Urban Slum During The Late 19th Century

In this historical study an analysis of the reformation ideology of the urban slum will be defined through the clearing out of the lower classes in New York City’s Five Points Tenements during the late 19th century. The 19th century “slum” was a negative social and economic development that was based on locating immigrant workers in New York City into low-income tenement projects, which was an attempt to accommodate the massive influx of low-cost labor from Europe. The Five Points is an important example of over-crowded tenement housing that was unsustainable due to disease, poor sanitary conditions, and non-existent housing regulations that regulated the number of people living in these large buildings. During this time many urban “reformers’
These conditions were typically identified as slum conditions because many of the people were being crowded into small rooms in these tenement buildings. More so, a lack of sanitation infrastructure and regulatory policies related to disease control led to high mortality rates and an ever-increasing criminal culture. These unregulated living conditions defined a crisis in sanitary and humane living conditions in New York City, which made the Five Points a target for social and economic reform in relation to the middle and middle-upper class area that were in close range of these
A rising awareness of unsanitary conditions, overcrowding, and rising crime rates became crucial aspects of reform movements, which sought to relocate or demolish the tenements of the Five Points. The 1880s and 1890s was a time in which the middle and middle-upper classes began to renegotiate their relationship with the immigrant populations of the Five Points, which was primarily based on preserving real estate values and stability in their communities. The underlying reality of slum development was partly based on an unregulated tenement policy that allowed overcrowding and a massive surge of tenement building projects that went unchecked for many decades throughout the 19th century. The social and economic ramifications of unregulated tenement housing created disease infested communities that lower mortality rates, and more importantly, created hostile living conditions in which crime and debauchery were part of the inhumane conditions of tenement culture. These compounding issues became the foundation for the reform movement in New York City to demolish or relocate immigrant communities, which helped to stabilize and, eventually, remove Five Points as a threat to the middle and middle-upper class communities in the area. These are the main issues that define the reform era of New