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The Flophouse: Housing and Public Policy for the Single Poor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2011

Robert A. Slayton
Robert A. Slayton
Affiliation:
Chapman College
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Extract

Thomas Philpott, in his pioneering study, The Slum and the Ghetto, argued that housing reformers were paternalistic, that “regulating tenant conditions … involved regulating the tenement dwellers.” In particular, he pointed out the problems with housing laws that seemingly improved the quality of housing for the poor by setting minimum standards. Instead of improving conditions, however, these regulations simultaneously raised the price of new housing beyond what immigrants and poor workers could pay, while also destroying those buildings, no matter how troubled, that they could afford. In other words, middle-class housing policy, while well intentioned, had a negative impact, because it failed to consider the needs of the population or to provide affordable substitutes for the housing that was eliminated.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 1 , Issue 4 , October 1989 , pp. 373 - 390
Copyright
Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 1989

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References

Notes

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