Friedrich Engels’s observations of lower-class working
conditions in Manchester constitute an important specimen of physical design
analysis. Engels is particularly
interested in how the spatial configuration of slum lots contributes to
unsanitary living conditions, as well as to the profit of landowners who build
and rent these spaces. His writing brims
with descriptions of huts built upon one another, with almost no open space for
the movement of air and no facilities for the removal of waste. Excrement and offal crowd the living quarters
of the English working class.
Engels’s observations of slum conditions provide good evidence
for the need for land use regulations.
Though now land use regulations may be considered to be excessive, it is
good to read about a time when the lack thereof caused unsafe and inhumane
conditions right in the city core. The keeping
of livestock, for instance, Engels shows can be unsanitary. Yet today, urban farming is all the rage, and
many urban residents lament that land use laws forbid them from keeping food
animals. Can sanitary regulations
leftover from the dystopic industrial slum be adapted to fit with modern
lifestyles, and considering modern technology?
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