The new world created by the Industrial Revolution led
to the emergence of a mass society by the end of the nineteenth
century. A mass society meant new forms of expression
for the lower classes as they benefited from the
extension of voting rights, an improved standard of living,
and compulsory elementary education. But there was
a price to pay. Urbanization led to overcrowding in the
burgeoning cities and increasing public health problems.
The development of expanded means of communication
resulted in the emergence of new organizations that
sought to manipulate and control the population for their
own purposes. A mass press, for example, swayed popular
opinion by flamboyant journalistic practices.
As the number and size of cities continued to mushroom,
governments by the 1880s came to the reluctant
conclusion that private enterprise could not solve the
housing crisis. In 1890, a British housing law empowered
local town councils to construct cheap housing for the
working classes. London and Liverpool were the first
communities to take advantage of their new powers. Similar
activity had been set in motion in Germany by 1900.
Everywhere, however, these lukewarm measures failed
to do much to meet the real housing needs of the working
classes. Nevertheless, the need for planning had been
recognized, and in the 1920s, municipal governments
moved into housing construction on a large scale. In
housing, as in so many other areas of life in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, the liberal principle
that the government that governs least governs best (discussed
later in this chapter) had proved untrue. More and
more, governments were stepping into areas of activity
that they would never have touched earlier.
World History
