HOUSING REFOBM — FORD. 745 



rebuilding of insanitary areas, even in London and Liverpool, where 

 municipal housing is an accepted form of municipal business, has 

 never proved a paying undertaking, chiefly for the following reasons : 

 - 1. The original cost of the land and of the destruction of the insan- 

 itary houses is either prohibitive or places a too heavy initial charge 

 upon the undertaking. 



2. It has been found impossible to build municipal tenements on 

 the same area to house healthfully as many persons as were dishoused 

 by the slum-clearance scheme. 



3. The original dishoused population tends to crowd with other 

 families in small tenements while the area is being rebuilt, and does 

 not return to the new buildings when completed, largely because the 

 rents are inevitably higher than they were for the original accommo- 

 dation. 



4. It becomes profitable for a low class of speculators to buy insan- 

 itary property and hold it unrepaired in the hope that the Govern- 

 ment will purchase it for a slum-clearance scheme of this sort, paying 

 them, as is usually the case, more for the land and buildings than they 

 are really worth. 



Even if these arguments were not operative in American cities, 

 municipal housing would for the present at least be undesirable, 

 both because it is unnecessary (private capital, properly encouraged, 

 can be relied upon to provide the necessary accommodations) and 

 also because in our American cities we can not guarantee the con- 

 tinued employment of export men to operate a municipal housing 

 department. Municipal housing will not pay where long tenure of 

 office can not be guaranteed to efficient administrators, or where poli- 

 tics and slender appropriations can ruin the work of competent 

 administrators. 



TAXATION or LAND VALUES. 



Another possible Avay of dealing with such an area deserves very 

 serious and extensive consideration, and that is the use of a system 

 of heavy taxation of land values or of the unearned increment. As 

 these measures involve many other considerations besides those of 

 housing, these other bearings of the subject should, of course, be 

 studied with utmost care before the adoption of the scheme. As a 

 fiscal measure, however, the taxation of the unearned increment from 

 land values is, without doubt, a peculiarly just form of taxation and 

 is calculated to bring large annual sums into the city treasury. There 

 is no question that the community is chiefly responsible for increases 

 in land values. It is just, therefore, for the community to appropri- 

 ate such increases in value, especially if it can do so without placing 

 any hardship upon industry. The only serious difficulties arise in 

 determining a practical method of appropriation and assessment. 



