A Decent Home and Suitable Living Environment

Social Indicators, 1976 documents the success of the nation in solving the housing problems of the 1950s, in eliminating both a severe housing shortage and large numbers of substandard dwellings. Housing has improved greatly for all income classes, including the poor, for all races, and by all standards of measurement, but wide disparities remain. This suggests great relative deprivation in a society with such universally high standards. A massive upsurge in housing construction, greater than rising demand, brought changes not only in the quality of the housing stock but in its location as well. The transformation of residential settlement patterns and the growth of extensive metropolitan cities have had profound effects on housing and community life. Because of racial and social barriers in local housing markets, polarities among metrpolitan neighborhoods have increased. None of these pervasive changes emerge in the indicators. Nor do they address such contemporary concerns as rising housing costs, deteriorating neighborhood conditions in poverty areas, and the environmental and energy implications of emerging low density housing patterns. Thus, readers are likely to underestimate the scale and nature of housing deprivation and misread the direction of future trends.