Page:Lectures on Housing.djvu/40

 These three then are the ways in which we may hope to cheapen houses: or—and this is even more to the point—since we want better houses rather than cheaper ones, build houses better without increasing their cost above the level of to-day. We can cheapen land by means of transit, rating reform, and improved methods of acquisition. We can cheapen money by obtaining more of it from the Public Works Loan Commissioners, and we can lessen rates by placing a proportion of them upon the site instead of the building. If these things were done, the better-class working man would take a really pleasant house outside the town. His former house would be left vacant, and there would tend to be a slight slump in house property, which would make the old-fashioned, though sanitary house, appear less desirable; its price would drop, and then it could be let to the working man who hitherto could not afford a sanitary house at all.

Undoubtedly, however, a large number of bona fide working men, regular workers, or