BIRMINGHAM HOUSING CONDITIONS
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I venture to hope that few of your readers who are acquainted with Birmingham's reputation in housing and town-planning matters will accept without question the impu- tations included in the review of " The Industrial Development of Birmingham and the Black Country, 1860-1927," contained in your issue of October 19th.
To suggest that " Birmingham has kept itself alive . . . . and that is just about all we can say for it," is, to anyone pos- sessing but the vaguest knowledge of Birmingham's civic and industrial reputation, not distantly removed from the gro- tesque, while the observation that " the conditions which it offers to the vast majority of its inhabitants are still, and in many cases increasingly, unfit for the citizens of a great and civilized nation " is. upon examination, far removed from fact.
One wonders whether your reviewer appreciates the points at which a eity:s responsibility for these vague " conditions " begins and ends ; his knowledge of Birmingham would seem to be bounded by the confines of an industrial constituency in this borough which was already built up when it became incor- porated in the City of Birmingham in 1911, and which, more- over, brought with it a legacy of small house property that did not lessen Birmingham's already exacting responsibilities. That area, Sir, is one of the twelve Parliamentary divisions which comprise the Borough of Birmingham, and one which obviously cannot be considered typical of the city.
Before the War interrupted its programme, the Corporation, by virtue of its powers under the Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890, caused to be rebuilt and renovated a vast number of slum dwellings. Slum clearance and improvement schemes have not since regained their pre-War magnitude, but housing efforts have developed in different and even more urgent directions. Is it within your reviewer's knowledge that, having the future in view and to avoid a repetition of the legacy of the industrial revolution, Birmingham initiated the first Town Planning Scheme in the country in 1911, and is he aware that since that date three other town planning schemes have been put into operation and that three more are in imme- diate contemplation ?
In order to illustrate the relative housing progress in com- parable industrial areas, I venture to submit the following statistics, which cover the post-War period ended September 80th, 1929 :— Town. Corporation Houses built or in course of
erection.
Private Enterprise Houses erected erected under sub- without sidy schemes. subsidy.
Birmingham 32,980 9,311 3,212 Liverpool .. 19,680 4,358 997 Manchester 15,786 5,280 2,953 Sheffield .. 9,049 4,180 1,903 Leeds .. 7,220 5,676 2,389 Bristol .. (1.814 2,994 3,089 Leicester . • • 5,190 2,894 1,868 Hull • • 5,113 2,765 1,039 Newcastle-on-Tyne 4,831 1,630 1,190 Cardiff .. . 3,712 1,285 2,141
Birmingham has, in addition, erected in the central areas, where schemes of such magnitude were impracticable, model flats for its artisan population of a type frequently commended in your columns. The Corporation has recently approved a programme involving the erection of 25,000 municipally built houses during the next five years.
Birmingham learns with relief that " with the exception of the London area, it is probably the most promising industrial area in this country to-day," and apparently is not expected to defend its industrial reputation. But Birmingham has done very much more than merely kept itself alive, and believes that its industrial eminence is very closely related to the efficiency of its civic administration. While there are in the city areas which the most enthusiastic of its administrators sincerely deprecate, Birmingham is fully alive to its re- sponsibilities. The warnings to which your reviewer refers are not, in their correct perspective, of such a regrettable character as his contribution would suggest.—I am, Sir, &c., LEONARD W. FAULKNER.
91 Clements Road, Yardley, Birmingham.
[Our reviewer writes : I am well aware of the compara- tively progressive nature of the Birmingham Corporation's civic policy ; but I cannot possibly improve on what I said in my review—namely, that the conditions which Birmingham offers to the vast majority of its inhabitants are still, and are in many easel increasingly, unfit for the citizens of a great and civilized nation. Apparently your correspondent is making the quite ludicrous suggestion that such a remark would apply to the Aston Division of Birmingham, but to nowhere else in the city. As a matter of fact, the slums of Deritend, West Birmingham, Ladywood and elsewhere (of which, I can assure your correspondent, I have an intimate knowledge) are all rather worse, if anything can be worse, than the slums of Aston. Your correspondent suggests that I can have only the vaguest knowledge of Birmingham's civic and industrial reputation ; but I am more concerned with what the con- ditions of Birmingham and her citizens really are in fact, than with what they may or may not be reputed to be.— ED. Spectator.1
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