It depends on the demand, on competition rather than quality. In our older
and more settled communities it is most common for rent to use up one
fourth the salary of all town dwellers with incomes within our limits.
This was true in Boston fifty years ago, and it is true to-day in dozens
of cities and towns personally investigated. It is not unknown that a
teacher or business man should exceed this in the hope of a rise in
salary by the second year. Adding the expenses of operating the house, of
repairs and additions and improvements if the house is owned, nearly half
the money available must go for the mere housing of the family.
If it is true, as I believe it is, that for each fraction over one fifth
spent for rent a saving must be made in some other direction--in the daily
expense, less service, less costly food, or less expensive clothing, or,
last to be cut down, less of the real pleasure of life,--it will be seen
what a far-reaching question this is, how it touches the vital point, to
have or not to have other good things in life.
A large part of the increase is due, as we have said, to increased demand
for sanitary conveniences, but far more potent is the pressure resulting
from the price of land.
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