ABSTRACT
O n e of the interests of the housing problem is its manysidedness. No one who has observed the differences in type and density of houses on the Tyneside from those in a southern town, like Southampton, whether their origin be taste, cost of land, or local conventions of technique, can doubt their relevance to a study of standards of living or of health. The number of houses built to the acre is now in law, as well as in medical opinion, an important element in health environment. Besides these physical elements of the problem, there is the economic problem of securing an equilibrium between the changing needs of miscellaneous family types and incomes, and durable housing units. And since the disadvantages in health and morals of “overcrowding” are commonly recognized, there is the task of finding a workable definition of “overcrowding” and of determining the extent and causes of the phenomenon. Thus the problem becomes a complex one of tastes, costs, legislation, poverty, and of such human material as the “slummer.”
