Page:Lectures on Housing.djvu/25

 house shall not be less than a certain height, or a certain superficial area, they should limit the number of houses to the acre, since overcrowding per acre may be just as serious as overcrowding per room. Why should we not town-plan the whole of England, instead of allowing the present utterly casual method of erecting houses? The best municipalities are already engaged in town-planning, though I believe that only Birmingham has got a scheme through. However, there are about two hundred schemes afloat, though some of them are very partial, and refer to very small areas. But there is no reason why, within a certain number of years, every town should not prepare a town-plan, and limit the number of houses to the acre to ten, twelve, fourteen, or eighteen, or some reasonable number, to give air and space around them. That is essential if we are to give our workers homes. At present, if I may quote a phrase that hits the mark, we are not even housing, but only warehousing them.

Obviously, whether such a step is possible