Sec. 8. #Good housing legislation.# Two policies are open under these conditions.  The one, always followed for a time, is to leave individual self-interest unguided to solve the problem.  If the tenant agrees to rent a disease-breeding house, he is the first to suffer.  The interests of investors, it is said, will supply as good a house as each tenant can pay for.  The other policy now adopted is to set a minimum standard of sanitation and comfort, in respect to plans, lighting, materials, and proportion of lots to be covered, to which standard all builders and owners must attain.  Complying with the legal requirements, they are left free to collect whatever rent they can get.  As one bad building may bring down the rent of all on the street, such legislation may sometimes be in the interest of the body of landowners as against the selfish desires of some individuals.  Mainly, however, the regulation is in the interest of the tenants and of society as a whole, and against that of the landlords.  The rents from slum property are threatened, hence the strong opposition always manifested against tenement-house legislation by some landlords, architects, and contractors, who fight it as an interference with their interests and as a confiscation of their property.  It is not unlikely that this policy has the effect of making rents too high for some poorer tenants and driving them into the country.  But this result is not so undesirable.  Moreover, the control and inspection of housing conditions has in a few states been made statewide to reach even “the country slums” which lately have been recognized to exist.  Enlightened sentiment to-day favors efforts to destroy the breeding-places of disease, misery, and crime, no matter where they may be.

Property owners are in many communities no longer left free to determine height of buildings, appearance, or even the uses for which houses may be erected in any district.  American cities have still much to learn in this regard from the example of many European cities which have developed the art of city planning with wonderful results in beauty of landscape and of architecture, in practical economy for business, and in the health and welfare of the mass of the people.

Sec. 9. #General grounds of this social legislation#.  Why are not such matters as we have been discussing safely left to individuals?  It is for the interest of every one that his back yard should not be a place of noisome smells and disagreeable sights.  But men are at times strangely obstinate, selfish, and neglectful, and through one man’s fault a whole community may suffer.  The refusal of one man to put a sewer in front of his house may block the improvement of a whole street.  The heedlessness of one family may bring an epidemic upon an entire city.  There must be a plan, and by law the will of the majority must be imposed upon the unsocial few.  Where voluntary cooeperation fails, compulsory cooeperation often is necessary.  Thus health laws, tax laws, and improvement laws regulate many of the acts of citizens, limit the use of property, and compel men to better social courses against their own wishes and judgments.