Slums Symbolism

Secondly, due to the overcrowding within the poverty-stricken slums, architecture was used in a different way from which it was intended to be used. Today, every apartment comes equipped with a kitchen, living area, dining space, bathroom with a toilet, sink, and shower, as well as a bedroom for every person/couple who lives there. Each of these rooms has their own purpose and their own usage. Also, privacy is a big component in today's culture. Every resident within an apartment building/condo has their own space where they live out their day to day lives separate from the other residents. All of the above qualities are the key features that come to mind when someone considers how a residential development it used, wither it be a house or

Slum conditions were the result of the industrial revolution, however, because it was a negative outcome, slums were often ignored as the government preferred to only look at the benefits of the industrial revolution. The higher classes of Victorian London avoided slum areas as much as possible, even going so far as acting as though the slums did not exist. Similarly, the government did not allow slums to be part of the annual reports within the city, therefore isolating them from existence. Also, the lack of scholarly material such as records, books, and journal articles, that can be found when researching slums and poverty within the late nineteenth to early twentieth century today shows just how little attention was paid to the London slums. In fact, Anthony Wohl wrote one of the only accounts of poverty within Victorian London The Eternal Slums, however, the main focus of his book was not so much about the conditions in which the poor lived in but rather the politics surrounding poverty. This once again shows the lack of physical acknowledgment towards slums. As time progressed into the twentieth century, scholars took an interest in studying the conditions within the slums with the hope of evoking change. In Henry Mess’ book The Facts of Poverty, he describes the houses and streets of the slums as having no colour or ornament within them. The mortar had perished between the brick, there was not a tree or bush to be seen aside from the occasional window box, and no forecourts instead the doors of the houses opened straight onto the street. In the alleys of the slums, it was not uncommon to find every third or fourth window smashed and replaced with sacking or brown paper. From Mess’ account of the condition within the slums, it is clear that the maintenance within the area was neglected. This prompted the