The Socialist and the CityGeneral Books, 2013 - 18 pages This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IX PUBLIC HEALTH THE public health question is mainly a housing question, as to which the Socialist view is definite, and well known to all who have taken the trouble to inquire. It is all a matter of shortage of supply, which, from the public health point of view, may exist, even while there are many unlet houses in the city; because those available, and a still larger number, unfortunately tenanted, are not in the least fitted for occupation. Indeed, I know of no town or city without a serious scarcity of housing accommodation, and people can only delude themselves into thinking otherwise by taking it for granted that of existing houses the majority are as they should be, which is far from being the case. If the health of the people were really our first consideration, as by sheer force of habit we accustom ourselves to think it, then probably 25 per cent, of the present dwellings--in any town not of recent growth, and perhaps in others also--would have to be superseded, and in all probability another 25 per cent, would only be deemed fitting homes for the people after improvement by considerable alteration. Consistently with my original intention, as mentioned at the beginning of this book, I refrain from indulging in flights of fancy on this subject, as on others already dealt with, or I might have suggested a delightful scheme of rebuilding my city on Garden City lines, every detail prearranged and mapped out, to be materialised on a new site. Such a scheme, after all the thought given to the subject in recent years, might win the approval of a section of the public, others would criticise and show a better way--on paper; a larger number would be simply indifferent. To existing cities neither the possibilities of such a... |
