written by Professors Robert Lynd and
Helen Merrell Lynd, two outstanding sociologists, it represents a new
technique in community study, and is a model of clarity and thorough
methods of social investigation. Its sequel, published in 1937, has an
added value in the fact that it reconsiders the same social aspects of
community life eight years later. It presents a picture of the changes
which took place in the community over a given period of time. We
have no similar study of any other community in this country.

I should now like to turn to one more survey of national significance
which, although first initiated as a private enterprise in the city of Cleve-
land, eventually was extended by the federal government to sixty-four
cities scattered throughout the country. This is the Real Property In-
ventory. As a record of information it is the most extensive ever under-
taken. The Real Property Inventory was carried on under the direction
of the Department of Commerce, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic
Relations. Although considering only part of each city studied, it re-
vealed facts regarding conditions, financial status of properties, interest
rates, rental rates, overcrowding, and similar aspects of the housing
problem which, under careful analysis, should be valuable as a guide
in the development of housing programs covering a large number of
phases of the housing problem. It is to be hoped that, out of the evidence
gathered through the Real Property Inventory, will grow the convic-
tion that housing should become a part of the periodic record which
the Bureau of the Census gathers in connection with population, indus-
try, mining, and similar subjects. The only way to measure progress in
housing is to provide for periodic records of a systematic character, and
to continue this measurement at stipulated periods comparable with simi-
lar measurements in other fields of our social and economic life.

FEDERAL HOUSING AND THE SURVEY

The federal government has been concerned with housing only as
incidental to some other phases of its great variety of social studies, and
the Department of Labor has from time to time published reports deal-
ing with specific housing conditions. It was not, however, until 1932
that, under the promptings of a reconstruction program of our economic
structure, housing received consideration. Under the promise of assist-
ance in the solution of local housing problems, the communities through-
out the United States began to vie with each other in their demon-
strations of the need for better housing. The Real Property Inventory
was the most outstanding effort in this direction. Later each com-

8Middletown is presumed to be the city of Muncie, Indiana.

Photograph by Sekaer.

LAKEVIEW TERRACE, CLEVELAND, OHIO. UNITED STATES HOUSING AUTHORITY
PROJECT.

Photograph by Sekaer.

WESTFIELD ACRES, CAMDEN, NEW JERSEY. PROJECT UNDERTAKEN BY THE
UNITED STATES HOUSING AUTHORITY.

THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH 239

munity which was seriously considering Federal Aid for housing made
surveys of local slum conditions and assembled evidence of the possibili-
ties for their removal.

One such study was undertaken in New York City under the leader-
ship of the Slum Clearance Committee of New York. The report of
this committee is a very able presentation of facts which were generally
well known. The form of the report, however, makes these facts easily
understood. More intensive studies of similar nature were carried out by
the Orientation Study, organized under the auspices of the Columbia
University School of Architecture under the direction of the writer.
Most of the material assembled was displayed at a housing exhibit held
at the Museum of Modern Art of New York under the auspices of a
number of social agencies. This exhibit was visited by more than seven-
teen thousand people in the course of two weeks.

In this account of housing surveys, I have not mentioned one of the
most complete and scholarly studies of housing, namely, Dr. James Ford's
study of New York slums. This study was financed by E. Phelps Stokes
as part of the work of the Stokes Foundation, and should be looked
upon as the most thorough investigation available on slum conditions.

APPROACH TO THE SURVEY

Enough has been said of the general character of various surveys to
justify an attempt at defining the approach to the subject, insofar as it
represents not only a commodity which every person must consider
as essential to his personal and family well-being, but also the expendi-
ture of enormous national resources in the production of this com-
modity. The individual investor, the banks, the consumer, the insurance
companies, and the motor revenue of our municipalities, are inextricably
related to each other in any consideration of housing.

If surveys are to be undertaken, it is therefore essential that not alone
the conditions and the causes and effects of housing be studied, but
that these studies be undertaken with a view to ultimate, rather than
momentary, solution. I am aware that some studies are needed to meet
immediate situations or to emphasize some specific phase of the subject
at a crucial moment in legislative enactment, but these are not surveys
in the strict sense of the word; they are merely the accumulation of
information intended to serve a purpose which is ephemeral in character
and seldom likely to have lasting value.

I have often thought that the term "survey" is misleading. It is a
phrase which denotes taking a general view rather than making a more
minute study of conditions and facts. It is probably too late to advance

240 THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH

a new name for this type of study, but its use certainly is not justified
in the case of most social studies.

TYPES OF SURVEYS

It is quite difficult to devise a classification of surveys without run-
ning the risk of leaving out certain studies which meet the requirements
of several classifications. We can, however, formulate a general set of
types of surveys, which may depend for their classification upon their
purpose rather than their ultimate content. The following classification
would seem to me to include most of the studies thus far undertaken
as surveys: descriptive surveys, analytical surveys, problem surveys, prop-
aganda surveys, test surveys, and project surveys. We will now take up
each type more fully.

The Descriptive Survey. This type of survey is essentially devoted to
the accumulation of details and analysis of specific social phenomena,
whether they be housing, crime, health, or other social manifestations.
They may not necessarily apply to abnormal conditions, but may merely
be intended to enrich the stores of social facts. These might be descrip-
tive or statistical, or both.

The Analytical Survey. This survey is more in the nature of sociologi-
cal analysis of conditions, their causes and effects, carried out in the
light of a specific social philosophy or for the purpose of deriving evi-
dence upon which theories or principles may be based. Herbert Spencer
hired agents to gather data for his sociological work. Others gather their
own facts, or derive them from the store of evidence gathered from
available sources of various kinds. Much of the work which was done
by the President's Research Commission on Social Trends, while of the
highest order, was primarily based upon existing data. The conclusions
reached in this report are of great value and present a new field of ex-
ploration for both public and private agencies, whose function is to pro-
vide and help to secure the adjustments recent social trends suggest.

The Problem Survey. This is a special type of investigation which
assumes that a specific problem exists and sets for its purpose not only
the measurement of the problem, but the discovery of the factors which
must be taken into account in finding a solution. The problem survey is
not concerned with the conditions, except insofar as the condition justi-
fies its being classed as a problem. Its main object is a solution which
would be in harmony with the facts, and would include all factors which
may contribute to the presence of the problem and all factors which
might play a part in devising solutions. This survey may or may not en-
deavor to discover all of the ramifications of the problem insofar as they

THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH 241

affect society, but it does take account of all the factors which may help
or stand in the way of a solution. Professor James Ford's The Slums of
New York is an example of such a problem study.

The Propaganda Survey. This type of study is generally made with a
specific aim in mind and is perhaps the least valuable of all, except when
emergencies arise. Most of the housing surveys we have so far made
are propaganda surveys. Their motivation may be beyond reproach, but
their regard for relations between facts and social reality is not above
reproach. They are likely to be fragmentary, one-sided, and careless of
the larger implications of the problem.

The Test Survey. This survey is a form of investigation which deals
largely with conditions and results achieved through various efforts to-
ward conscious social change or improvement. We have few of these
surveys; or, rather, this form of survey is often made part of other
studies. It has seemed to me that, in view of the many reforms which
have been inaugurated in this country within the last generation, it would
be an extremely valuable service for some students of social action to
subject many of these reforms to the test of adequacy in the face of the
problems which they expected to solve. We have had many reforms
intended to improve housing conditions, home ownership, land con-
trol, taxation, and so on. It would be of the greatest benefit to social
science and to reformers if these efforts toward improving social condi-
tions were to be subjected to the test of efficiency in the light of the
original objectives. These surveys should be made not as general studies
but as localized investigations of specific areas and the effect upon these
areas of the reforms under scrutiny.

The Project Survey. This is the form of investigation which is used
when a general solution of a problem has been settled upon and the ques-
tion of adjusting the solution to the specific area and conditions must be
projected on a basis of fact. In the case of housing, the project survey
is particularly important, because after all the factors of general im-
portance have been considered, there is still left the problem as to how
to express in structural and site-plan details the general objectives to be
attained in relation to the physical site and community conditions into
which the project must be fitted. Within the last few years most gov-
ernment housing projects have been conditioned upon such studies.
Many of them have been less thorough than conditions justified, but on
the whole they have opened the way toward a clearer understanding of
the social, economic, psychic, and governmental factors that govern the
carrying out of an effective housing scheme. Clarence S. Stein, the New

242 THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH

York architect, who has had a very wide experience with large-scale
housing, long ago developed a technique for the carrying on of such
studies. The proposal for the reconstruction of a certain section of
Astoria, a division of Queen's Borough of New York City, made by a
group of architects and housing students, may be cited as an example of
the more general phase of such study. More recently most housing
projects of any magnitude are planned only after a careful project survey
is completed, so as to bring the objective as close to reality as possible.

THE SURVEY AND RESEARCH

It is difficult to draw the line between the survey and research. Often
the term "research" is used when "survey" is meant, as it has become
fashionable for people to use the former when they are carrying on a
minor investigation of some kind.

While it is quite impossible to draw a clear line of distinction between
the survey and research, there is no question that, in the case of research,
the object is to discover theories, principles, methods, and techniques.
In the case of surveys, the main purpose is to gather, classify, and analyze
a set of facts which, considered in the light of accepted theories, princi-
ples, methods, or techniques would yield certain conclusions and point
to certain types of action which would result in changes and improve-
ments consistent with recognized and accepted standards.

While the essential requirements of accuracy, knowledge of the sub-
ject to be studied, familiarity with the science or sciences which are to
be relied upon for proper interpretation of the facts, are similar in the
case of both surveys and research, the methods and objects differ.

Statistics. A survey implies measurement and, therefore the use of
statistics as a tool. As already stated, the emphasis has been placed too con-
fidently upon the fact that statistical evidence has been gathered, and
the results have been taken for granted as indicative of the conditions
which the survey is intended to reveal. It is well-known that often statis-
tical information, no matter how accurate, may be misleading unless the
facts are of sufficiently broad scope and bear to other causal facts a close
relationship broad enough to give the subject studied a rounded-out
aspect. Often the evidence is quite complete, but fails to meet the re-
quirements of comparison with similar conditions in other areas. In other
cases, statistical relationships are easily demonstrable when the actual
social relationship may be of a doubtful nature. For example, tuberculosis
and bad housing can easily be correlated in almost every slum area. The
extent of the accuracy of this correlation may not be capable of actual

THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH 243

proof, unless we consider the better housing conditions and their tubercu-
losis rate. Even then it might not be a true basis of comparison, as the
people living in better houses are of a higher-income group and can
send their patients to private sanatoriums and even out of the com-
munity to more favorable climates in order to cure the disease. Another
instance to which we have already called attention is the claim, statistically
demonstrable, that the social and other public services required by the
poorer sections of the city where slum conditions prevail are a heavy
burden upon the community budget, and that if housing were improved
there would be a very material saving in municipal expenditures. These
statistical demonstrations, so dear to the heart of the housing reformer,
are sheer propaganda material, as can easily be proved by broader studies
of the subject. The poor live in slums, but the slums alone do not make the
poor. Low income is caused by other conditions. These same people,
moved to palaces or the most expensive elevator apartments in any
city, would still remain poor and without the means of caring for
their sick, without proper means for educational development, or recre-
ational facilities. They would still have to be supplied with the many
services for which they could not pay.

One of the most interesting revelations of the Real Property Inventory
is the fact that, in most cases where the rent is lowest, the rent delinquen-
cies are most common. This does not mean that the slums produce rent-
paying delinquency, but rather that as the ability to pay rent decreases
there is a tendency to move to cheaper and cheaper quarters.

Qualitative Analysis. One of the most serious and, at the same time,
the most difficult problems in carrying on a housing survey is the de-
termination of the facts which are to be gathered and the definition of
these facts in clear terms, so there will be no chance of misunderstanding
the meaning of the findings after they have gone through the process of
statistical analysis. In the case of housing this is a particularly difficult
problem, as many of the terms used in a survey are open to different in-
terpretations and, from the point of view of the field workers, are subject
to personal viewpoints.

I am aware that it is often difficult to define a term, but we should then
so circumscribe it as to provide a common definition of each word, thus
affording little chance for confusion. The term "unfit for habitation"
may mean different things in different communities and under varied con-
ditions. "Room overcrowding" means practically nothing, unless we
know how large the rooms are, and what the relationships and ages are
of those occupying the rooms. We might even go so far as to say that

244 THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH

racial characteristics would have much to do with the conditions of room
use, although overcrowding is not desirable under any conditions.

"Rent" may mean the amount paid for a dwelling. But when we con-
sider heat, hot water, refrigeration, and other services which relieve
the family budget of extra expenditures, it would constitute a different
item in the family budget. We could go on citing other instances, but
suffice it to say that before any survey is undertaken the terminology to be
used should be as clearly defined as qualitative and quantitative terms
can be.

A number of students of housing have from time to time resorted to a
scoring system which avoids in some respects the danger of personal
variants in both the answers to questions and the method of recording.
These score cards, however, are subject to many of the same dangers as
the direct question without scoring. In 1919, the Whittier State School,
an institution for delinquent boys in California, undertook to devise a
guide to the grading of neighborhoods. I do not know to what use this
guide was put by this institution, but a reading of the questions and an
examination of the method of grading makes it obvious that there was
much room left for personal discrimination and points of view. The
values attached to specific factors seemed open to a considerable range of
differences of opinion. There seemed to be serious confusion between
values and attitudes and a stress on the relation of the neighborhood to
the delinquent boy, rather than stress on the neighborhood as a place in
which normal families might live. The assumption seemed to be that, if
a certain condition produced a certain effect upon a boy of a particular
mentality, this condition is undesirable from the point of view of the
people in the neighborhoods.

A similar study carried out recently in a slum district of New York re-
vealed the fact that in a larger majority of cases the boys coming from
homes of better conditions in the same district of New York were more
prone to fall into habits which would land them in the hands of the
police than boys living under less favorable conditions. I am pointing
out these dangers of connecting facts and assuming standards because,
in the field of housing, we have accumulated a considerable number of
prejudices, superstitions, and habits of thinking which befog the issue and
confuse the investigators, so that they accept beforehand meanings of
words and correlations of facts which have no scientific value and which,
in the end, are incompatible with the main objects of housing studies
and the application of the findings to housing reform.

Indeed, I am persuaded that qualitative studies, largely descriptive and
often unyielding to statistical tabulation, are of greater value than statis-

THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH 245

tical data leading to generalization and having no basis in reality. As
Professor Mitchell expresses it,4

Even in the work of the most statistically minded qualitative analysis will
keep a place. Always our thinking will cover a field larger than our measure-
ments; the preconceptions that shape our ends, our first glimpses of new prob-
lems, our widest generalizations will remain qualitative in form.

Indeed, it may be said that in much of our social investigation we are
often confronted in statistical generalization by the facts which had been
secured as a short-cut to mass evidence, as a substitute for the more labori-
ous, but often more accurate, qualitative evaluation.

To be sure, qualitative analysis requires as much, if not more, knowl-
edge and skill in evaluating facts and in relating them systematically to
the main object of the study. But granted that these qualifications are
present in the investigator, a descriptive study of a few families in their
relation to housing would be vastly more valuable than a mass of statis-
tical data in which there is lacking a clear definition of the items to be
measured and a symmetry of the facts bearing upon the problem.

The Elements of Space and Time. It has been pointed out that a dwell-
ing is part of a larger and more complex set of communal and neighbor-
hood patterns, and that in recent years it has been realized that frequently
conditions which are not difficult of improvement structurally are sur-
rounded by such unfavorable communal conditions that no localized
effort to improve individual buildings would materially change the gen-
eral living conditions. It would not be contrary to common experience
also to assert the opposite view, namely, that a neighborhood with obsolete
and substandard housing, in a general environment of open space and
adequate provisions for communal living, would hardly come under the
heading of a slum. It is often the relation between the outer conditions
and the house itself that gives an accurate conception of the way people
are living or can live.

As the location of the house bears a close relation to the community and
the neighborhood, it is essential in all housing surveys to ascertain within
what physical space the study should be geographically confined. The
neighborhood is often taken as a unit of study. But what is a neighbor-
hood? I doubt if a satisfactory definition, upon which agreement could
be reached by a number of social students, is available. It is a term which
has found much popular use, but even the dictionaries have avoided it as
undefinable.5

4 Mitchell, Wesley C., "Quantitative Analysis in Economic Theory," in American Economic
Review, Vol. XV, 1925; p. 12.
6 See the Columbia Encyclopedia, Columbia University Press, New York, 1936.

246 THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH

Yet there is no doubt that within every community there are certain
areas which, because of homogeneity of populational make-up, tight
geographic street plan, historical background of facilities, agencies, or-
ganizations and institutions, human relations, and ways of living, are
closely knit. In many instances there has grown up a consciousness of
neighborly community of interests which has found expression in a whole
series of economic, cultural, educational, and social organizations. These
become potent factors in holding the population together. How to draw
the line on a map which would relate the neighborhood as a social
entity to the geographic boundaries is a difficult and sometimes impossi-
ble task. The fact remains, however, that frequently the proposals for
the removal of a slum district and the opportunities for better housing
in another district meet with serious resistance because in many cases
the individual families are not separate groups of individuals of blood
relationship, but that family groups rather than the individual family
have become the unit for consideration. One reason why it would be diffi-
cult to resettle the Italian or Jewish tenement dwellers on the lower
West or East Side of New York in other parts of the city is that they
have built up a social structure and human relationships which must be
taken into account in all projects contemplating the rehousing of large
numbers of families.

In a recent study of a housing project which was to be located on Long
Island, New York, the problem of transportation to and from work or
shopping centers was a minor consideration compared to the questions
of how the families moving into the new housing would be able to reach
the neighborhood from where they came, in order to keep up their neigh-
borly relationships in a district in which they were no longer residents.

A few suggestions as to the main considerations which would assist
in the creation or in the delineation of a neighborhood are set forth
below:

Geographic Isolation. Most of our cities have been made up of smaller
communities which have either remained stagnant for a while and then
have suddenly become the center of new activity, or have been absorbed
into larger cities as these cities extended their political tentacles into the
outlying districts in order to expand their tax resources or voting power.
At any rate in a large proportion of our cities we find cells of community
centers, around which there are other cells with a rather indistinct or
uncertain character as to residential, business, or industrial activities or
a combination of all of these. Geographically speaking, these little com-
munities have often retained their character, and a large proportion of the
buildings have survived from a generation to more than a century. They

THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH 247

have thus kept the district from radical transformation. We find these
conditions in Chicago in the very shadow of the Loop skyscrapers, in
Boston where an aristocratic neighborhood has survived the pressure of
business expansion, and in New York where Wall Street and Broadway
and all of the great financial institutions of Lower Manhattan have failed
to wipe out the remains of old neighborhoods— the quaint, but not alto-
gether desirable, old buildings which present the most fantastic con-
trast between the bustle of big business and the sordid remains of a
dead age.

Greenwich Village, the alleged center of the artistic population of
New York City, has remained a reasonably well integrated neighbor-
hood, despite the presence of a great university, hotels, and luxurious
apartments near by.

The street plan often the residue of earlier development, the presence
of transit lines which keep the community from becoming popular with
a different class of residents, the closing in of a district by main arteries
of travel which are dangerous, the old boundaries of two adjacent com-
munities which once had their separate political entities and street plans—
these factors tend to preserve neighborhoods and may be depended
upon as guides in the study of neighborhood character and activities. The
configuration of the land is another important factor in creating and
perpetuating neighborhood boundary lines.

In the early days of American community building, the church and
the village green were the pivotal centers around which the community
was built. This was more true in European countries, where the church
was the protecting element in human settlements. Nevertheless, we have
many illustrations in our own cities in which the church has remained

•I

an important center around which neighborhood growth, if not neigh-
borhood activity, has taken place.

Whatever may be said about the rapidly shifting centers of activity in
the United States and the vast migrations of population from the center
to the periphery of our cities, there is ample evidence to show that neigh-
borhoods persist not alone as aggregates of human beings, but rather as
geographic entities which show the same perpetuating trends as our
street systems, which even the automobile has failed to affect materially
insofar as the old-established lines are concerned. Geographic boundaries
alone, however, are not sufficient to determine fully the lines of demarca-
tion of a neighborhood as a social entity.

Economic Levels. While we are living as a democratic people in the
political sense, the economic level of the people finds its counterpart in
the type of habitations which they occupy. This is particularly true of

248 THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH

cities. There are, of course, families of some wealth living in the con-
gested areas, but their presence is largely due either to a lag in their
aspirations for better conditions, or to business interests which are
located in the poorer sections of the city. On the whole, however, the
stratification of our population is not difficult to delineate with reasonable
accuracy on the map of any city. There are some fluctuations as to rental
ranges and building conditions, but on the whole the incursions of better
dwellings suited for a higher income level are few and far between,
as the investment in such dwellings would hardly bring the returns
which it would bring in other locations. Thus the level of incomes also
determines the level of community conditions and the make-up of the
neighborhood population.

I venture the assertion that, within certain limits, a study of wages
and rents would reveal also the lines along which the neighborhood
boundaries might be drawn. There is no doubt that in many instances
changes are taking place on the fringes of these neighborhoods, but on
the whole the neighborhood lines would correspond roughly to the in-
come and rent levels.

Where the characteristics of the population's country of origin have
been preserved, we find that many of the most highly integrated neigh-
borhoods are to be found. To be sure, the income factor has been potent
in determining the choice of the neighborhood, but on the whole the
national lines, within certain limits, have been more important than in-
come levels. If one undertakes to study the institutions which have per-
sisted in various neighborhoods after being created to meet a need peculiar
to a given national group, one finds that they are drawn along the lines
of neighborhood boundaries and seldom include outsiders as active
participants.

The settlement houses and the various social centers located in these
neighborhoods have had to develop their activities to meet the inclinations
and group proclivities of these national groups. Hull House in Chicago,
Greenwich House and The University Settlement in New York, as well
as the many hundreds of other centers of this kind, have had to draw
clear lines in their activities to meet neighborhood needs in terms of
neighborhood character. Their entire success has been based upon an
understanding of the desires and needs of the people and not upon some
abstract concept of culture or Americanism, or some other social philos-
ophy alien to the people.

Race is another factor in the development of neighborhoods. Many of
the racial groups which have created neighborhood entities have done

THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH 249

so not alone because of their economic level or a desire for carrying on
their own life in their own way, but because of certain elements of dis-
crimination which prevail as much in the North and West as they do
in the South. The Chinese and Japanese in the West have to meet similar
conditions, and have created their own centers or neighborhoods in the
areas where they could find space to settle, or where through heavy
sacrifices in rents they could get a residential foothold from which they
expanded as their number increased. To overlook the race and national
character of people, and to disregard both the prejudices which have
developed against them, or the prejudices which they have acquired
against certain American ways of living, is to overlook a most essential
condition of housing.

Where these requirements have been overlooked in a housing project,
the project has been a failure even under conditions where the shortage
of housing is serious and the advantages offered by the new housing are
quite out of the ordinary both in rental rates and surroundings.

Cultural Levels. It is strange that cultural levels play a comparatively
small part in the determination of neighborhood organization. In each
neighborhood there are varieties of categories of cultural levels and cul-
tural activity which in no way interfere with the integrity of the neigh-
borhood. As the cultural level of an individual becomes incompatible
with the neighborhood atmosphere, he may leave the neighborhood, but
he will not be likely to find another neighborhood in which he could
meet those of his cultural needs. On the contrary, as the cultural level
rises, the migration is merely away from the original neighborhood and
not of necessity into a neighborhood more congenial from the cultural
point of view.

I believe that as incomes, culture, and traditional ways of living and
thinking and praying either change or become liberalized, the ties of
the neighborhood are loosened. While there is a sense of relationship
always coming to the fore in neighborhoods which hold the homo-
geneous lower-income classes, in the better housed sections of our
cities an increasing social distance is developed, and this makes of our
select residential areas (except perhaps in small suburban towns) merely
an incoherent massing of people whose interests, social relationships, and
cultural contacts are scattered over large areas with complete disregard
of the next-door neighbor. Professor Robert E. Park, who first intro-
duced the term "social distance," and Professor Emery S. Bogardus and
Professor Pitirim Sorokin, who have elaborated the significance of the
term, present peculiarly interesting opportunities for study in connec-

250 THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH

tion with the change that takes place in this social distance when people
are moving from an established neighborhood to a new and more pros-
perous one. This aspect of increased social distance in neighborhood
disintegration presents an extremely important problem in the planning
of large-scale housing projects.

In connection with the often-mentioned slum clearance efforts, there
is always a serious difficulty that must be met if the rehabilitation is to be
social as well as physical. As far as physical rehabilitation is concerned,
there is little advantage to be gained by merely bringing new investments
into a dilapidated residential area. The advantage contemplated is usually
assumed to be an advantage to the residents of the district, the so-called
neighborhood. My friend, Clarence A. Perry, author of the splendid
report The Rebuilding of Blighted Areas, gave the study a significant
subtitle, A Study of the Neighborhood Unit in Replanning and Plot
Assembly. It is not quite clear from the report whether the replotting
and replanning is for the physical rehabilitation of an area or the re-
habilitation through physical replanning of a neighborhood in which
people previously in the slums are to be given, through planning, an op-
portunity for better neighborhood conditions and a more suitable home
environment.

It seems to me that the whole movement for slum and blighted area
rehabilitation has overlooked the people living in these areas prior to re-
habilitation. In this respect I should like to suggest that, before any slum
rehabilitation is undertaken, it be made an essential condition for the
undertaking that all the manifestations having to do with the human
relations be examined and evaluated, and that values worth being pre-
served should be provided for in the new plotting and planning. Physical
rehabilitation of a district resulting in a new standard of tenant selection
which completely disregards the original occupants and sets up conditions
of occupancy which destroy the original social relations between the
people, fails to restore to the people the social value that the slum might
contain.

There are few adequate studies of neighborhoods. Many attempts
have been made to divide cities into neighborhood units, but in most in-
stances this division was artificial or intended to deal with certain specific
problems rather than the more important and more constructive values
of normal human relations. If slum rehabilitation is to be made a part of
our housing program, it must be backed by certain efforts toward con-
serving the neighborhood and the pattern of the neighborhood life, which
is much more valuable to the lower-income groups than to the higher.

THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH 251

This means that before the process of slum destruction begins, there
should be an inventory made of all the assets inherent in the human re-
lationships already established in the district.

A recent statement issued by a member of the New York City Plan-
ning Commission contended that slum clearance was of the first moment
in housing in this metropolis and that it should, for the time being, take
precedence over housing enterprise in outlying districts. I have been
unable to find any evidence that this is the best course. In slum clearance
the assumption is, either that the people now living in slums would be
rehoused in the same neighborhood, or that it would merely mean the
clearing up of the slum areas with the purpose of devoting the space to
other uses. As slum clearance is carried on by the various public authori-
ties, it is quite obvious that the clearance would have to be fragmentary
unless huge sums of money are to be made available for this purpose.
Otherwise, individual projects would tend to break into the natural
neighborhoods and, owing to the higher rents in the new dwellings, ex-
clude from these neighborhoods families which have a close relation to
its life and who could not afford to be rehoused in the new dwellings,
unless the subsidies were sufficient to make up the difference between
their original rent in the slum and the rent of the new project. What
these families could do to secure housing during the interim of recon-
struction has not been indicated by this statement. The new occupants
of the cleared slum areas are generally alien to the neighborhood and
must begin to build up their own neighborhood structure. The facili-
tating of this process is of the utmost importance.

In the following outline, I have endeavored to give only general sug-
gestion of the lines of inquiry to be considered in the examination of
neighborhood manifestations and values. These studies might be extended
to include certain psychic factors, as racial conflicts, the stability of the
family, the conflicts between various cultural group levels, religious
prejudices, public opinion in matters of changing trends in the composi-
tion of the population, labor unrest and economic solidarity, and a host
of other aspects of the life of the people. What follows should, however,
be suggestive of two aspects of the problem of determining the charac-
ter of neighborhood life and the elements which should be incorporated
in any plan which would lay the foundations for housing enterprise as
integrated neighborhood centers, rather than as isolated entities having
for their function mainly shelter and the usual housing amenities. There
is still much to be done by way of study and research before a new con-
cept of neighborhood life could be evolved in harmony with our chang-
ing ways of living.

252

GENERAL OUTLINE OF NEIGHBORHOOD STUDY
GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION

1. Specific character of the land and its configuration.

2. The incidence of access from the rest of the community.

3. Advantages and disadvantages from the point of view of exposure to the
elements, vegetation, drainage, water supply, suitability of the land for
building purposes, priority of settlement due to access to certain basic
occupations or sources of population, and so on.

POPULATION— RACIAL DISTRIBUTION

1. Distribution of nationalities.

2. Families and family sizes.

3. Distribution of ages, birth rates, mortality rates.

4. Susceptibility to certain diseases.

5. Density of population in relation to rooms, floor space, and land area.

6. Drifts of population within the neighborhood, and interneighborhood
trends.

7. Length of stay in neighborhood.

ECONOMIC LEVELS— TRADES AND OCCUPATIONS

1. Prevalence of work among married and unmarried women.

2. Period of industrial efficiency and self-support.

3. Child labor.

4. Prevailing wages.

5. Trade unionism.

6. Relation between services, trade, and industrial occupations.

7. Property ownership and home ownership.

ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION— LOCAL AND COMMUNITY BANKS

1. Savings institutions and the per-capita savings in given periods of time.

2. Cooperative organizations for business and for mutual aid.

3. Building and Loan Associations.

4. Mutual insurance organizations.

5. Local relief organizations.

6. Burial organizations.

7. Fraternal orders with an economic purpose.

In connection with the above phase of the inquiry, emphasis will be placed
upon the race and nationality, affiliations, and such cultural differences as might
play a part in selecting memberships and participants.

FINANCIAL CONTROL

This study will deal with the extent of economic control emanating from
within the neighborhood and the control which is in the hands of people and
agencies living outside of the neighborhood. The investment in various neighbor-
hood enterprises, and the sources from which the money in these enterprises has
been derived, should give some idea of the amount of economic independence
which the neighborhood enjoys. Property ownerships, mortgages, control of

THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH 253

financial institutions, and investments in business, industrial, recreational, and
educational enterprises, should furnish some conception of the economic inde-
pendence of the neighborhood.

POLITICAL COMPLEXION

This study should give some inkling of the relation between political affilia-
tions and the character of the population. Occupational, national, racial and re-
ligious groupings, education, connection with some labor or political organization,
earning capacity, property ownership, economic level, and the employer factor
in politics should be considered.

INDEPENDENT POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS

This would include every expression of political organization within the limits
of the neighborhood which functions, either in local organizations forming part
of a city or nationwide political party of the recognized order, or as subversive
organizations having for their purpose a new order of things. The sizes of mem-
berships, the political philosophy underlying these organizations, and the manner
in which they are organized and function would be essential subjects of the study.
The various activities of those organizations as economic, educational, cultural,
political, and propaganda agencies would reveal their value as factors in neigh-
borhood solidarity and cooperation.

STANDARDS OF LIVING

These studies would include not only a sampling of typical family budgets, but
also a study of the relation between incomes, rents, room occupancy, education
afforded to children, education-continuation activities among the adults, special
training for children, forms of and expenditures for recreation, travel, books,
phonographs, telephones, automobiles, radios, and so forth. It would also include
memberships in various organizations having as their objectives educational, rec-
reational, and cultural activities of various kinds. Some differentiation might be
made between the various types of the population.

EMPLOYMENT

1. Segregation and distribution of centers of employment.

2. Radii of travel between homes and employment centers.

3. Business classification in relation to population and employment load.

4. Comparative studies of employment data for city and neighborhood.

5. Wage scales and standard union or legal wages.

6. Unemployment, ages, sexes, occupations, and organized and unorganized
trades.

7. Subsistence margin of the unemployed.

8. Unemployed, and stability of population.

BUSINESS CAPACITY

1. Volume of various types of business, as to money and quantity.

2. Relation between population and business.

3. Zoning:

a. Maximum capacity uses in relation to business, industrial zones.

b. Actual and legal zones.

c. Standards of living and local market prices as a basis for business security.

254 THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH

4. Ephemeral business development.

5. Forms of business exploitation.
a. Rackets.

6. Bankruptcies.

7. Credit methods for wholesale and retail consumers.

HOUSING

1. Rents.

2. Space available.

3. Space occupied per person and per family— congestion.

4. Home ownerships.

5. Condition of buildings.

6. Types of buildings and types of construction.

7. Floating population in its relation to family, commercial, charity, or mu-
nicipal accommodation.

8. History of the housing development of the district.

9. Legal factors.

10. Planning factors.

1 1. Business and industrial factors.

12. Obsolescence of buildings and appurtenances.

13. Transitions in occupancy and their consequences.

14. Rental history.

15. Steps in assessing methods and valuations.

1 6. Tax delinquencies.

'17. Foreclosures and mortgages.

1 8. Present distribution and character of ownerships.

19. Relation of ownerships to maintenance.

20. Relation of ownerships to rent.

21. Rents and incomes, accommodations, and family sizes.

22. Levels of rent in relation to specific floor occupancies.

23. Cellar habitations.

24. Methods and extent of remodeling in relation to cost and rents.

25. Housing shortages as a whole and according to sizes and types of habita-
tions.

26. Available open spaces within building blocks.

a. Possibilities of using these spaces for light, ventilation, and recreational
activities.

27. Fire protection in buildings.

a. Fire-resisting construction.

b. Fire-protecting devices.

c. Fire-protection service.

OPEN SPACES

1. Street— amount of space, width, and uses.

2. Uses for transit.

3. Uses for business— pushcarts, sidewalk trade.

4. Play types— number of persons, ages, sexes, and so forth.

5. Local traffic classified.

5 w

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Photograph by Farm Security Administration.

APARTMENT HOUSE IN GREENBELT, MARYLAND. A FARM SECURITY
ADMINISTRATION DEVELOPMENT.

THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH 257

6. Through traffic classified.

7. Streetcars.

8. Cleaning.

9. Washing; snow removal.

10. Repairs.

11. Lighting.

12. Policing.

13. Planning.

a. Changes in character of street.

b. Street orientation in relation to city.

c. Possible changes in traffic trends.

MARKETS

1. Extent and character.

2. Types of food.

3. Patronage.

4. Method of renting spaces.

5. Places of residence of tradespeople.

6. Radius of patronage.

7. Ownership and arrangement.

8. Public control.

9. Cleanliness.

10. Rents and volume of business.

PLAY SPACES

1. Parks.

a. Sizes, types, and relation to distribution of population uses.

2. Playgrounds.

a. Municipal.

b. School playgrounds and roof spaces, with studies of amount and type
of use similar to play-area studies.

c. Social service organizations.

d. Churches.

e. Private organizations (clubs, fraternal orders, and lodges).

Note: Studies of playgrounds should include: (i) forms of activity;
(2) supervision; (3) clientele; (4) relation to population, children,
adolescents, adults; (5) special neighborhood outdoor activities— tradi-
tional, racial, national; (6) unused open areas capable of development
for playgrounds: public lands, private unoccupied areas, backyards,
abandoned waterfront structures, and so on.

OTHER PLAY SPACES

1. Range of use of play and recreation spaces in adjoining areas.

2. Cooperation and antagonisms.

COMMERCIAL AMUSEMENTS

1. Local neighborhood.

2. Adjoining areas.

3. Types of clientele.

258 THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH

4. Competitive elements.

5. Effects upon the neighborhood.

6. Police control.

7. Relation between delinquency and commercial amusement.

8. Changes in character of amusements.

9. Business volume.

10. Relation of population to attendance.

11. Competition between non-profit and commercial amusements.

12. The development of commercial recreation over a period of a year.

13. The investment represented by commercial recreation.

14. Profits derived from commercial recreation.

15. Contributions in various forms of taxation.

1 6. Cost of public supervision in relation to special recreation taxes.

EDUCATION

1. Public institutions.

a. Various types of children's schools.

b. Capacity and minimum requirements.

c. Access to places of residence.

d. Traffic in relation to safety, noise, discipline.

e. Traffic arteries as factors in school location.

f. Age of schools and adequacy of building standards.

g. Obsolescence in school construction.
h. Mobility of school population.

2. Human elements in schools.

a. Distribution of grades by ages, sex, race, nationality, with comparative
data for city and other neighborhoods.

b. Range of ages and grades when school period ceases.

c. Truancy.

d. Problems of school and extramural discipline.

e. Selection of teachers, length of service, preparation, and grading.

f. Management, administration, and discipline personnel.

3. Accessory educational facilities.

a. Public and private libraries.

b. Art schools.

c. Music schools. .

d. Adult education facilities.

e. Crafts.

f. Business schools.

These would represent public-school activities, settlements, churches, special
cultural organizations, university extension, private institutions commercially
managed, and so on.

In connection with this aspect of the study, it may be possible to approximate
the cultural needs of the neighborhood and the relation between neighborhood
agencies and city-wide organizations.

PUBLIC OPINION

1. Local daily or weekly press.

2. Circulation of papers and literature bearing on matters of public interest.

THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH 259

3. Special organizations devoted to social and economic opinion or specific
philosophies.

4. Character and discussion subjects at public gatherings.

5. Protests.

6. Parades.

7. Participation in strikes, and so forth.

This study might develop data upon which to base some conception of the
character of leadership and social and economic thinking characteristic of the
neighborhood.

DELINQUENCY

A study of delinquency with correlations as to age, sex, race, nationality, type
of crime, length of sentence, repeaters, parole, and so on, would of necessity be
part of this investigation.

POVERTY AND DEPENDENCY

This aspect of the study would deal with various forms of relief— public,
philanthropic, mutual aid, alms. Special emphasis might be placed upon the
changes in relief according to types of cases over a period of a decade or more.
By including the periods of depressions since 1921, some idea of the margins of
subsistence of various groups might be derived.

HEALTH

1. Morbidity and mortality rates by age, sex, race, nationality, occupation,
and so on.

2. Prenatal care.

3. Baby clinics.

4. Private hospitals.

5. Private clinics.

6. Dental clinics.

7. Health education in schools, factories, shops, homes, churches, settlements,
and so on.

8. Private physicians.

9. Dentists.

10. Medical care of specialized types.

11. Electrical treatment.

12. Baths.

13. Quacks.

This study would involve an examination of standards and relations between
needs and service resources, costs to patients, and community or other welfare
agencies. Ethical standards, legal control, beliefs, prejudices, fears, and so on, of
patients, and the effectiveness of various services, would also be studied.

Inquiries of this kind may give the planner and the architect a new
vision of the type of dwelling that would best meet the purpose of bring-
ing people together and making their lives part of a community in which
they could function and express themselves as normal citizens and good
neighbors.

260 THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH

The neighborhood, if capable of being determined, presents special
aspects of the housing problem. In projecting any large-scale housing
scheme, it is essential to consider the neighborhood as it may be related
to the future of the project, as well as its relation to the community. Thus
the concept of housing becomes not alone a matter of considering where
land can be secured cheaply and in what quantities, but also one of de-
termining the relation between the choice of a site to the broader factors
of the community plan.

In view of the fact that housing is being dealt with as a community
responsibility and its solution is dependent upon local authorities, it is
not out of place here to point out the fact that many of the sites within
those communities may not be as desirable as others outside their political
boundaries.

Political Space. This is the study of the site in its relation to the political
entity of which it is a part. Much of modern housing is located within "the
community in which a substandard condition exists. Housing, particularly
for the lower-income families, must be placed where it would have all
of the advantages of proximity to places of employment, education, amuse-
ment, and the cultural requirements of their class and social level. It must
not be burdened with land costs in excess of the proportion which build-
ings normally bear to land cost and should be endowed with all of the
free space which the cramped quarters of the average families make
necessary for outdoor life. These conditions are not always available in
our cities, particularly cities where congestion is prevalent.

There is also frequently a question as to whether adequate parcels of
land could be secured in one locality to make large-scale housing possible
without heavy costs for land. Some communities in Europe, particularly
in England and Germany, have resorted to removal of population from
the political areas in need of housing to outlying districts where land is
cheap and space plentiful. The London County Council has actually built
a large settlement outside the County of London. Such lack of local
patriotism in United States cities would be assailed by every real-estate
board in the country.

Economic Space. The lower-income groups must meet the cost of
transit from home to work and from home to school or other cultural
centers. The question as to how housing projects could best be placed,
where transportation would be not only sufficient and planned to meet
the needs of the workers, but where it would be made unessential to most
members of the family because of proximity to both work and other
centers, must be met by a careful study of the space to be selected for
housing. Rent and transportation must be calculated together. Two or

THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH 261

three members of a family may expend in transportation to and from
work the equivalent of the rent for an additional room which the family
might need.

What is true of the political and economic considerations of space
should be applied with equal care to considerations of social and cultural
requirements, so that the particular housing undertaking may not only
develop its own individuality as a neighborhood, but may find it possible
to fit into the pattern of every aspect of the lives of the people and their
relations to all the advantages the community affords.

This may imply a different outlook upon housing: namely, the in-
clusion, in the consideration of site, of all factors which a specific area
may require in order to become self -sufficient in respect to all essentials
of normal human activities.

The time element may not seem very important, but as cities and re-
gions grow and develop, there are constant shifts in the pattern of popula-
tion distributions, new and unavoidable encroachments upon established
land uses and readjustments due to changes in methods of production,
distribution, and working standards. These affect the future of the city
or the region, or both, in a manner that leaves much to be desired in mat-
ters of stability of investment and continuity of neighborhood develop-
ment and neighborhood integration. A survey which prepares the ground
for a housing project should therefore not only be concerned with the
important facts as to conditions and possibilities for meeting all of the
needs of the present, but should also take into consideration the per-
manency of such a project in its relation to shifting communal conditions
and trends extending over a considerable period. Most housing projects
are designed to meet present-day needs, and yet the life of the invest-
ment is calculated to continue a generation or longer. It is therefore not
out of order to require of the project survey a consideration of the plans,
laws, trends, controls, and advantages which the site of a housing project
may afford in the course of a generation. It is only in this manner that
controls could be set up to insure permanance of the project.

The Human Element. Housing which disregards the essential human
element and the large range of variants in the requirements of its occu-
pants can not be said to be successful. The most up-to-date plumbing
equipment, the most careful selection of materials, the greatest protection
against fire, and the best sanitary provisions for ventilation, may still fail
to meet the human requirements which make housing a device for the
carrying on of normal family relations and social well-being. Indeed, the
elements which make up family membership are so diversified that their

262 THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH

consideration is as important as the structural requirements for safety
and convenience.

Age Groups. It is, of course, difficult to develop plans for a specific
distribution of age groups, but there is no justification for failure to
recognize these groups in planning housing projects. As age groups are
constantly changing and their requirements are changing with them, it is
impossible to develop individual projects within a given age-distribution
standard. It is conceivable that when the same careful consideration is
given to private as to public enterprises, the variety of types of dwellings
will meet every need and families will select their dwelling places in ac-
cordance with their particular needs.

Each age presents its own requirements. A rough classification from
the point of view of these requirements might be as follows:

Children under 2 years of age.
Children between 2 and 4 years of age.
Children between 4 and 6 years of age.
Children between 6 and i o years of age.
Children between 10 and 14 years of age.
Children between 14 and 18 years of age.
Adults under 2 1 living with their families.
Parents under 50 years of age.
Those over 50.

Each of these groups requires certain facilities peculiar to its age, and
these extend to both the inside and the outside of the dwelling. It is
obvious that, where little babies are to be cared for, it is essential to make
provision for balconies or places where they can be given a certain
amount of fresh air. It is also obvious that as soon as they are able to move
about, they need certain spaces where, under the supervision of a parent
or older person, they can be safe. When the supervision of the parent can
no longer be depended upon, playgrounds with proper supervision
and the maximum of safety must be provided. The variety of these play
spaces can not be dependent upon the number of families housed, but
rather must be determined by the requirements of the ages of children
living in these buildings and the kind of equipment they need for play.

The adults may also require certain facilities for relaxation and social
intercourse. These provisions might consist of a common hall, park areas,
a little theatre, shops for carrying on manual activities, cooperative or-
ganization facilities, or similar provisions.

A housing project must of necessity assume a certain distribution of
ages in order to meet the needs of this age distribution. Whether the age

THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH 263

distribution is based upon some hypothetical assumption, or whether it
is based upon actual facts as we find them in districts where families are
living for whom provisions are to be made, must be determined before-
hand. It is true that many projects are developed first, and the selection
of the families is made after the buildings are ready for occupancy. It
is also true, however, that where the project is developed without a real-
istic consideration of age distributions, there is difficulty in coordinating
tenant needs with available dwelling units.

Insofar as sex distribution is concerned, there is also to be taken into
account the fact that after a certain age the separation of sexes among
children is quite as essential as provisions for play.

The aged, who have received so little consideration in our housing
projects, are also entitled to a place in the scheme. Long flights of stairs,
lack of adequate open space away from the noises of the playground, and
rooms not sufficiently isolated from the daily hubbub of family life are
hard on the aged. We have often resorted to institutional care, a costly
and inhuman treatment of normal human beings desiring to remain in
the family fold. Is there any reason why in planning housing projects
the aged should not receive the consideration that is due them?

All housing enterprise, private or public, must take into account the
human factors. The pamphlet prepared by Miss Catharine F. Lansing,
entitled Studies of Community Planning in Terms of the Life Span and
published by the New York City Housing Authority in 1937, should
prove of great value to those who prepare the social material upon which
the physical site and building plan is to be based.

The Economic Basis. Enough has been said in our discussion of rents
and incomes to give a general idea of the limits within which housing
built for various groups could be expected to pay. Any community con-
cerned with the solution of its housing problem should, before under-
taking any building, determine upon the groups which, in view of their
rent-paying capacity, most need accommodations. It is not enough to
increase the available number of dwellings and hope that those who most
need them would live in them. The community must face the problem
and determine beforehand what income group needs to be provided for,
and must calculate rents not in terms of costs but in terms of family in-
come. The difference between what they can pay and what they need
would have to be made up by the community, state, or federal govern-
ment. I am not entirely opposed to providing for families which are by
no means of the lowest level of income, but I am convinced that the more
accurate the calculations are as to the rentals required in the end and
the types of families to be accommodated, the sooner we shall gain an

264 THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH

accurate picture of the task to be accomplished. In other words, it is
conceivable that tenant selection could be carried on before, rather than
after, the project is planned. By this I do not mean an advance allocation
of families to the particular apartments, but a closer correlation between
specific family types and plans.

The Legal Aspect. In the chapter on legislation, I outlined not only the
various forms of existing legislation but also the various legal provisions
that would help in the improvement of housing conditions. A survey of
existing legislation in the light of what is needed and could be attempted
under the most favorable conditions would be of very great value. Often
lawmakers are ready to provide the kind of laws that are needed, if the
advantages of such legislation are clearly pointed out. In March 1937,
the National Emergency Council published a Comprehensive Housing
Legislation Chart, prepared by the Central Housing Committee, which
gives in outline the condition of the law in every state of the Union.
This chart, while of great value as a guide for local studies, is by no means
to be taken as final, since conditions are constantly changing and much
housing legislation either applies specifically to particular communities
or is actually enacted by these communities under enabling acts of the
state legislature. Many building codes and housing regulations are of local
character, and many of the methods of enforcement vary with individual
localities.

Most of our legislative enactments fail to take into account the lower-
income groups and the requirements for economy and simplicity. We
can not assume that existing laws are fixed when we consider housing
projects. With the growth of large-scale housing as a general practice
must come a revision of housing legislation based on the experience of
the past and on demands of the new enterprises. A critical analysis of
existing legislation is therefore an important part of the housing survey.

The Role of Public Agencies. The development of a large-scale hous-
ing scheme can not be conceived of without giving consideration to the
services which the community should, could, or might render in order
to insure the success of the undertaking. The supply of school facilities,
playgrounds, the care of the sick, the building and maintenance of the
roads, the fixing of tax rates, the many types of cultural and recreation
enterprises— all are essential requirements of housing. It is obvious that,
unless these services are available, the mere improvement of the physical
character of the building would in no way insure the necessary advantage
to be derived from better housing. This consideration implies not alone
the legal ability of the various local authorities to render a particular
service, but the disposition on the part of local officials to do so. If a school

THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH 265

is needed, would it be provided by the local school board? If a playground
is required, would the cost of the land and the upkeep, as well as the
supervision, be provided by the community without charging the expense
against the new development? These are not mere questions of better
living conditions, but questions of finance which may so affect rents
that the main object of the housing project would have to be modified
to meet a new set of conditions and a different range of rental rates.

If a street readjustment is required in order to secure privacy and
safety, would the city fathers be willing to abandon streets which are no
longer an advantage to the particular housing plan? If grade crossings
present a menace to children traveling to and from school, would the
municipality or some other agency assume the responsibility and the
expense entailed by the required change?

If hospital facilities are inadequate in the district and if clinics are
needed, can it be expected that provisions would be made for medical
services without additional costs to the project?

In other words, a housing enterprise requires a whole set of new and
improved services in order to make it most effective. What is the city,
town, or state ready to do in order to make this possible without heavy
expense to the owners, whether they are official bodies like the local
housing authority or private individuals prompted by philanthropic or
purely profit-making interests?

The carrying out of a housing scheme of any magnitude is not a mere
problem of planning the right kind of buildings for the right kind of
people, but a "team haul" in which every agency which has any social,
economic, governmental, or financial interest must participate to the ex-
tent to which its service would aid in establishing and keeping up
standards.

The Role of the Surveyor. The architect and the site planner are the
ultimate authority to whom are entrusted the facts of the survey, so that
they may translate them into an economical and socially coherent
structure. The nature of the investigation itself is, however, not archi-
tectural or of a site planning nature. The facts are social, economic, legal,
financial, administrative; in short, they are the key to the human rela-
tions that exist between individuals as members of a family, as citizens,
as producers, as members of certain cultural, economic, and social strata
of society. The question is, do the professional skills of the architect or
site planner measure up to the task involved in taking social data and
translating them into suitable living quarters? A store, a shop, a factory
have clearly defined objectives to take into account; in housing, a whole
system of social relationships must be synthesized and given expression.

266 THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH

In this respect, we must say that only a few of our professional men
skilled in the art of design and construction are capable of wise social
interpretation in relation to housing. This is the reason why so many well
conceived housing enterprises have failed to meet their original objec-
tives.

I have outlined in the chapter on education the requirements of hous-
ing education, but I must reiterate that unless we combine social knowl-
edge with technical skill we shall never achieve good housing. It is not
enough to have accumulated vast quantities of housing facts, no matter
how accurate and well conceived they are. The final test is the ability of
the architect and site planner to translate the facts into coherent and
functioning living entities.

The Role of the Architect. Once the social requirements have been
settled, there still remain many problems which the plan must solve. One
of these is the matter of the inner use of the building as what Le Cor-
busier calls a "living machine." This means adjusting function not only
to use, but to convenient use and labor-saving use. Alexander Klein, the
Russian architect, who has done such careful work in developing these
very aspects of housing, has recently published Das Einfamilienhaus
(The One-Family Dwelling), in which he gives careful and, to me, ra-
tional plans for the arrangement of rooms, their size, their relation to each
other, their connections, and all other provisions which make use easy,
safe, attractive, and economical. We have no such studies in the United
States. A careful study of the ways of living of various types of families,
and the application of the knowledge derived from such a study to the
technique of home planning for use, would be of great value to modern
architecture.

In this connection it should be kept in mind that the most intelligent
floor plan can be made useless by furniture which fails to harmonize with
the interior of the dwelling as to either use or esthetic character. There
is no reason, therefore, why the architect while designing the floor plan
could not also endeavor to plan the furniture arrangements, at least insofar
as the wall space and floor use demand. People moving into new dwell-
ings often make radical changes in their furniture. By suggesting rational
furniture arrangements, the tenants would be able to evaluate their
ability to use the apartment and, incidentally, to have some guiding
information when new furnishings are to be purchased. While I make
this suggestion as to furniture, I feel that there is danger of architectural
enterprise being projected into the design of furniture that would fit the
apartment rather than the needs and resources of the family and its habit
of life. This would mean a certain amount of investigation into the ways

THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH 267

in which families to be housed acquire and use furniture and the ways in
which improvements could be made by providing storage space, con-
vertible tables, beds, and so on. Many proposals have been advanced
regarding the possible reductions in floor space per apartment. It would
seem that such economies of space could be attained only by taking into
account the most minute details concerning the ways and requirements
of efficient and effective home life.

While the home may be looked upon as a living machine, the fact is
that this mechanism must be operated within specifically limited re-
sources and in accordance with a great variety of mental habits and tra-
ditional ways of doing things. If his work is to be successful, the architect
must approximate a synthesis of many factors. His work of planning must
be based as much on providing for smooth functioning of the family
as for adequate provisions for the practical use of space.

I recall an instance when one or my friends wanted a prominent archi-
tect to design and supervise the construction of a new home. He hesi-
tated to accept the commission. As he was also my friend, I was asked
to intervene. The architect finally suggested that his willingness to under-
take the work would depend upon the willingness of the client to permit
the architect to live in his home for two weeks. "This man is a personality
and his house must not only express this personality, but must be suitable
to his peculiar needs," said the architect. The commission was finally
accepted on these terms. I mention this incident as suggesting that per-
haps if the architects would live in some of the old tenements or even in
a slum tenement for a time they would learn more about low-cost housing
design than is conveyed in the schools of architecture.

SUMMARY

The treatment of the survey from the point of view of its application
to housing, which I have ventured upon in this chapter, is by no means
to be looked upon as a guide to such surveys. All that I have endeavored
to do is to bring before the reader the vast implications which the plan-
ning of housing projects entails, to suggest how scientific information
and skills must be translated into the fiscal and social plan. It has seemed
to me for a long time that the architect, instead of bringing his profession
within the range of the newer outlook on housing and the community,
has capitulated to the engineer, who has himself been unable to bring
modern social science into harmony with structural design.

The architect and the site planner are faced with the task of evolving
an integrated philosophy of planning and building. This can be achieved
only after they have evolved a social philosophy of living compatible

268 THE HOUSING SURVEY AND HOUSING RESEARCH

with the realities and possibilities of modern society and its resources.
At no time in the history of modern society has the opportunity been
greater. The reconstruction of our cities is going on, and large-scale
housing is giving the architect and site planner his first opportunity to
utilize masses and space in a manner that may give a new expression to
efficient and effective living. This is a new mission entrusted to these
technicians. Their success will depend not alone upon their skill, but
upon their ability to bring within their professional practices a social
philosophy that is vital and dynamic.

Conclusions

CHAPTER XI
CONCLUSIONS

For over three generations housing reform has played an important
part in every welfare program in this country. During the last half decade
new hopes have come to those who had despaired of any widespread
improvements or of any serious financial participation on the part of the
government in bringing housing within the sphere of national concern.
Splendid examples of comparatively low-rental housing have sprung up
in more than fifty cities. The financial structure of the real-estate field
has been benefited by the activities of the federal government through
the Home Owners Loan Corporation, The Home Loan Bank, The Fed-
eral Housing Administration, and in the earlier days of this encouraging
era by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.

It may therefore seem rather gratuitous and ungracious to assume a
critical and pessimistic attitude at a time when there is so much promise
and action in line with what housing reformers have been striving to
attain for so many years. It is hoped that the reader will not be led to
the conclusion that we are dissatisfied with the tempo of action or with
the various forms of housing activity which have been launched. The
fundamental difficulty is not with what is being accomplished, but rather
with the failure to realize that these accomplishments are not intended
to solve the housing problem for the people who are most in need of
better housing. The latter cannot be benefited without more fundamental
changes, not alone in government policies and methods of procedure,
but also in the basic business methods and public controls of building.
Implications as to methods of finance, taxation, land values, market con-
trols, interest rates, location and distribution of land uses, and the relation
of habitation to the purposes and functions of communities— all these are
involved.

There is no community that is free from slums. Indeed, even in areas
which are free from slums and where the general housing standards are
reasonably acceptable, the failure in the past to take account of changing
conditions and to consider neighborhood and community relationships
in building enterprise will eventually result in the type of obsolescence
that is mainly responsible for our slums and blighted areas. No one can
deny the value of the fragmentary achievements of the past and the

271

272 CONCLUSIONS

bolder achievements of the present. But the fact remains that with seven
million families living in slums or near-slum areas, both in large and
small cities, it is idle to expect that within a reasonable time government
action will wipe out slums and create in their place modern living
conditions.

There was a time when we placed our faith in legislation. After
thirty-five years of legislative effort, however, the slums have become
worse and, furthermore, enlarged by once decent residential areas that
have degenerated through neglect, shifts in population, or for other
reasons. Even if government funds to the extent of a billion dollars a
year were to be made available, it would still take at least a generation
before the slums could be cleared of their present substandard housing.

Where government has taken a part in promoting private enterprise,
as in the case of the Federal Housing Administration, which only insures
and does not contribute to the investment, the standard of housing that
can be developed is entirely too high to take care of the vast majority of
families with low incomes. Indeed, the standard has in many instances
been too high even for the normal earning capacity of skilled workers
when their families are of normal size. This is not by any means the fault
of the setup of the Federal Housing Administration, but is inherent in
the economic factors which control the business of housing and build-
ing practice. Although we all have a high respect for the methods of
procedure set up by the Federal Housing Administration, we are forced
to admit that its effectiveness as a controlling factor, not alone in the
promotion of housing but also in dealing with housing according to
need rather than according to available investment capital, is prac-
tically nil.

The various suggestions for legislation and methods of control which
have been made in the course of the present discussion are predicated not
upon slum clearance, but upon the clearing away of the obstacles which
stand in the way of building enterprise, along lines consistent with the
market needs and the purchasing power of the tenants or owners. We
need more than a mere housing meliorism which will help a minor portion
of the population to live in better houses; we need to create favorable
conditions which will raise the standard of all housing without adding
to the economic burdens of the occupants. It is not just the slum dweller
who is in need of improved conditions, badly though he may need
them, but the millions of other families which live in respectable but
cramped and unsatisfactory quarters, which although provided with the
essentials of sanitation and with the outward trappings of respecta-
bility, are nevertheless badly planned for normal family life and are

CONCLUSIONS 273

lacking in the individuality and the fitness which help to make home life
a spiritual force.

That housing is not an isolated building or set of buildings, but only
a component part of a larger neighborhood and community pattern,
should be evident to everyone. This means not only the revamping of
the economy and technique of planning and building, but also a readjust-
ment of housing to the functions of the community, and the reorganiza-
tion of the pattern of the neighborhood and the community to the needs
of housing. In this connection, it must be admitted that partial slum clear-
ance, which leaves the old confusion with all its evils and obsolete
services, can hardly be accepted as a thoroughgoing improvement of
living conditions. Slum clearance, therefore, means not alone the clear-
ing away of obsolete buildings, but also the discarding of everything that
may render improved housing ineffectual in promoting normal com-
munity life.

After nearly thirty years of study and experience in housing I have
come to regard this subject not as a special reform, but as an important
civic imperative which affects or should affect all of us. A new spiritual
vision and a new economic outlook must be developed. Rigid legal forms
must be tested in the light of their effectiveness in making the economy
of life harmonize with the grace of living. New patterns of community
functioning must be evolved, and ways of bringing them to realization
must be devised. In fact, a whole new set of fundamental social, eco-
nomic, legal, and technological principles must be woven into a philoso-
phy of living which will find final expression in a program of housing
the masses under community conditions intended to conserve not alone
health, but every effort and aspiration which has individual and social
value.

Housing Literature

HOUSING LITERATURE

The torrent of housing literature which has kept both government and private
printing presses busy during the last half decade has become so overwhelming
that we have lost the sense of balance as to what is essential and what is merely
ephemeral in the discussion that is raging. Bibliographers have been vying with
one another in the length of the lists of books, pamphlets, and public documents
which they can record by rummaging through newspapers, other people's bibliog-
raphies, library card catalogues, and periodicals. Much of this material is listed
again and again, not because of its intrinsic value, but by force of the number of
times it has found its way into bibliographical listings. Indeed, a whole book has
recently been written as a doctor's dissertation which has for its object the deriva-
tion of fundamental principles on housing out of the weight of reiteration of
housing commonplaces.

The type of housing bookworm who never ventures beyond the title page and
offers a form of literary accountancy which merely lists the goods but gives no
intimation as to their value, performs a questionable service. The literary pottage
which such books afford confuses and misleads the uninitiated and is of no par-
ticular value to the serious and informed student.

The vaster the listing of books, the less likely is it that the record represents
actual familiarity with their contents. Even in some of the best of books, we find a
melange of references indicating either ignorance of content or an utter lack of
any epicurean discrimination. I should say that a large amount of the writing
that has found its way into print in the last half decade is neither palatable nor
nourishing. Since it has become fashionable to discuss the subject of housing and
to write about it, there has been a lowering of the standards of originality, clarity,
and vision so essential to lasting literary value. Much of this writing has served
to intensify the emotions, but it has failed to nourish the reason.

So far as emotional values are concerned, the student of housing would do better
to read Dostoevski, Dickens, Zola, Arnold Bennett, or any one of a dozen writers
who have taken soundings of the depths of our city life and have exposed the
mildew which accumulates on the edges of urban civilization and engulfs the lives
of the less privileged. Indeed, those who attempt to focus our attention on housing
merely as the deterioration of certain of our habitations, rather than on the larger
implication for which the whole of our civilization must be held responsible, are
like those who, either by design or through ignorance, "bawle for freedom in their
senseless mood, and still revolt when truth would set them free."

GENERAL WORKS ON HOUSING

Assuming that to read all the literature on housing is a task impossible and per-
haps undesirable, even for the most gullible and those having the most leisure,
it is important to give the reader only such bibliographical hints as will fit the
framework of the book to which it is appended and be free from those accumula-
tions of commonplace writings which are a hindrance to creative thinking.

277

278 HOUSING LITERATURE

As already stated, housing is merely a symptom, an incident in the general ac-
cumulation of problems of human welfare and human relations. The presentation
of vast statistical evidence of the prevalence of unsanitary conditions, lack of
light and ventilation, congestion, lack of privacy, or fire hazards is, of course,
important. It is more important, however, to realize and understand what these
conditions are doing, not alone to the bodies of people, but to their souls, to their
usefulness as members of society, and to society itself. To achieve this end, it is
not enough to read a book about housing. I know of no such book which is
written with the literary technique, the persuasive magic, and the penetration
necessary to vitalize and lend originality and vision to the interpretation of the
slum as a moulder of human life and as the tragic expression of our civic failure.
For such a work we must resort to the literature of both past and present. The
tools of reform must be forged by scientific knowledge. The dynamic force be-
hind these tools must be sampled in the emotional and inspirational realm which
belongs to literature and the arts.

In the teaching of housing, we are too prone to circumscribe the subject and
endeavor to draw as sharp a line between slums and the rest of the community
as our clumsy methods of social measurement will permit. Out of this tendency
has grown a sense of special concern that housing be brought to the minimum of
decency consistent with an undisturbed social order. The criteria are always lim-
ited within the confines of practical politics, practical finance, and practical
philanthropy. No suggestions are made for ideal conditions, no dreams expressed
of a Utopian communal development in which housing would reach the highest,
rather than the lowest, level consistent with human capacity to enjoy a better way
of living. It seems to me that the time has come for bringing into the study of
housing and the building up of its objectives new and wider horizons, and less
recognition of the lag which an economic system imposes upon the pace of social
progress. Indeed, I should want to see housing taught with a Utopian outlook, an
outlook that would bring into focus new criteria of ways of living, free from the
meliorism of modern philanthropy. Toward this end we should examine not only
the theories of the social scientist, but also the dreams of those Utopians who see in
the city of the future a synthesis of all that human aspiration is capable of formu-
lating and who are working toward its realization. I would feed the imagination
of students with the thought-provoking philosophy of Plato's Republic, Sir
Thomas More's Utopia, Campanella's City of the Sun, Francis Bacon's The New
Atlantis, and the scores of other creative works that have moulded prophecies for
the future of mankind out of the miseries and discontent of their times. I would
not overlook the planning efforts of the more practical idealists of the Renaissance,
who, aware of the shortcomings of cities of the Middle Ages, labored to bring
about a new form of city life that would meet the aspirations of a new age with
a new way of living. Such technicians as Antonio Averlino Filareti, Leon Batista
Alberti, Francesco Colonnas, or Francesco di Giorgio Martini— to mention only a
few— have made important contributions to the efforts which characterized the
Renaissance as a reinterpreter of the meaning of life and its physical implementa-
tion. Even the immortal Leonardo da Vinci conceived a new type of city which
represented, however, his contempt, rather than his sympathy, for the lower
classes.

In so-called "modern" times many ideal city schemes have been presented. These

HOUSING LITERATURE 279

range from the socialistic communities suggested by Fourier and St. Simon and
the international proposal of a world center by Hendrik Christian Andersen, to the
motor-age town of Radburn. To understand housing, one can not progress in a
civic vacuum or only in an atmosphere of benevolence prompted by the misery of
a special class. One must brace the concept of housing against a new concept of
modern living. This can be brought about only by creating an awareness of
factual evidence as to the need for better housing, reinforced by an outlook which
has historical perspective and vision transcending the difficulties of the present in
laying a foundation for the future.

I have digressed from the main subject of housing literature because I believe
that the foundation of all fundamental social advance must be prompted, first, by
an understanding of the basic relations involved in bringing about this advance,
and second, by the light which a well trained imaginative mind can throw upon
the path that must be followed in order to realize social change.1

STANDARD WORKS ON HOUSING

Despite the great effort that has characterized the work of housing reform in
Germany, the most important single work on housing which embraces the essential
phases of the subject as we think of it today is still Dr. Rudolph Eberstadt's Hand-
buck des Wohnungsivesens und der Wohnungsfrage. This, although published
nearly thirty years ago, is the one work which deals with housing as a broad
national problem. No social or economic institution or agency bearing a relation
to the subject has been neglected. Aside from the standards of construction, which
have become somewhat outmoded, the fundamental principles are as sound today
as they were the year the book was first published. It is to be regretted that it
has never been translated. Even though its main sources of information are Ger-
man, its outlook is definitely international. This work was preceded by a two-
volume work, also in German, from the pen of Dr. L. Pohle, of Frankfurt, Die
Wohnungsfrage (Leipzig, 1910). For clarity of statement and general develop-
ment of the pattern of community planning as the leading factor in a permanent
housing program, it has never been excelled.

For a general discussion of housing from the point of view of French urban
communities, in particular of the City of Paris, one must look to a small volume
published in 1913 under the title Le logement dans les villes, by George-Cahen.
It is a compact work dealing with the development of the housing movement
in French urban communities and with the activities, agencies, and legislative
efforts intended to promote better living conditions. Henri Sellier's La crise du
logement et Vintervention publique, a monumental work in four volumes, pub-
lished in 1921, gives a thorough picture of the conditions, needs, and measures
taken to insure better housing. While this represents a monumental task, it lacks
a rounded outlook and is more a survey than a carefully developed discussion of
the broader implications of the subject.

For a comparative study of housing reform in various European countries up to
1913, one should consult the book by Henri Biget entitled Le logement de Vouvrier.
It is a carefully compiled document of considerable historical value, giving a clear
idea of the rate of development of the various types of housing activity up to

1For a list of general housing literature, see Aronovici, Carol, "The Planner's Five-Foot
Shelf," in Survey Graphic, September, 1936.

280 HOUSING LITERATURE

the time of its publication. It is particularly valuable because it gives the full text
of many of the various laws having to do with the promotion of housing enter-
prise under government influence and with government help.

The literature on American housing is particularly rich in textbooks of a gen-
eral nature. To this literature no one has contributed more than Dr. Edith Elmer
Wood, who has covered the general field in a scholarly manner in three volumes:
Housing the Unskilled Wage Earner (1919), Housing Progress in Western Europe
(1923), and Recent Trends in American Housing (1931). The last volume does
not, of course, contain any data regarding the recent housing movement under the
New Deal initiated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, nor does it deal with
legislative enactments which have resulted from the New Deal so far as they affect
housing finance and standards. Although one may be inclined to take issue with
some of the economic theories advanced by Dr. Wood, her general treatment of
the subject is always clear, fair, and based upon a broad social outlook.

Miss Catherine Bauer's Modern Housing (1934) will long remain a standard
work, both because of its thoroughness and because of the larger implication
which she brings into focus regarding the cause of present housing conditions
and the necessary remedies. Her knowledge and understanding of the methods
and motives of European housing reform make her contribution bearing on this
subject particularly valuable.

The newer housing students are prone to forget the vigorous work of Lawrence
Veiller, who was largely instrumental in giving housing legislation in this country
its first real impetus. While Mr. Veiller was essentially a conservative and has re-
mained so in matters of public financing of housing, his book Housing Reform
(1910) is still a valuable contribution on the subject, particularly in respect to
securing the enactment of favorable legislation. My own little booklet, Housing
and the Housing Problem, published ten years later, may prove of some use to
students who assume that only within the last few years has the discussion of
housing reform extended beyond the stage of restrictive legislation.

For an understanding of the background of congestion, slums, blight, and the
various land policies which have led to the peculiarities of our city patterns with
all their evils, one should read Werner Hegemann's City Planning— Housing, a
three-volume work of great value. The discussion is rather polemical, but it con-
tains a wealth of significant material which housing students should have at their
command. The historical material contained in these volumes has never been
explored from the housing point of view and certainly never with a greater sense
of perspective.

Two other books should be mentioned in this list of general treatises on hous-
ing. One is Charles Harris Whittaker's The Joke About Housing (1920), a critical,
if rather cynical, analysis of the subject, forecasting the present-day housing
movement, and Louis H. Pink's The New Day in Housing (1928), a very thor-
ough work based on long social experience and first-hand knowledge of adminis-
trative problems related to private investment in housing.

There is a tendency to overlook one public document devoted to a general dis-
cussion of all the problems and available facilities and agencies for improving living
conditions. This document embodies the reports and discussions of the President's
Conference on Home Building and Home Ownership, held in Washington in 1930
at the call of President Hoover. It comprises eleven volumes, edited by John M.

HOUSING LITERATURE 281

Greis and James Ford, and contains a wealth of information, opinion, and illustra-
tive material of great value to all students of the subject. The material in these
documents has never been fully explored.

THE SLUMS AND BLIGHT

Aside from the survey material available for most of the cities of the United
States, a very considerable amount of general literature has important bearing on
the policies of slum clearance and blight prevention and rehabilitation. One such
work of a general nature, which purports to cover all the more important European
countries and the United States, is Slum Clearance, published by the International
Housing Association in 1935. It is a two-volume study in French, German, and
English, dealing both with slum conditions and with efforts to improve them. Un-
fortunately, many errors have crept into the various reports, so that the text
can not be used without reservation.

The most outstanding work of this nature in the United States is Slums and
Housing, by James Ford. This deals with the history, conditions, and policies bear-
ing on slums, and is fully documented. Its main emphasis is upon New York City,
but it has great value as a general treatise on the subject. The bibliography is by
far the most carefully compiled among those I am familiar with in the field.

For a concise appraisal of "slums and blighted areas in the United States," there
is no more valuable work than Dr. Edith Elmer Wood's pamphlet of that tide,
published by the Housing Division of the Federal Emergency Administration of
Public Works. Urban Blight and Slums, by Mabel L. Walker, although it contains
some confusing definitions and the usual conflicts in point of view that arise when
several writers contribute to a specific work, is an important contribution. It is
well conceived, clearly written, and fully documented. The discussion of the
various efforts directed toward developing remedial methods of prevention and
rehabilitation is the best available thus far in book form.

THE LAND PROBLEM

I know of no better short study of land as an economic factor than Land Eco-
nomics, by Professor Richard T. Ely and George S. Wehrwein. Though I am
by no means in full accord with all that it contains, I am convinced that students
of housing who read this work will gain a clear idea of the relation of land to
our community development. Unfortunately, it has never found its way into print,
but it is available in mimeographed form in many libraries. Elements of Land
Economics, by Richard T. Ely and Edward W. Morehouse, published in 1924, is
less valuable from the point of view of the housing student.

Students able to read German should not overlook the very excellent work by
Professor W. Gemiind entitled Bodenfrage und Bodenpolitik. Although this book
was published nearly twenty-eight years ago, it has a freshness and close relation-
ship to housing and community planning that no other work has. Its scope em-
braces every phase of community development having to do with human welfare.
Two years later, Professor Gemiind published a second volume entitled Die
Grundlagen zur Besserung der stadtischen Wohnverhdltnisse, in which he carries
his land studies more closely into the field of housing and community planning. By
itself it stands as a singularly well rounded treatise on housing thrown into clear
perspective as part of a comprehensive planning policy.

282 HOUSING LITERATURE

Land Planning in the United States for City, State and Nation, by Harlean James
(1926), although having as its main theme the development of general principles
of community development as affected by land use, bears upon housing in a manner
uncommon to writers on this subject. For a clear and practical treatment of the
land problem as it relates to housing, no better statement is available than the dis-
cussion contained in a transcript of a series of lectures by Sir Raymond Unwin,
made public by the Subcommittee on Research and Statistics of the General Hous-
ing Committee in Washington, D. C. I should also like to mention Sir Raymond
Unwin's little pamphlet, published in 1912, which bears the incisive title Nothing
Gained by Overcrowding. It is a short but illuminating discussion of the value of
intelligent land planning for group housing. No one intending to subdivide land
should overlook this simple and logical treatment.

It would be futile to give a long list of publications on the land problem as
related to housing because of the fact that most writers deal with land from a
general point of view and without serious consideration of the housing problem.
There are some, however, who emphasize some special panacea intended to solve
the housing problem through a solution of the land problem. One such book which
I have found challenging is Sir Thomas P. Whittaker's scholarly work The Owner-
ship, Tenure and Taxation of Land, which deals with a whole series of theories of
land and land reform. A more recent book on the subject is that of George Ray-
mond Geiger entitled The Theory of the Land Question. This book deals with
the Henry George theory that "land is part of the human environment, which is
not the sole product of human labor," and draws the conclusion that "rent socializa-
tion through taxation seeks to adjust the distributive process by channelizing the
flow of social income into social repositories, and by leaving inviolate private and
earned income."

Land and taxation of land are inseparable subjects so far as housing is concerned.
The device of the single tax on land has often been advanced as the most expedient
means of obtaining cheap land for housing purposes, or of obtaining land at a cost
merely commensurate with its tax-producing power. Any recent book on taxation
will give the reader the essential background for the study of taxation as it affects
housing. However, I should like to mention two studies as being both interesting
and valuable in orienting the student in those phases of the tax problem which need
concern us and which bear on the whole problem of urban land use. The first of
these is Tax Racket and Tax Reform in Chicago, by Professor Herbert D. Simpson,
published in 1930 by the Institute for Economic Research, at Northwestern Uni-
versity, Evanston, Illinois. The other is a test study of the workings of a partial
and modified form of the land tax which is in practice in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
prepared for the Bureau of Business Research of the University of Pittsburgh by
J. P. Watson and published in 1934 under the title The City Real Estate Tax in
Pittsburgh.

For a systematic study of taxation, one should consult the following: Jens
Peter Jensen's Property Taxation in the United States (1931), published by the
Chicago University Press, and Herbert D. Simpson's article "The Incidence of
Real Estate Taxes," in The American Economic Review for June, 1932. It might
also be of interest to examine the very interesting work by Homer Hoyt, entitled
One Hundred Years of Land Values in Chicago- 1830-1933, on the history of land
values in Chicago, published by the University of Chicago Press. This study is an

HOUSING LITERATURE 283

extremely valuable examination of land-value enhancement. It is to be hoped that
similar studies will be made in other cities. I can think of no better subject for a
carefully planned doctoral thesis than a study of this kind in any community.

HOUSING PROGRAMS AND REHABILITATION PLANS

One of the most interesting documents dealing with housing programs is that
issued in 1934 by the National Housing Committee of the British Empire, entitled
A National Housing Policy, which reviews the various proposals for housing re-
form that have found expression either in law or in some economic planning set-up.

The United States has, of course, produced many proposals and many programs
for housing reform. Sir Raymond Unwin, who has made so many valuable con-
tributions to housing literature, has, with the aid of others, compiled such a pro-
gram. This was published in 1935 under the auspices of the National Association
of Housing Officials and bears the imprint of the Chicago Public Administration
Service.

In view of the fact that the Netherlands has achieved a great deal by way of
organizing the building industry and producing reasonably low-cost housing, it is
suggested that the student become familiar with H. Van Der Kaa's The Housing
Policy of the Netherlands, published in October, 1935, by the League of Nations,
in a bulletin issued by the Health Organization Division. In 1931, the same office
of the League of Nations issued an excellent report on the activities of various
nations in matters of housing. This report deals with practically every civilized
country of the world. A similar report, edited by Bruno Schwan, was published
by the International Housing Association under the title Town Planning and Hous-
ing Throughout the World. It was printed in French, German, and English, and
was issued in 1935 by the Wasmuth Publishing House of Berlin.

From the above literature, one can without difficulty glean the various programs
followed by different nations and partly evaluate their achievements.

POPULATION

The development of a housing program must, of course, depend upon an under-
standing of population trends. This subject has received a great deal of attention in
recent years. The latest and one of the most valuable contributions to literature
on population is The Problems of a Changing Population issued in May, 1938, by
the National Resources Committee. No student of housing can afford to overlook
its wealth of information. Another valuable work is the study of population redis-
tribution published in 1936 by the University of Pennsylvania Press under the
directorship of Carter Goodrich entitled Population and Population Migrations,
with the subtitle "Migrations and Economic Opportunity." I should also like to
call the attention of the reader to Dynamics of Population— Social and Biological
Significance of Changing Birth Rates in the United States (1934), by Frank
Lorimer and Frederick Osborn.

Among the more specific studies, we find Professor R. D. McKenzie's The
Metropolitan Community (1933), a scholarly analysis of the relation of population
distribution to metropolitan districts. Its fundamental bearing upon the allocation
of housing projects in metropolitan districts is made very clear. Migrations and
Business Cycles, by Harry Jerome, which was published in 1926 by the National
Bureau of Economic Research, Inc., is also important as a general discussion of the

284 HOUSING LITERATURE

relation between housing and business as it affects and is affected by migrations of
population.

In Recent Social Trends in the United States, a two-volume report of the Presi-
dent's Research Committee on Social Trends, published in 1933, the housing student
will find a wealth of important material bearing on the population aspects of
housing, incomes, migrations, and other subjects related to the ways of living and
the changes that are taking place in the United States. From these studies, individual
members of the Committee's staff have constructed several monographs, the most
important of which are Professor McKenzie's The Metropolitan Community,
already mentioned, Warren Thamson's and P. K. Whippleton's Population Trends
in the United States, and T. J. Whoofter, Jr.'s, Races and Ethnic Groups in
American Life.

INCOMES AND HOME OWNERSHIP

The United States Census Bureau has gathered statistical data regarding incomes
which should be studied with great care. However, a number of important special
reports and studies of incomes and home ownership are more carefully compiled
and more suitably tabulated for use in housing studies. Volume VI of the Fifteenth
Census of the United States (1930) constitutes the most important document on
both population and home ownership in this country. It is the one source of in-
formation upon which we must depend in developing a quantitative housing pro-
gram for the 30,000,000 families which constitute the population of the United
States.

In May, 1935, the Federal Housing Administration published a well conceived
study, The United States Housing Market, which, in spite of its meager interpreta-
tive text, contains raw material for a series of monographs needed to clarify and
elaborate our national housing policy. In August, 1938, the National Resources
Committee published a study, Consumer Incomes in the United States (Their
Distribution in 1935-36), which further emphasized the economic factor in popula-
tion distribution but not, however, in relation to housing. The housing costs being
known, the housing market can be readily calculated with reasonable accuracy.
For a clearer conception of the relation between housing costs and incomes, one
might consult a rather dry but accurate computation of housing costs under vari-
ous economic set-ups published in February, 1937, by the New York City Housing
Authority under the title Rent Tables.

One of the outstanding public documents dealing with incomes and rents is
a stenographic report of a hearing held before the United States Senate Committee
on Education and Labor from June 4 to 7, 1935, on Senate Bill 2392, known as
the Wagner Housing Act. The testimony of Milton Lowenthal is particularly
valuable.

The material contained in the above-cited documents might gain added sig-
nificance from a study of the following works: The Chart of Plenty (1935), by
Harold Loeb and Associates; Report of the National Survey of Potential Pro-
ductive Capacity, sponsored by the New York City Housing Authority and the
Works Division of the Emergency Relief Bureau ofthe City of New York, under
the direction of Harold Loeb, and the Brookings Institution's study America's
Capacity to Consume. For a simple and graphic picture of our economic status,
one should consult Rich Man, Poor Man, by Ryllis Alexander Goslin and Omar
Pancoast Goslin, issued in 1935 by Harper and Brothers.

HOUSING LITERATURE 285

SURVEYS OF HOUSING CONDITIONS

The most important source of information regarding housing conditions in the
United States is the Real Property Inventory, which has repeatedly been mentioned
in this book. The Financial Survey of Urban Mowing, published in 1937 by the
United States Department of Commerce, is beyond a doubt the best analysis of
sample housing conditions, and should be available whenever a study of urban
housing is undertaken.

As regards other surveys, it would be quite out of the range of this work to list
them all. There are, to my knowledge, about 450 such surveys, many of which
have been mentioned, either in the exhaustive bibliographies of the Housing Index
Digest, published by the Central Housing Committee of the Subcommittee on Re-
search and Statistics of the United States Government, or in the numerous bibli-
ographies on housing which are generally appended to books on the subject. One
of the best of these bibliographical lists of surveys was published some years ago
by the Russell Sage Foundation, in New York, and can be obtained on request.
Volume VI of The Regional Survey of New York City and Its Environs is an-
other important study dealing with housing conditions.

There is a good deal of material pertaining to the methods of carrying out
housing surveys, some of which is of real value; but it must be remembered that
each community has its own problems and needs its own approach. The present
work contains what, in the writer's estimation, is fundamental to an adequate
survey in this respect. Many guides have been published by various writers, but
few have taken into account the newer aspects of housing study. Instead, they
have confined their discussion to fact finding so far as it affects individual buildings,
rather than the conditions that have created substandard housing.

HOUSING LEGISLATION

There is no book of importance which gives a fully balanced picture of housing
legislation. The various suggestions advanced have been fragmentary, and fre-
quently have placed the emphasis upon some single type of law assumed to be
essential in bringing about desired changes. Mr. Lawrence Veiller made the first
attempt to outline a program of housing legislation which dealt with the physical
improvement of buildings.

As far back as 1910, the German Kaiserlicher Statisticher Ami made an analysis
of the various forms of housing activity in Germany, including the legislative
enactments and their operation. It is a portentous volume of historical rather than
practical value. Three years later, Dr. Otto Haase published an excellent little
book entitled Das Problem der Wohnungsgesetzgebung which carried the discus-
sion far beyond the matter of building control and laid down some important
social, economic, and legal principles intended to guide cities and the national
government in formulating housing legislation.

There are no books in the United States dealing with the subject from a similar
point of view. Most of what has been written here has dealt with general social
legislation. The reader may find Dr. Mary Stevenson Colcott's Principles of Social
Legislation a helpful introduction, but it will not prove of great value as regards
housing. It was this lack of adequate literature on the subject which prompted the
rather long chapter on housing law contained in this book.

286 HOUSING LITERATURE

SUMMARY

To the above list of books I should like to add a number of general works
which come under no special classification but which are important because they
indicate the trend of thought in recent years on the subject of housing in the
United States.

In May, 1931, the American Academy of Political and Social Science published
a volume, Zoning in the United States, under the editorship of William L. Pollard.
This volume gives a reasonably well rounded picture of zoning philosophy and
zoning practice. The Academy published another volume in March, 1937, entitled
Current Developments in Housing, edited by David T. Rowlands and Coleman
Woodbury, which contains a well balanced assortment of articles by experienced
writers familiar with the most recent activities and trends in housing. Prompted
by the widespread interest in housing, the School of Law of Duke University issued,
in March, 1934, a volume, LoiD-Cost Housing and Slum Clearance. This constitutes
the second number of the periodical Law and Contemporary Problems. The legal
aspect, however, was accorded scant space. Clarence Arthur Perry's "Housing for
the Machine Age," published in May, 1939 by the Russell Sage Foundation is a
very valuable work on housing with its main emphasis upon the neighborhood. In
closing, I should like to cite the brilliant book by Henry Write, Rehousing Amer-
ica. This is a work which no one should overlook. It is steeped in practical
experience and a sense of reality such as no other book on the subject has attained.

The reader should not assume that I have given a full list of the best books on
the subject of housing. It is fair to assume that any student interested in pursuing
the subject further will have no difficulty in finding vast stores of information even
in the humblest of sociological libraries. There is, of course, a great deal of material
to be found in periodicals and even newspapers which is often of great importance.
All that I have attempted to do here is to afford the reader a general idea of the
range of available reading matter. The serious student will have no difficulty in
finding his way beyond my guidance, while the casual reader will find his time
fully occupied in following the merest thread of any of the many lines of inquiry
I have ventured to suggest.

Index

INDEX

Addams, Jane, 234

Adler, Felix, 234

Age groups, 262

Amenities, 26

American Public Health Association, 131

Architecture, 197

control of, 15
Astoria, 6
Athens, xi

Bassett, Edward M., 151

Behrendt, Walter Curt, 207

Bellman, Sir Harold, 73

Belloc, Hilaire, 212

Benoist, Charles, 126

Bernouilli, Jacques, 227

Board of Transportation, New York, 181

Boards of appeal, 150

Boom, 24

Booth, Charles, 233

Booth, William, 233

Bossange, E. Raymond, 200

Brookings Institution, 97

Business cycles, 190

Byzantine Empire, xi

Chastellux, Chevalier de, 230

Chicago, 8

Citizens Association of New York, 201

City planning, 32

Cleveland, 8

Clinicians, 215

Columbia University Housing Study, 239

Community services, 16

Constantinople, xi

Council of Hygiene and Public Health, 231

Culture of cities, 175

De Forest, Robert W., 234

Detroit, 8

Dumb-bell tenements, 132

Dwelling House Act, New York, 132

Dwellings, old, 133

standards, xiv
Dymoxian house, 198

Eberstadt, Rudolph, 33
Economic space, 260
Education, 211
Employment migrations, 190
England, xiv, 36
Equity, 109

Family, 52
head of, 62

Federal Home Loan Bank Board, 67, 81, 114

Federal Housing Administration, 142

Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corpora-
tion, 84

Financial Survey of Urban Housing, 71, 77,
78, 81, 83, 99, 100, 103-104

Finnish urban centers, 36

Forbes, Garrett, 231

Ford, James, 241

France, 78

Fuller, R. Buckminster, 179, 198

Geddes, Patrick, 229
Gemiind, W., 33
Germany, xiv, 36
Ghettos, economic, 187
Goods, 32

overproduction of, 32
Government purchase, 27, 28
Graunt, John, 228
Griscom, John H., 231

Harrison, Shelby M., 235

Hegemann, Werner, 230

Holden, Arthur, 43

Holden plan, 42, 136

Home Owners Loan Corporation, 67, 77, 81,

83, 114
Home ownership, 61, 109

standards of, 116
Housing, and earning capacity, 89

changes, 120

concentration, 27

defined, xii

market, 89, 118

mobility, 91

standards, 127

subsidy, 27

Housing Act, United States, 109
Housing Authority, United States, 95, 102, 143
Hudnut, Joseph, 200
Human element, 261

Industries, decentralization of, 191

fugitive, 190

gypsying, 90
Interest rates, 78, 84, 102
Investment, 68

large-scale, 73

liquidated, 69

289

290

INDEX

Investment- (Continued)

long-term, 24

productivity of, 70

safety of, 72
Isolation, geographic, 246

Jefferson, Thomas, 230
Jocher, Katherine, 223

Kellogg, Paul U., 235
Kenngott, George F., 235
Klein, Alexander, 236
Koyl, George S., 200

Lagrange, J. L., 228
Land, acquisition of, 45

agricultural, 88

control, social, 34
use, 34

cost, 1 6, 27

development, 18, 38
economic, 23

elasticity, 19

expansion, 19

exploitation, 30

exploration, 19

geographic relation, 5

investment in, 20

management of, 33

needs of, 7

ownership, 35, 38

place of, 14

policy, 30, 34

price, 23

raw, 4

replanning of, 140

restrictions, 15

stability, 13

subdivisions, 29, 144
regulations of, 146

taxation of, 38

unit of ownership, 28

urban, 25

Lansing, Catherine F., 263
Lasker, Loula D., 115
Laws, financing, 156

housing, 125, 170

planning, 127

promotive, 128, 159

protective, 128, 153

restrictive, 128

tariff, 171

violations of, 154
Leadership, 216
Le Corbusier, 204
Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 228
Le Play, Frederic, 226
Levels, cultural, 247
economic, 247

Leven, Moulton, Warberton, 98
Limited dividends, 160
"Living machine," 197
London, City of, 14
Los Angeles, 8
Lot-use restrictions, 142
Lowenthal, Milton, 95, 97, 99
Lynd, Helen Merrell, 236
Lynd, Robert S., 236

Management, 217

Marx, Karl, 228

Mauclaire, Camille, 199

Mayor's Committee on Planning, New York

City, 150

McKenzie, R. D., 60
Megalopolis, 193
Metropolitan areas, 55
Metropolitan communities, 60
Metropolitanism, defined, 188
Middle Ages, 36
Middletown, 235
Milwaukee, City of, 46
Mitchell, Wesley C., 245
Modernization, 31
Money, 67

Moore, Harry Estill, 51
Moratorium, 134, 138
Mortgages, 70, 158
Mumford, Lewis, 187
Municipal boundaries, 192

expansion of, 192
Municipal land ownership, 152

National Resources Committee, 37, 54
Neighborhood study plan, 252-259
Neighborhoods, 118
New Amsterdam, xi
"New Deal," xii

Obsolescence, 3, 118

economic, 3

physical, 31

social, 3

technological, 31
Obsolete districts, 135
Odum, Howard W., 51, 223
Outlook Tower, 229

Pascal, Blaise, 227
People, 51, 204
Perry, Clarence A., 43
Perry plan, 43-44, 142
Planning economy, 19
Plato, 226
Police power, 128
Political space, 230

INDEX

291

Population, 54, 176, 177

rural, 56

urban, 56

Prefabrication, xiv
Property rights, 180
Public Relief Commission, 232
Public Services, 185
Public Works Administration, 84
Purchas, Samuel, 226

Qualitative analysis, 243
Quetelet, 228

Rafalovitch, Arthur, 232
Reconstruction, 27
Regional planning, 187
Regionalism, 51

defined, 188
Rehabilitation, 55
Relief and rent, 156
Rent tables, 79
Replanning, 31
Research, 223
Riis, Jacob, 233
Roosevelt, President F. D., xii
Russell Sage Foundation, 235

San Francisco, 8

Sinclair, Upton, 234

Slum clearance, xiv

Slum Clearance Committee of New York, 239

Social motive, 204

Spartans, xi

Stow, John, 226

Subdivision control, 46

Subsidies, capital, 162

defined, 161

improvement, 168

interest, 163

land, 168

rent, 167
Sunny side, 115

Supreme Court of California, 128
Surveys, 223-224

analytical, 240

descriptive, 240

legal, 264

Surveys— (Continued)

problem, 240

project, 241

propaganda, 241

public agencies, 264

statistical, 242

test, 241
Sweden, xiv
Sydenstricker, Edgar, 53

Tax, 37

delinquency, 45

exemption, 157, 159, 160, 161

occupancy, 164

rolls, 36

"single," 37

values, 36
Technicians, 216
Technology, 178
Thucydides, xi
Transportation economy, 180

Uhl, Charles H., 79
Unemployment insurance, 157
"Unlike communities," 188
Unwin, Sir Raymond, 14
Urbanism, 175

defined, 189

lag, 189

semi-, 189

Veiller, Lawrence, 234
Vienna, City of, 36
Vignola, 200
Vitruvius, 200

Wagner, Martin, 181
Washington, General, 230
Wickers, David L., 100
Wohnungspolitik, 127
Wood, Edith Elmer, 103
Wood, Robert A., 234
Woodbury, Coleman, 90, 101

Yonkers, 117
Zoning, 32, 149, 177