Housing includes any kind of building that provides shelter for people. In a broader sense, it includes problems of city planning, and community services that provide good living conditions.
Safe, sanitary, comfortable dwellings are called standard housing. Housing that has proper heating and ventilation helps people stay in good health. Good housing provides enough space for every member of the family to have some privacy and freedom. Standard housing includes hot and cold running water and a well-planned sewage disposal system. It also provides electric light at night and lets in plenty of sunlight by day.
Poorly constructed, run-down, unsanitary, or overcrowded dwellings are called substandard housing. Using this definition, most of the world's people live in substandard housing. Many people in Europe's less industrialized countries are badly housed. Throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America, millions live in crude dwellings that barely provide shelter. The quality of housing in the United States has been improving steadily. Yet, numerous U.S. households today have substandard dwellings. A household is made up of all the people living in one housing unit.
A neighborhood with many substandard buildings is called a slum. The older, central areas of cities often deteriorate and become slums. Most occupants of slums have low incomes, and several families may live in one dwelling unit. As a neighborhood begins to decline, many residents who can afford to move to better areas do so. Their homes may be taken over by people moving into the city who cannot afford better housing. Most slums have high rates of illness, disease, and crime. Slums also have inferior community services, including poor schools, inadequate police and fire protection, infrequent garbage collection, and too few parks and playgrounds. Some financial institutions refuse to make mortgage or home-improvement loans in neighborhoods they consider to be declining. This practice is known as redlining, from the practice of some financial institutions of outlining such areas in red on maps. Redlining may speed the development of slums by preventing the purchase or repair of houses in such neighborhoods. During the 1970's, several cities and states passed laws designed to discourage redlining.
Prejudice and discrimination prevent many members of minority groups from having adequate housing. In many Western countries, nonwhites, Jews, and immigrants have been forced to live in slums or segregated areas known as ghettos. Increasingly, legislation has been used to try to eliminate such conditions and to make good housing available to all.
