Page:Lectures on Housing.djvu/57

 elements involved in the conception of a minimum standard of housing accommodation. These, as I have suggested, refer respectively to the structure and repair of individual houses, the condition of individual houses as regards overcrowding, and the general arrangement of the whole body of houses in a town or village. So much being understood, we are in a position to attack our main problem. What policy or policies is it desirable to pursue in order that the minimum standard of housing accommodation, which we adopt in theory, may also be attained in practice? This problem is, I think, often deprived of some of the illumination due to it by being treated as a thing standing apart in splendid isolation. It is true, no doubt, that the minimum standard of housing accommodation is more complex than some other minimum standards, such as the minimum standard of leisure. That circumstance, however, does not carry with it any essential difference in character. The broad outline of the practical problem is the same in regard