Affordable rental housing through the ages
(my special subject)3
In our ignorance, we think of affordable housing -- that is, rental apartments specifically created to be affordable to the poor, known in most of the world as social housing -- as a phenomenon of the postwar era. But my busman's holiday vacations have uncovered many predecessor forms:
AD 50: Ostia Antica and its insulae.
1300: The Perigordian bastides (new frontier towns) of Edward I.
1750: The French enlightenment new towns.
1776: Edinburgh's New Town.
1810: Lowell, the Industrial Revolution's planned textile community.
1875: The Boston triple-decker.
1937: Public housing, Roosevelt's experiment in high-rises.
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Copyright 2002 David Alexander Smith