As was natural, sympathy flowed first to the class which had the most
visible need, not necessarily the greater need.
The New York Model Tenement Association has shown the world how easy it
is, when there is a will, to find a way. That association has already
taken the first step in advanced housing, and reduced the cost of safe and
rentable city shelter to its lowest terms. Fireproof, sanitary, and
convenient so far as rooms go (it is quite a climb for the mother with a
baby in her arms to the sixth story), with neighbors carefully sorted,
repairs well looked after, a sympathetic woman as agent always in the
office; _but_ only a minimum of light and air and sun; bedrooms 7x8,
living-rooms 10x13; the smallest spaces the law allows; no grass, no
flowers outside, no pets, nothing of one's own that cannot be put in a
cart; common stairways where only partial privacy is gained; clothes-yards
on the roof, and laundry in the basement, to be used in turn by twenty
tenants. Because this is better than the slums for the emerging class, and
because they like the gregariousness, is no argument for continuing the
type up into the range of the $2000 group.
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