Housing is an important political issue. Politicians and experts now talk about it as a major crisis that could threaten our economic and social well-being. But this is nothing new. Another housing crisis raged at the beginning of the 20th century.

Back then, it concerned working-class slums. Today, it’s much more widespread: many households are struggling to acquire property, while others are spending too much of their income on rent, and still others are living in substandard housing, or simply have nowhere to live.

As a specialist in the history of urban planning and a full professor at the Université de Montréal’s School of Urban Planning and Landscape Architecture, I hear arguments today that are similar to those made 120 years ago, although there are new elements now.

As Roy Lubove has shown in The Progressives and the Slums, during the crusade against slums between 1890 and 1920, reformers on the right and on the left agreed in denouncing the greed of landlords who exploited vulnerable populations. Both called for measures that would give workers access to decent housing.

They also agreed that quality standards should apply to construction to ensure the health and safety of occupants, requirements such as minimum room volumes, minimum window sizes and minimum sanitary facilities. The question was, how to........

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