An Experiment on the Social Effects of Good Housing
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4841589 |
|---|---|
| Authors | F Stuart Chapin (0000-0002-2558-9910, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1940 |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 868 |
| Publication date | 1940-12-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Sociological Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-1224 • E-ISSN: 1939-8271 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2084521 |
| OpenAlex | W2318949278 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 2 |
IS THE of a slum family improved by rehousing in a model public housing project? An affirmative answer to this question is assumed as the justification for the expenditure of millions of dollars. Is there any proof of this assumption aside from common sense expectation? This study is an effort to measure the effects of good housing upon former slum rehoused in Sumner Field Homes of Minneapolis, originally a project of the Housing Division of the PWA, and since I937, under the management of the USHA. The most interesting findings of this study are: (i) no significant change in morale or in general adjustment in I940 as compared to I939, either for the 44 experimental families resident in the project, or for the group of 38 residing in the slum; (2) both the resident and control groups gained in social participation from I939 to I940, but the resident gained twice as much in absolute score as the control group; (3) both resident and control groups gained in social status from I939 to I940, but the residents showed a gain of greater magnitude; (4) a score made on the condition of the furnishings of the living room showed for the residents a striking gain, but for the control group, a real loss for the i2-month period; and (5) both residents and control groups had improved in the percentage of use-crowded in I940 over I939, but the gain of the residents was about three times that of the control group. Thus the improvements in accrue in much larger degree to the residents of the project, and seem to justify the housing program in so far as the facts of this single study are concerned. Three important questions intrude at this point: (I) were the measures of change or gain reliable and dependable; (2) were the magnitudes of the changes or gains sufficiently large to be significant; and (3) to what extent was rehousing per se the cause of these changes or gains? The answer to these pertinent questions requires a description of the methods used in this study. The study was planned in I938 to test the hypothesis: the rehousing of slum in a public housing project results in improvement of the living conditions and the social life of these families. Sumner Field Homes was selected as the test case. In an earlier study of I935-I936, we reported on the immediate effects of slum clearance and temporary rehousing of I71
Economic growth · Economics · Public housing · Sociology · Housing Market and Economics · Psychology · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies
| Citations per year | 0.07 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1951 - 2011 (61) |
| Highly cited | No |