SYDNEY SLUMS.

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 6599, 14 May 1925, Page 6

SYDNEY SLUMS.

WHOLE FAMILIES IN A ROOM

Sydney is rapidly becoming a second London in respect of slum areas. Dilapidated houses, crowded in ai’eas where it is impossible to get fresh air, are rapidly tending to make impossible the rearing of a virile race. In reporting on the congested and insanitary areas within the city of Sydney, Dr. Purdy, the health officer, states that those municipalities outside the city proper should have representation proportional to poulation on the council, which deals with all matters of town planning, re-housing, extension of roads, parks and schemes for public betterment. Dr.. Purdy found, during the course of his investigations, that Sydney is rapidly becoming a second London in regard to its appalling slum conditions. Congested and insanity areas, with houses in dilapidated conditions facing narrow streets,, lack of air and sanitary arrangement were the cause of such injury to the health of the inhabitants as to make it impossible •for a strong and virile race to exist. “Having regal'd to the natural increase of population in the metropolitan area, which will have a population of 2,500,000 in 1950,” says Dr. Purdy, “and remembering that there is serious and gross over-crowding-in industrial suburbs, where, in some streets, a family occupies one room, consideration should be given to the solution of the problem by the co-op-erationi of adjoining local authorities within the City Council.”