Page:Lectures on Housing.djvu/51

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SOME ASPECTS OF THE HOUSING PROBLEM
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lines is pursued by the London County Council in respect of houses managed by them. They have a rule that, among their tenants, "the standard of two persons a room must not be exceeded by more than one child under three years." Annual inspection secures that a change shall be made when natural increase passes beyond these limits; and lodgers can only be taken in with the Council's leave.[1]

In addition, however, to these two obvious elements in satisfactory housing accommodation, we are rapidly coming to recognise a third. If one walks through an ordinary town to-day, and particularly if one walks through London, it is obvious at once that the arrangement and external form of the houses leaves much to be desired. One sees, for instance, a great number of buildings frequently huddled together, stretching in long rows of dismal sameness, with narrow streets and no green spaces. The most

  1. Housing of the Working Class, L.C.C. Report, 1913, pp. 103-4.