churches, schools, theaters, clubhouses, parks, playgrounds, playfields, and so on; and any Government industrial housing development which does not find all these things already sufficiently provided to cover its needs must provide them itself, and if necessary pay for them itself, and, moreover, all these things must be provided, and administered, in such a way that the people using them shall do so with self respect and as their well-earned right. Americans will not live contentedly in a housing development that looks like a toy village or a state poor farm. Nor will they live contentedly under legal restrictions of tenure and occupancy that encroach too much on their personal freedom, or that express too much the interest of anyone but themselves.
Temporary housing may sufficiently serve the careless bachelor; incomplete living facilities may, for the time, serve those who have known no better and who can afford no other; but for the trained and well paid man, permanence as well as decency will be necessary. And we must remember that it is the discontented whom we are trying to content, and a high proportion of the discontented will, of course, be those who recognize and mean to obtain really good and permanent living conditions.
Moreover, the world will not come to an end when the war is over. It will be just as vital, and perhaps just as obviously vital, that workers shall be contented after the war as now. Permanent housing may take its place as an integral part of the
enlarged and improved town, and as something rather better than what was done before, to stimulate further housing improvement. Much of its value remains after the war, even if perhaps some other industry has to receive a subsidy to encour
age its replacing the munitions plant then happily out of work.
But the temporary housing after the war is little better than “scrap”; indeed, it may be much worse, and, not being destroyed, degenerate into a slum as
bad as any now existing, a destroyer of local landvalues, a menace to the tenant and a reproach to the country.
All this, then, is what we must face, as a matter of business, in undertaking government housing. It is possible to state each particular housing problem roughly in business terms. Let us take, for example, the government housing development now under way at “Hilton,” near Newport News, Va.
The Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company as long ago as October, 1917, saw that government assistance in war housing developments would be absolutely essential and, therefore, would some time be provided.
They employed Mr. H. V. Hubbard of the firm of Pray, Hubbard & White, as landscape architect, and Mr. F. H. Bulot as engineer, to prepare a scheme for the development of land for 500 houses to serve the shipyard workers, and Mr. Francis Y. Joannes was engaged as architect. They hoped, as proved to be the case, that when government loans for such work finally became available they would have their plans so far along that they might be accepted without great changes and quickly put under construction.
This co-operation of architect, engineer and landscape architect and town planner is an ideal one, reflecting, as it does, the three great requirements of any such development: beauty and utility of houses ai^l public buildings; adaptation of public utilities to use, to local conditions and to considera
SECOND FLOOR PLAN
TWO-ROOM HOUSE, TYPE C-i
FIRST FLOOR PLAN
FOUR-ROOM HOUSE, TYPE C-i
Temporary housing may sufficiently serve the careless bachelor; incomplete living facilities may, for the time, serve those who have known no better and who can afford no other; but for the trained and well paid man, permanence as well as decency will be necessary. And we must remember that it is the discontented whom we are trying to content, and a high proportion of the discontented will, of course, be those who recognize and mean to obtain really good and permanent living conditions.
Moreover, the world will not come to an end when the war is over. It will be just as vital, and perhaps just as obviously vital, that workers shall be contented after the war as now. Permanent housing may take its place as an integral part of the
enlarged and improved town, and as something rather better than what was done before, to stimulate further housing improvement. Much of its value remains after the war, even if perhaps some other industry has to receive a subsidy to encour
age its replacing the munitions plant then happily out of work.
But the temporary housing after the war is little better than “scrap”; indeed, it may be much worse, and, not being destroyed, degenerate into a slum as
bad as any now existing, a destroyer of local landvalues, a menace to the tenant and a reproach to the country.
All this, then, is what we must face, as a matter of business, in undertaking government housing. It is possible to state each particular housing problem roughly in business terms. Let us take, for example, the government housing development now under way at “Hilton,” near Newport News, Va.
The Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company as long ago as October, 1917, saw that government assistance in war housing developments would be absolutely essential and, therefore, would some time be provided.
They employed Mr. H. V. Hubbard of the firm of Pray, Hubbard & White, as landscape architect, and Mr. F. H. Bulot as engineer, to prepare a scheme for the development of land for 500 houses to serve the shipyard workers, and Mr. Francis Y. Joannes was engaged as architect. They hoped, as proved to be the case, that when government loans for such work finally became available they would have their plans so far along that they might be accepted without great changes and quickly put under construction.
This co-operation of architect, engineer and landscape architect and town planner is an ideal one, reflecting, as it does, the three great requirements of any such development: beauty and utility of houses ai^l public buildings; adaptation of public utilities to use, to local conditions and to considera
SECOND FLOOR PLAN
TWO-ROOM HOUSE, TYPE C-i
FIRST FLOOR PLAN
FOUR-ROOM HOUSE, TYPE C-i