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2 - Water

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2010

Donald Filtzer
Affiliation:
University of East London
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Summary

The lack of sewerage and efficient waste removal was not the only scourge of the modern industrial city. Another was the difficulty obtaining access to clean water, both for drinking and for washing. The two were intimately related. Lack of sewerage polluted the land on which people lived, worked, and traveled. It could also, however, pollute the groundwater from which communities took their water. Where towns did have sewerage, the tendency was to discharge it untreated into waterways, jeopardizing this source of water as well. For this reason the laying on of central water supplies was fundamental to the nineteenth-century project of sanitary reform. In his examination of urban mortality in England and Germany during the forty years preceding World War I, Jörg Vögele warns his readers not to exaggerate the pace and impact of progress in this area. Construction of urban water supplies and of drainage and sewerage systems had indeed been rapid, but also highly uneven. In a slightly sobering tone, he notes that, although Berlin had begun to build a central water supply in 1853, by 1873 “only” 50 percent of all dwellings were connected. Half of London's population had centralized supply “only” in the 1890s, while in Sheffield coverage reached 100 percent of the population “only” in 1906. Moreover, in their initial stages the systems were not always very effective. In Germany, for example, the pressure was not always sufficient to reach the upper floors of multistory tenements.

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The Hazards of Urban Life in Late Stalinist Russia
Health, Hygiene, and Living Standards, 1943–1953
, pp. 66 - 126
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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  • Water
  • Donald Filtzer, University of East London
  • Book: The Hazards of Urban Life in Late Stalinist Russia
  • Online publication: 06 July 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511711954.009
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  • Water
  • Donald Filtzer, University of East London
  • Book: The Hazards of Urban Life in Late Stalinist Russia
  • Online publication: 06 July 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511711954.009
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Water
  • Donald Filtzer, University of East London
  • Book: The Hazards of Urban Life in Late Stalinist Russia
  • Online publication: 06 July 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511711954.009
Available formats
×