It is unnecessary to review the arguments for the one or for the
other. It is evident that the group house, and perhaps the multiple
house, offer such inducements in the economy of space and the
possibility of assigning areas of land to definite and anticipated
uses, that their further adaptation to family needs must be
contemplated. It is generally assumed that the family group wants the
separate house. The question of interest for this study is one of the
desire of the immigrant groups in this respect. Their preference
should be an indispensable element in the formulation of housing
standards.
There is not, however, a great deal of evidence on this subject. The
fact that immigrants live in the city in the congested districts may
only indicate that they have had no choice in the matter. Most of the
officers of certain immigrant building and loan associations
interviewed for this study thought there was a preference for the
single-family dwelling when it could be afforded. That also is the
belief of the investigators in this study, who think that the use of
multiple houses indicates not the immigrants' desires, but their
acceptance of what is before them, and that the dream of almost every
immigrant family is to have a house of its own, to which is attached a
little garden.
How far the desire for the separate house is confused with the desire
for the garden would be difficult to say. It is certain, however,
that in general the immigrant has known only one way to have the
garden, and that was by having a separate house. There is universal
agreement that especially the foreign-born family desires access to
land for whose cultivation they may be responsible, and whose produce
both in food and in flowers they may enjoy. Recently, however, certain
architects have been interested in working out plans by which this
advantage might be retained for dwellers in group or tenement houses.
They have pointed out that one advantage of the group and multiple
house is the setting free of spaces to be more skillfully adapted to
the size and composition of the family.
Attention may be called to certain devices that are urged by
experienced architects in the matter of the use of land. For example,
in the Morgan Park, Minnesota, development of the Illinois Steel
Company, the architects have developed interesting plans in connection
with their low-cost houses. These are all group houses, with a front
space opening on an attractively planned street. At the rear of the
house is a latticed porch--a small area graveled, but not grassed--and
then the alley. Across the alley is the rear garden, which may thus be
fenced in and kept separate from the house lot.
[Illustration: A COMMUNITY PLAN SUBMITTED BY MILO HASTINGS IN THE
AMERICAN HOUSING COMPETITION, 1919, SHOWING THE U VARIATIONS, THE BACK
SERVICE STREET, THE PROVISION FOR REAR GARDENS, AND THE OPEN AREAS ON
WHICH ALL THE HOUSES WILL FRONT
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