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Recent Trends in American Housing the Macmillan Company Nbw York Boston Chicago Dallas Atlanta San Francisco RECENT TRENDS IN AMERICAN EDITH ELMER WOOD, PK.D. Author of The Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner, etc. RECENT TRENDS AMERICAN HOUSING By EDITH ELMER WOOD, Ph.D. Author of '7he Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner/' etc. ILLUSTRATED In her earlier book "The Hous- ing of the Unskilled Wage Earner" Dr. Wood presented an authorita- tive and comprehensive array of facts concerning housing conditions up to 1919. In this new book she takes up modern trends in American housing, having first made a careful summary of housing evils and their remedies up to 1917. This book is filled with startling statistics, comparisons, and statements which should shake us still further out of our lethargy about housing conditions in this country. Dr. Wood is interested both in restrictive and constructive housing measures, but she empha- sizes the need of making better homes available to a larger percentage of people the constructive policy. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishers New York the collection of the .., a 'ibrary t P San Francisco, California 2006 in tii cc to IT h. o u ai u a c b h 8 h C RECENT TRENDS IN AMERICAN HOUSING THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NBW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LIMITED TORONTO Courtesy of the Amalgamated Housing Corporation Amalgamated Housing Corporation, New York. Cooperative garden apartments for clothing workers made possible by tax exemption under the New York State Housing Law. Recent Trends in American Housing by Edith Elmer Wood, Ph.D. " Author of The Housing of the Unskilled " Wage Earner ", Housing Progress in Western Europe ", etc. Illustrated New York The Macmillan Company 1931 PRINTED IN THE TTNITED STATES OF AMERICA COPYRIGHT, 1931, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. All rights reserved no part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. Set up and printed. Published October, 1931, NORWOOD PRESS LINOTYPE, INC, NORWOOD, MASS., U. S. A. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The writer wishes to record her sincere thanks and deep obligation to all the men and women in public and private life who have aided in the preparation of this book by supplying her with needed information, fre- quently unpublished, or by reading portions of the manuscript which dealt with events coming under their special cognizance. For conclusions drawn and judgments expressed, the writer alone is responsible. CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION . 1. The problem .... 1 2. Health, morals, citizenship, happiness, as affected by housing . 4 3. Retrospect. Summary of the housing situation in 1917 8 4. Remedies for housing evils in the United States prior to 1917 .10 5. Remedies for housing evils in European and other for- eign countries before and since the War ... 12 6. Sources of information on recent American urban housing 19 7. Sources of information on recent American rural housing 29 8. Home ownership in the United States .... 35 9. Minimum standard of housing 39 10. What is wrong with supply and demand ? ... 43 11. Family income 47 12. The place of housing in family budgets ... 53 13. Four items in the cost of a home 59 CHAPTER I. WAR HOUSING 66 II. THE HOUSING SHORTAGE 83 III. RENT RESTRICTION 95 IV. TAX EXEMPTION 106 V. TENEMENT HOUSE AND HOUSING CODES (DWELL- ING LAWS) 114 VI. RAPID GROWTH OF ZONING 122 VII. CITY AND REGIONAL PLANNING .... 135 VIII. THE LAND QUESTION 149 IX. SATELLITE GARDEN CITIES AND OTHER NEW TOWNS 156 X. THE ADVENT OF COOPERATIVE HOUSING . 171 vii viii Contents CHAPTER PAGE XI. HOUSING LOANS AT Low INTEREST .... 185 XII. ELIMINATING COMMERCIAL PROFIT .... 206 XIII. HOUSING BY PUBLIC AUTHORITIES .... 237 XIV. THE NEW YORK STATE BOARD OF HOUSING . 259 XV. SLUM CLEARANCE 274 CONCLUSION 283 The economic cost of obsolete housing in preventable deaths, illness and crime versus the cost of clearance and replacement BIBLIOGRAPHY 299 INDEX 307 ILLUSTRATIONS COOPERATIVE GARDEN APARTMENTS FOR CLOTHING WORKERS BUILT BY THE AMALGAMATED HOUSING CORPORATION, NEW YORK Frontispiece FACING PAGE WHY LONDON HAS A LOWER DEATH RATE THAN NEW YORK 16 SAMPLES OF SEVERAL MILLION AMERICAN HOMES 28 GOVERNMENT HOUSING FOR SHIPBUILDERS (EMERGENCY FLEET CORPORATION), YORKSHIP VILLAGE, CAMDEN, NEW JERSEY 68 GOVERNMENT HOUSING FOR MUNITION WORKERS (UNITED STATES HOUSING CORPORATION), BRIDGEPORT, CONN. 80 MARIEMONT GARDEN VILLAGE, CINCINNATI, OHIO 164 THE FIRST RADBURN SUPER-BLOCKS 166 RADBURN, NEW JERSEY 170 AMALGAMATED HOUSING CORPORATION, BRONX, NEW YORK 182 PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR APARTMENTS, HARLEM, NEW YORK 226 MICHIGAN BOULEVARD GARDEN APARTMENTS, CHICAGO 236 HOMES OF CALIFORNIA VETERANS ACQUIRED UNDER THE VETERANS' FARM AND HOME PURCHASE ACT 254 AMALGAMATED DWELLINGS, GRAND STREET, NEW YORK 270 IX RECENT TRENDS IN AMERICAN HOUSING INTRODUCTION 1. The Problem. The crux of the housing problem is economic. Under the ordinary laws of supply and demand, it is insoluble. In our modern industrial civilization, the distribution of income is such that a substantial portion of the popu- lation cannot pay a commercial rent, much less a com- mercial purchase price, for a home fulfilling the mini- mum health and decency requirements. This is not a local or transitory phenomenon. It is universal and permanent, to the extent, at least, that our economic system is universal and permanent. The sooner we in the United States recognize these facts, as most thinking people in the rest of the civilized world have already done, the sooner we shall find a remedy. For of course there is one, if we choose to pay the price for it. No situation which is producing disease and crime faster than our remedial agencies can cure them is a necessity. As a matter of fact, other nations have found remedies and are putting them into effect. It cannot be done in a day. It cannot be done without sacrifice. But the progress in some countries has been remarkable. We may not like their remedies. But in that case, it would seem to be up to us to devise better ones. No such simple remedy as raising wages will solve the problem. If the group involved were a small one, 1 2 Recent Trends in American Housing it might answer. But a general increase of wages for unskilled and semiskilled labor would add to the general cost of production and therefore to the cost of living, which would force up salaries and the wages of skilled labor. The cost of a home would increase in the same proportion, and we should be just where we were before, on a higher price level. It is not the absolute figures that are important, but the ratio between family income and the cost of a home. It is easier in practice to lessen the cost of housing than it is to change the distribution of income in favor of the lower groups. It disturbs the existing order of things much less. Hence it is the course followed by such conservatively progressive nations as Great Brit- ain, France, Germany, Belgium and Holland. Changes in American methods of production since the World War have, it is true, injected some new and per- haps hopeful factors into the situation. Through the introduction of better machinery, more efficient man- agement, better cooperation between capital and labor, we are told that the per capita productivity of American labor increased 53.5% between 1919 and 1927. 1 Pro- ductivity in 1919, however, was considerably below the pre-war level, so that the net gain is nearer 40%. Due, partly at least, to the wide acceptance among employers of the economic theory that the increased products of industry can find a market only if the workers them- selves are prosperous enough to be purchasers, the workers have shared in the added wealth that they have created to a substantial extent. The cost of living in the United States is about 70% higher than it was in 1913, but wages average somewhat more than double (103% increase in 1927 over 1913). The difference 1 Report of the Committee on Recent Economic Changes in the United States, p. 104. Introduction 3 means an increase of purchasing power amounting to roughly 18% in the case of wage earners and 9% for 2 salaried persons. Such an increase means, of course, an enlargement of the group who are able to afford acceptable housing. It is certain, however, that nothing like all of the potential improvement has been realized. With cun- ningly worded advertising and high pressure salesman- ship urging the worker to spend his new-found sur- plus on this, that and the other, a radio, a vacuum cleaner, a fur coat, a diamond ring, over-stuffed furni- ture, a car, a piano, all on the installment plan with seductively small first payments, it is only where both husband and wife are unusually clear-sighted and strong-willed that they can resist all these importunities and concentrate on what most of them need most, a better home. The number who do so will probably increase, as the near-wise have an opportunity to see what the wholly wise have been able to accomplish. But if such a tendency goes far, what will become of the stimulation to production by the expansion of the market for things in general? Concentrating on hous- ing would stimulate only the production of building materials, bricks, tiles, and boards, plumbing, light- ing and heating fixtures. What would become of the rest of industry and the increased wages which each manufacturer has been willing to give in order to boost his own sales? In other words, won't this excellent increase in labor's share of the national income, not only stop growing, but start decreasing, if wage earners 2 Report of the Committee on Recent Economic Changes in the United States, Chapter XII.
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