“rehousing” showed that new houses on old sites were always occupied by a higher class of tenant than the dispossessed. This was a cause of great anxiety, and Has happened in every instance in this country. It may be that the apprehension is without good reason, for it is not impossible that the people dispossessed are indirectly benefited by new housing.
No reform can be at once immediate and wholesale. Evolution is very slow and gradual processes are the surest. The reformer cannot walk into a city of slums with a panacea under his arm and bring the millennium at a single visit.
Good housing introduced at any point in the scale is bound to affect the general situation, for those who occupy the new houses must necessarily release their previous houses for occupation by people still lower in the economic scale. This process of “moving up” must obtain all along the line with a resulting benefit even to the lowest in the scale.
It would follow as a corollary that the kind of housing to build is any kind that can be successfully marketed. The laws of supply and demand are still operative. The Massachusetts Homestead Commission is trying to build houses at a price below the market possibility in an attempt to rehouse the poorest class before the others are taken care of. If you want the poorest class to be properly housed without delay there is only one way to accomplish it,—pay them enough so that they can afford decent houses. They themselves will then discover the ways and means. The history of the world is a witness to this fact. Any other method is artificial and unnatural. It may be that their net income can be raised without an increase in wages. Destroy private land monopoly and the first big item is saved. Prohibit the sale of fictitious food, another
benefit accrues. Put a stop to the breeding of an unemployable class of feeble-minded. All these things help increase the net wage. If this last statement seems to be inconsistent with a preceding one to the effect that good housing is the ounce of prevention for feeble-mindedness, etc., the answer is that the social evolution is a progress resembling military progress. Every part of the line of defence and offense must be watched, and all action correlated. As it is impossible to achieve a victory of arms except by maintaining a strong unbroken interrelated line, so it is equally futile to advance and improve social conditions without comprehensive planning and concerted action.
Another point, about which there is some anxiety, is the use of present large housing facilities after the war, when the community may shrink in numbers. It is reasonable to believe that if numbers of the new and better type of houses are vacated by such a shrinkage, the natural laws of supply and demand will lead people to give up unwholesome tenements in the city, and move out to these houses, thereby bringing about the gradual destruction of the worst housing in the community. If this can be expected, it will bring about a benefit to the communities which we cannot hope to reach in any other way.
Furthermore, the presence of a considerable amount of good housing in a community is likely to prove a determining factor in the continuation of industry in that community. A manufacturer looking for a location for a new plant is as likely to consider good housing as an inducement as he is any other advantage. In other words, good housing can be classed with good railroad facilities, the presence of cheap water power, low freight rates, etc., as one of the assets of a locality, insuring its permanence as an industrial center.
No reform can be at once immediate and wholesale. Evolution is very slow and gradual processes are the surest. The reformer cannot walk into a city of slums with a panacea under his arm and bring the millennium at a single visit.
Good housing introduced at any point in the scale is bound to affect the general situation, for those who occupy the new houses must necessarily release their previous houses for occupation by people still lower in the economic scale. This process of “moving up” must obtain all along the line with a resulting benefit even to the lowest in the scale.
It would follow as a corollary that the kind of housing to build is any kind that can be successfully marketed. The laws of supply and demand are still operative. The Massachusetts Homestead Commission is trying to build houses at a price below the market possibility in an attempt to rehouse the poorest class before the others are taken care of. If you want the poorest class to be properly housed without delay there is only one way to accomplish it,—pay them enough so that they can afford decent houses. They themselves will then discover the ways and means. The history of the world is a witness to this fact. Any other method is artificial and unnatural. It may be that their net income can be raised without an increase in wages. Destroy private land monopoly and the first big item is saved. Prohibit the sale of fictitious food, another
benefit accrues. Put a stop to the breeding of an unemployable class of feeble-minded. All these things help increase the net wage. If this last statement seems to be inconsistent with a preceding one to the effect that good housing is the ounce of prevention for feeble-mindedness, etc., the answer is that the social evolution is a progress resembling military progress. Every part of the line of defence and offense must be watched, and all action correlated. As it is impossible to achieve a victory of arms except by maintaining a strong unbroken interrelated line, so it is equally futile to advance and improve social conditions without comprehensive planning and concerted action.
Another point, about which there is some anxiety, is the use of present large housing facilities after the war, when the community may shrink in numbers. It is reasonable to believe that if numbers of the new and better type of houses are vacated by such a shrinkage, the natural laws of supply and demand will lead people to give up unwholesome tenements in the city, and move out to these houses, thereby bringing about the gradual destruction of the worst housing in the community. If this can be expected, it will bring about a benefit to the communities which we cannot hope to reach in any other way.
Furthermore, the presence of a considerable amount of good housing in a community is likely to prove a determining factor in the continuation of industry in that community. A manufacturer looking for a location for a new plant is as likely to consider good housing as an inducement as he is any other advantage. In other words, good housing can be classed with good railroad facilities, the presence of cheap water power, low freight rates, etc., as one of the assets of a locality, insuring its permanence as an industrial center.