WINN X004046707City Housing—Past and Future BY JOHN IHLDER NatIonaL Housinc AssocraTIon PUBLICATIONS No. 28 Prick Five Cents JuLy, 1915 105 East 22p Street, New York CityAddress Before SOUTHERN SOCIOLCGICAL CONGRESS Houston, Texas, May 11, 1915 Under the Title HousINnGc AND HEALTH1 an Se a ee _——— City Housing—Past and Future BY JOHN IHEDER Field Secretary, National Housiug Association NHERE are two ways in which we may look at this question of housing and health, the negative and the positive. We may begin with the assumption that the inhabitants of a house are well and strong and that our concern is to prevent the house from making them diseased and weak. That is the negative way. r we may begin by assuming that the inhabitants of a house are not up to their maximum of health and strength and that our concern is to secure houses which will help build them up to this maximum That is the positive way. Standing as we do near the dividing line between a disease ridden past and a healthful future, it is necessary for us to look at the question in both ways. The day when the staple topic of conversation was our bodily ills is passing. The day when we shall have to find a new saluta- tion in place of “How do you do” is coming. But the old day is not yet quite past, the new day not yet here. So we shall begin our discussion with the negative. There are two ways in which bad housing affects health; first, by acting as the vehicle of disease; second, by so de- pressing vitality that we are unable to resist disease wherever encountered. d the 2 ~) °o Housing and Heal Perhaps the best illustration of the way in which bad housing acts as a vehicle is given by consumption, which is sometimes called the house disease. How consumption orig- inated. we do not know. Whether, immcase 1 is entirely stamped out, it would reappear—given the continuation of conditions under which it now flourishes—we can not tell. All we are sure of is that it is most widely and easily spread by contact with a sufferer or with things that he has used, andthat it haunts places which are dark and damp and airless. So we find that consumption is most prevalent where people are most closely crowded together, especially where they are crowded in their homes, and that the toll is heaviest when the houses are below standard. On the west coast of Scotland there is a group of rugged islands swept by the winds of the Atlantic. The people are fishermen and farmers, out-of-doors people. But their dwell- ings are miserable little cabins in which they crowd together in a way almost beyond belief. A few years ago consumption was brought to these islands by some of the young people who had been servants in the cities. Now it is ravaging them worse than it ravages the slums from which it came. The house is the vehicle, and not until the house is changed can there be hope of banishing the disease. The story of consumption in these islands is more dramatic, more clear-cut, that is that of the same plague in the slums, for in the slums so many factors enter in that the main one is somewhat obscured. Yet the story is the same in the cities. In Edinburgh a few years ago the demolition of some old dwellings that had an unenviable record for tuberculosis and the erection of new, well-planned houses caused an imme- diate lessening of the disease. Nearly every American city has its lung block or its house where the white plague is a permanent resident, steadily taking its toll as family succeeds family. Especially is this true in the crowded districts where houses are jammed so closely together that light and air find difficulty in entering, or are excluded entirely. But though consumption has achieved the reputation of being the house disease, there are others. Typhoid and the other filth diseases find in bad housing a vehicle admirably fitted to their needs. Recently we have come to understand that high infant mot télity: rates are due very largely to bad housing. So the Federal Children’s Bureau is now making careful inquiries as to the character of the dwellings in which children die. Hook-worm, the scourge of many of our states, does much of its worse than deadly work through bad hous- ing. And last—though this is far from a complete list—bad housing causes inefficiency and it stimulates immorality, which in its turn is one of the most potent causes of disease. 4Types of Houses. The housing awakening in America is so recent that not only do most of us still fail to understand its vital importance —as the people of western Europe with their longer experience do understand it—but few of us have even thought about the different types of houses and their effects upon us, social, economic and from the point of view of health. This is the reason we watch the coming of the tenement house, or multiple dwelling, with so little alarm. In some cities I have even found the tenement or apartment house—difference in name makes no difference in nature—classed with the skyscraper business building as an object of pride. But those cities which have had long experience with it suffer under.no such illusion. They see with astonishment how other cities, not yet afflicted, welcome or at least quietly submit to the coming of this pest which has so greatly increased their physical, social and moral ills. For the multiple dwelling crowds people together until they are forced to sacrifice or lower the old wholesome social standards which add so much to the dignity and beauty of life and in addition form one of our best safeguards against the rapid spread of physical and moral disorders. Once tene- ments have secured a foothold there is no obvious stopping place. Increasingly they pile family above family, increasingly they crowd their lots until the city has become, not a com- munity of homes but a conglomeration of human warehouses, until light and air are all but shut out. In New York where the multiple dwelling has practically driven the single family house out of the older sections, an official commission is now seeking means to district the city so that regulations may be applied which will prevent the spread of the apartment house and the tenement house to as yet unspoiled areas. In Massachusetts, where the three-decker dominates urban housing, a determined fight is being waged against it and the strong vested interests which it now repre- sents. Are the South and the West to repeat this tragic his- tory, must they learn through their own experience, or will they profit by the experience of others? The opportunity 1s still theirs. Next to the tenement in its menace is the converted house, 5which at most should be but a temporary makeshift but which too often is the introducer of the tenement. Erected for one family only it comes in the course of its declining fortunes to shelter several. Unsuited to this purpose, containing utterly inadequate sanitary conveniences, making almost no provision for family privacy, it causes the superficial observer to believe that the tenement which is planned for several families is a step in advance. Instead the tenement is but making toler- able and permanent conditions which should be considered intolerable and which should be abolished at the earliest pos- sible moment. Much better than these are row houses, even stutch row houses as the southwest has in its corrals, for they at least permit of light and air and give access to the ground. Built as built in Southern California, } they may be, as they are being they meet most of the objections from the negative point oi view. But, of course, they do not measure up to the standards we shall demand in the future. For in our future city building the first consideration will be space, space for light and air and movement. The great sin will be land overcrowding, for land overcrowding underlies most of our preventable ae ills. I recur to this matter c land overcrowding again and again oO > q+ for not only is it fundamental, not only is Dane lly im- possible ever to remove it once it is established, but the South now has the opportunity to prevent its ever being established. In some of the Southern cities there are already instances of gross land overcrowding, but in none of them is it yet the rule. Ten years hence it may be too late, even as it is already too late in many of the cities along the north Atlantic seacoast. The People—The Immigrant. In another way the South is the land of opportunity which may profit by the experience of others. Its cities are just at the beginning of a great industrial development. When the European war ends we have many reasons to expect a flood of immigrants. A large part of this flood will come to the South. New Orleans with its new immigration station has already made preparations to greet the alien arrivals. Galveston and other Southern ports will welcome tkeir share Put after 6these people have been greeted what shall we do with them? What New York and the North did when the immigrant tide first began to rise nearly three-quarters of a century ago? New York waited until its existing dwellings were packed from cellar to roof, until it had developed conditions which made its lower east side a horror. Then it built tenements! And since then it has had reform after reform, hard fought struggles decade after decade to gain a foot or two of yard space, to raise sanitary standards step by step above the utterly barbarous. And now, after all this bitter fighting, it has a type of dwelling, housing 2,000 people to the acre, which everyone admits is fundamentally bad, but which, now that it is firmly established, cannot be changed except in detail. Or will the South do what California is seeking to do, put its house in order so that the immigrant, after he has been greeted at our ports, may find a place where he can live de- cently and wholesomely, a place that by its nature will con- stantly form him and his children for American citizenship? Surely no less than this may be expected of Southern hospi- tality. For the immigrant, however alien he may seem upon his arrival, is first our guest and later bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh. If we cannot welcome him upon these terms we should not admit him at all. For if we do admit him there is nothing surer than that he and his will influence if not control the destinies of America in the future. So now, before his arrival, is the South’s opportunity to set its house in order. And the house needs some setting. First £ all the South must decide upon the type of dwelling it will neourage in its cities. Then it must take up with greater icor the improvement of its sanitation. And constantly it must consider details, methods, customs. Why are window blinds made solid instead of with slats which will permit air to enter? Why are windows closed at night? Why do the negroes sleep five in a room while other rooms are vacant, and keep a kerosene lamp burning all night long until the air becomes so foul that it almost chokes one who would breathe it, Are these habits, so prejudicial to health, due to causes that might be removed by a different method ot building, by more efficient public health administration, by education? It will be easy, the South will be but following ancient 7precedent, if after the immigrant has arrived, it lays all re- sultant ills to his discredit. The North has done so for gen- erations. But the historian of the future will declare that our own people were responsible. They had the power to prevent and did not use it. Moreover they had and have among the submerged of their own race warnings in plenty. In towns like Portsmouth, Ohio, and Elmira, N. Y., I have seen Ameri- cans of long descent living in the lofts of stables, in the base- ments of old houses. And these towns are not peculiar. Look about you and you will find others. Bad housing and its re- sultant ills are not the exclusive heritage of any race or nation. They are found wherever there is ignorance and greed and neglect. They can be wiped out only where there 1s knowl- edge and public spirit and effort. : Progress in Sanitation. And the South has already begun. Not long ago a repre- sentative of the great life insurance companies visited thirty- two American cities, most of them in the South, to study what they are doing to improve the health of their people. H found much to criticise, but also much to commend. There were cities where people and officials alike were living in a oO fool’s paradise, blind to conditions that brought sickness an death among them, and yet boasting that they were better than their neighbors. But also there were cities that are leaders, not only for America, but for the world, cities like Savannah. Savannah is one of the most beautiful of all our cities, but its location on a low lying coast exposes it to certain diseases in a peculiar degree. So Savannah has taken up its task with vigor. It is perhaps the only American city which can say that every dwelling, even the humblest negro cabin, is supplied with pure water from city mains and has its individual sanitary water-closet. In furnishing these necessities to its people Savannah has gone a long way toward protecting them against disease and death. But even Savannah has so far failed to protect them against a danger more difficult to combat. It stil] permits land overcrowding and the building of tenement houses. Were it not that the South has already begun to awaken Qu rs) iC ee ysto the need for better sanitation I would dwell more at length upon this important phase of bad housing. There are here, as in other sections of the country, cities which are still in the dark ages so far as sanitation is concerned, cities which still permit their people to drink water from surface wells and to pollute that water with the drainage from privies. But they are already in a fair way to become notorious exceptions. Baltimore, which was content for centuries with the sanitary conveniences of a camp of barbarians, has now the most modern sewer system and disposal plant in the country. New Orleans has a separate commission dealing with this matter alone in order that the work may be hastened. Birmingham requires sanitary toilets for every new dwelling, negro cabins included. Richmond, until it annexed some suborbs last year, had only 950 houses without sewer connection and not a single vault where sewer connection was possible. Annapolis has sewers even in its courts and alleys. These are the cities which are setting the standard for the new South, and the others are responding. The Duty of the City. So the Southern cities are beginning to shoulder their re- sponsibility. This is chiefly a responsibility of the negative kind, the responsibility of declaring, “So bad may you be, but no worse.” When this responsibility has been fairly met our cities will be safe from the worst of the evils that now threaten them. Think what it will mean when there can be: No more land overcrowding No more high tenements No more dark, damp, airless rooms No more privy vaults No more dwellings without a supply of good water No more disorderly heaps of garbage and rubbish. The heaviest burden of the poor is filth. In the city that has met its responsibilities, this burden will be lifted. With light and sun and air, with space and abundant water, with the systematic and orderly disposal of human refuse, filth will cease to play a degrading part in our lives. Then we may bid 9farewell to the negative and be free to give all our energy to the positive, to the making of our dwellings homes that will help us to live at our best. But the positive begins before the negative ends. Our cities are constantly growing and changing. The small city is trans ee before we realize it into the great city with its complex economic and social problems. The commercial city becomes an industrial city with its dinner pail army. This change and growth must be guided by a clearly understood purpose or we shall simply repeat old mistakes and prolong into the distant future our purely negative work. In our new additions we must enforce better standards than we accepted in the old. In our new industrial cities we must think of more than one factory at a time, of more than all the factories put together. This means city planning, the building up of the city so that each of its parts will Il serve its purpose to the best advantage and each will contribute to the others, not detract ry 2) o eae as as ox ) re YM Q = eon — WM (aE =) uctive work the old fundamental appears ¢ providing adequate space. With that we can work our miracle, without it we are bound and helpless. Nowhere is fete a clearer sllustration of the value, measured in terms of health and social well-being, of spac Om 4° and light and air than is afforded by the English city of Liver pool. Seventy-five years ago Liverpool 1 was so ravaged by disease that a special commission wa into the causes. It found that ou O 250,000 some 38,000 people lived in 8,000 dark, damp, confined, ill-ventilated and dirty underground cellars; that 86.000 more lived in 14,000 side by side, back to back court houses. There were districts in Liverpool containing 161 houses per acre. The city had no mane or housing law and no power to en- force sewer connections. Then began the long effort to im- prove conditions. Cellars were gradually closed, the most insanitary houses demolished. One result was worse over- crowding in the remaining houses. Often in a three-room house there were from two to three families in each room. What that meant in lowering of standards of decency and morality may be imagined. And the death rate increased. For 33 years the city through its hospital committee, its iS appointed to inquire CR A te 4 ‘ t a total population of IOhealth committee and its insanitary property committee availed itself of everything that sanitary science could do. It looked after the sick, removing them to hospitals; it cleansed the houses inside and outside; it disinfected the rooms, it washed the streets and courts; it made the landlords repair the houses and the drains; it did its utmost to prevent over- crowding; and most important of all, by partial demolition it introduced some sunlight and air and ventilation. How inade- quate the demolition was for the last named purpose is still evident in existing courts. Yet at the end of the 33 years sick- ness had increased. One street had increased its mortality rate from 32:13 per thousand to) 33°51); another trom 32,1) to 2405): another from 35.7 to 46.3; another from 29.91 to 65.3. By way of measurement here are some Southern city death rates for the year 1913: Birmingham, 17.4; Washineton,) OD) @., 17.37 Jacksonville, 19.2; Atlanta, 17.4; Savannah, 25:) exineton, Ky., 23.5; Charleston, 27; Galveston, 18.8; Richmond, 20.4. The local authorities finally decided that these increases were mainly due to the crowding together and bad construction of the houses, and to the crowc a ng of the people in them. So considerable areas were swept clear and new, who some houses with open space about them were created. The for the first time the death rates began to fall. For the three years ending 1873 the death rate in the Scotland division of the city was 35.1 per thousand, in the Exchange division 34.3. After twenty years of hard work it was for the three years ending 1893 exactly the same in the Scotland division and in the Exchange it had increased from 34.3 to 26.7. | ut atrer the new houses were erected it was for the three years ending 1913 in both divisions 29.5, a saving in life of nearly 6 per thousand. A year later it had fallen still lower.* That which makes the Liverpool figures more valuable than similar figures from many other places is that from 7076 to 99% of the people who had lived in the old houses were transferred to the new ones. So there is no question of a different standard of living or a more healthy stock. Americans have at least one illustration of the effect of * This data is taken from Col. G. Kyffin-Taylor, M. P., in the Transac- tions of the National Association for the Prevention a Tuberculosis, Leeds July, 1974.housing upon health to place beside that of Liverpool. There would be no Panama Canal to-day had we not first cleaned up the Canal Zone and provided good houses for the workers. You all know the story of Col. Gorgas who made possible our triumph where the French had failed. You have seen pictures of the houses he built, spacious, airy buildings through which every breeze might pass. Here were no solid wooden shutters to keep out the fresh air, but open space on every side to tempt it in. Screens, not darkness, kept out the flies and mosquitoes which survived his systematic campaigns against their breed- ing places. And the result was that a region which for cen- turies had been known as one of the worst pest holes of the world acquired a reputation equal to that of a health resort. But Col. Gorgas found that while he could stamp out yellow fever by killing mosquitoes and by screening, this did not prevent another scourge, pneumonia. In 1906 some 600 of the negro laborers died from this disease, more than died from all the other diseases put together. These men lived in large barracks where it was necessary for them to crowd con- siderably. Col. Gorgas says that he did everything he could think of to prevent the disease, but without success. Finally he permitted these men to put up their own cabins on land furnished by the government. They at once began to build. They brought their families to the Isthmus. In a few months five-sixths of them were out of the barracks. Pneumonia rapidly disappeared. “For,” he said, “it is a well known law in sanitation that crowding is the greatest factor in most of the infectious diseases.” So it is plain what should be our guiding principles in building the cities of to-morrow. Space for sun and air, for a bit of private out of doors for the family, for neighborhood recreation, for city parks. One reason the country has in the past produced stronger and more enduring men and women than the city is because it had room to let them grow. So we must bring this advantage into the city and give each family its own house and yard, This is going to be no easy task, for crowding means a temporary profit to some who sell or rent. It raises values in a restricted area by preventing those values being spread over a larger 12area. It is urged on a plausible but false basis of economy. It is cheaper to build a barrack on one lot than to build ten cot- tages on ten lots. But when one has figured on the more rapid depreciation, the extra cost for maintenance cuts down the initial saving. And then must be added all the costs for in- creased sickness and inefficiency and immorality; for hospitals and charity and police. Some time ago I wrote to one of our leading real estate men in New York about this matter of increasing land overcrowd- ing. I told him that when I went into a city where the rule was widely spaced, single family cottages, I found the real estate men saying that they could make no money by following the rule, that they must put their cottages closer together or even build terraces. In a city where the terraces had de- veloped into the row houses, as in Philadelphia, I found them arguing for two-family houses. Where two-family houses had been the rule, as in large areas of Brooklyn, I found them arguing for the three-family house. And so on until in Man- hattan, where the six-story row tenement is the standard, I found them arguing for weaker regulations which would per- mit them to build higher and to fill their lots more completely. I asked him if there is any stopping point short of one solid building filled with dark rooms in which the people will die as fast as they can move in, and so establish an equilibrum? He said that he would send me the answer later. That was more than a year ago. Later in Philadelphia where I asked the same question a real estate man replied that there is profit in fol- lowing the established rule, but that there is greater profit in putting two families where one had been. Later still, in Passaic, a real estate man replied by saying that the trouble was due to a failure to realize that there is just as great, if not a greater, profit to be made by building a city out as by build- ing it up. Perhaps there lies the secret, provision of space may be made to run with, not against profit. But in any case the individual’s extra profit from building up is temporary. As soon as the new rule is established he must again build higher. All that is permanent is a lower standard for the city’s housing. So why should the standard not be set and kept while the standard is good? With adequate space assured about our dwellings the field 13is open for constructive talent which will show us how to build better and cheaper. This talent is at work already and it is being encouraged by public spirited organizations like the hicago City Club, the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce and the Los Angeles Housing Commission. It is already pro- ducing garden suburbs like Forest Hills Gardens, the Russell Sage Foundation development on Long Island, and Fairheld, outside of Birmingham, Ala. The homes of the future will be of many kinds, fitted to our varying needs, but they will con- tain the fundamentals: Space Light and sun Air Water Sanitary conveniences Enough rooms and such an arrangement of rooms as will make privacy and decency possible. These houses will be bright and clean. They will be proper places in which to rear children. And that, after all, is the real test of what a home should be, because we are building for the future, and the future is with our children and our children’s children.NATIONAL HO US UNG AS 30) CO un PURPOSES 1. To Improve Housing Conditions, both urban and suburban, in every practicable way ; 2. To bring home to each Community the Importance of Right Housing Conditions and the consequences of bad ones; 3. Lo Study in various cities the Causes of the Drift of the Population into the Cities, and the Methods by which the population may be distributed over larger areas; 4. To encourage the formation of Improved Housing Associations where they do not exist, and to aid in the work of all such Associations by advice and direction ; 5s. To act as a Clearing House of Information for such agencies, and to furnish Advice and Suggestions to those in- terested in Housing Reform, and generally to promote popu- lar interest in the subject; 6. To aid in the Enactment and Enforcement of Laws that will: a. Prevent the erection of unfit types of dwellings; b. Encourage the erection of proper ones; c. Secure their proper maintenance and management; d. Bring about a reasonable and practicable improve- ment of the older buildings ; e. Secure reasonable, scientific and economic building laws. 7. To aid in Defending such Laws when once enacted, from the Attacks of Adverse Interests, and in correcting them from time to time to suit changing conditions and meet new needs as they develop; 8 To Train and Equip Workers for the various phases of Housing Reform Work.NATIONAL HOUSING ASSOCIATION PUBLICATIONS THE AWAKENING OF A STATE—INDIANA By Atsion FELLows Bacon. Three cents by the hundred. WHAT BAD HOUSING MEANS TO THE COMMUNITY—41xH Enprrion By Atsion FELLows Bacon. Three cents by the hundred. TEACHING THE TENANT—2p Epir1on By JoHANNA VON WAGNER. Four cents in quantities of one hundred or more. ONE MILLION PEOPLE IN SMALL HOUSES—2p Enrtion By Hexen L. Parrish. Four cents in quantities of one hundred or more. HOUSING AND HEALTH—2p Eprrion By LAWRENCE VEILLER. Four cents by the hundred. TAB SURVEY AND THE SMALLER CITY By GrEorcE THOMAS PALMER. Three cents in quantities of one hundred or more. THE HOME AS A FACTOR IN PUBLIC HEALTH (Out of print.) By JoHN IHLDER. SUN-LIGHTED TENEMENTS—Thirty-five Years’ Experience as an Owner By Atrrep T. WuitTr. Ten cents each; nine cents by the hundred. THE WORK OF A HOUSING COMMITTEE. (Out of print.) By JoHN IHLDER. HOW SOCIAL WORKERS CAN AID HOUSING REFORM. (Out of Print.) By Mary FE. RIcH MOND. WHAT KIND OF HOMES ?—How a Chamber of Commerce is Helping to Solve the Housing Problem. (Out of Print.) By HowaArpD STRONG. A HOUSING PROGRAMME By LAWRENCE VEILLER. Three cents by the hundred. MODEL TOWNS IN AMERICA By GrosvENoR ATTERBURY. Ten cents each; nine cents by the hundred. ROOM OVERCROWDING AND THE LODGER EVIL By LAWRENCE VEILLER. Three cents by the hundred. THE MENACE OF GREAT CITIES By THE RicHtT HonoraBL—E JAMES Brycre. Four cents by the hundred. THE EFFECT OF A HOUSING LAW By Aurrep T. Wuite. Two cents by the hundred. RURAL AND SUBURBAN HOUSING By Exumer S. Forsres. Three cents by the hundred. BUILDING REGULATION BY DISTRICTS—The Lesson of Berlin. By FRANK Backus WILLIAMS. Four cents by the hundred. WHAT BAD HOUSING IS By Mitprep Cuapsry. Four cents by the hundred. PROTECTING RESIDENTIAL DISTRICTS By Bee ae 3 SMALE HOUSES WITHIN THE CITY LIMITS FOR ISK WAGE, EARNERS No By GrEorcE M. Strernserc, M.D. LL.D. CITY HOUSING—PAST AND FUTURE By Joun IH iper. Four cents by the hundred. Single copies of the above pamphlets may be obtained from the National Housing Association, 105 East 22d Street, New York City, for five cents except Sun-Lighted Tenements and Model Towns in America, ten cents. : Other Pamphlets in preparation. HOUSING PROBLEMS IN AMERICA Proceedings of the First: Nationc! Conference on Housing in A i aus merica. Cloth bound. $2.00 postpaid. « {Out of print.) % a Proceedings of the Second National Conference on Housing in Amer} Cloth bound. $2.00 postpaid. = ae Proceedings of the Third National Conference on Housing Cloth bound. $2.00 postpaid. in America.