These great strides of the last decade have not, of course, brought any "solution" of the housing problem or of urban congestion and bankruptcy. Technical advance, except in site planning, has been slow, not from lack of ingenuity or endeavour but because of complications and evils inherent in an inchoate and obsolete building industry. Even if pre-fabrication were to produce an immediate and striking solution to the problem of the low cost individual house, the urban question would not be touched. Underlying problems of the use of land and of the rehabilitation of unused areas would remain. In fact it is prob able that successful pre-fabrication of cheap dwelling units would raise new and special problems in the future. These problems, whatever they may be, will provide many tests for the working out of new tech niques in social architecture. (See also TOWN AND CITY PLANNING.) BIBLIOGRAPHY.—Ebenezer Howard, Cities of Tomorrow; James Ford, Slums and Housing; Henry Wright, Rehousing Urban America; Catherine K. Bauer, Modern Housing. (H. S. CH.) No house can be produced without the use of the four essential factors; land, credit, labour and materials, but in order that these factors may correctly balance one another there must be a design to govern their use. Altogether too little thought is generally expended on design. When trying to build a small, cheap house many people feel that they can not afford an architect. As a mat ter of fact, the importance of good design increases as the amount of money available to produce a family unit decreases. (See HOUSE PLANNING.) This applies not alone to the house itself but to group arrangement, and above all to the nice balancing of land values, credits and the physical house. The majority of work that in the past has served to provide shelter for the bulk of mankind has been executed with little or no understanding of the impor tance of design in this larger sense. Almost anybody who felt that he could enclose a house for less money than it could be sold for, has tried to do so. That part of the public with money to spend on essentials but not enough for frills has freely bought the product of the speculative builder and has in the main been de pendent upon this unimaginative narrowly conceived type of housing. As to the large class of people who can not even afford to pay for essentials, it has generally been assumed that there were enough cast-off homes available to take care of their needs.
In spite of its failings, however, the average modern American house has mechanical equipment that provides its occupants with more comfort and conveniences than has ever before been available for the working classes.
The first step in the direction of bad housing is generally the abandonment of a house by a family which could formerly afford to live in it. The occupancy of the house then changes to a num ber of families. Each pays a very little, but together they are sometimes able to pay, for the privilege of setting up makeshift homes in the old building, a total greater than the original cost. Since ancient times this has been the first method employed when ever the pressure of population in a rapidly growing city has created a scarcity of homes. The conversion of individual houses to multiple use increases the intensity of the use of land and therefore increases land value. Higher land values in turn provoke the second step in the direction of bad housing. It becomes neces sary as well as profitable to erect new multiple dwellings instead of individual houses. Work is plentiful in the great centres of population and people are ready to put up with congestion to be near the source of their livelihood.
The movement into the cities makes city land desirable and tends to increase its value. More intensive use becomes an eco
nomic necessity. Fortunately there are natural as well as arti ficial limits to congestion. Except in times of great crisis or shortage people refuse to rent the most undesirable quarters. Con sequently these are usually offered cheap, and some of them are kept filled only because there are always some families who, being able to pay practically nothing, must take what they can get. The average family that moves into undesirable quarters does so with the original idea that it is a temporary expedient until the bread winner's luck improves. Some of them are never able to pull out. For this reason the State is compelled to step in, and, in order to preserve the standards of public health, to establish minimum standards of decent housing by act of legislature.
Restriction increases the tendency to seek cheap land for devel opment. New land is usually unimproved and frequently appears in the raw state to be cheaper than other available land where im provements such as sewer, water and other service facilities have been completed. For this reason, new land is subject to two faults in development. It is likely either to be developed too in tensively or not intensively enough. The apartment is the chief ' offender in the first instance, for its courts are usually regulated by the legal minimums designed for more expensive land. Cheap land is usually remote land and too intensive buildings placed upon it depend originally upon vacant adjoining land for their desir ability. Over-intensive development is likely to disrupt real estate values in the neighbourhood because the income from it is not entirely earned by its own land and buildings. In the outlying sections and in the suburbs this misplaced type of city apartment has become a real problem. This is not to be confused with the really desirable suburban types which are set in the midst of ample land and which are therefore not subject to rapid depreciation after the adjoining land becomes built up. A true suburban type apartment preserves the suburban atmosphere and holds out as the inducement to the longer travel, permanent recreational advantages of the out-of-doors.