10 similarities between New York and America
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10 Ways In Which New York In 1880s Was Similar To Indian Cities
When the Centre launched its Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Mission) , many questioned its future success in a country like India. Indians who visit today's Western cities come back thinking Indian cities such as Mumbai or Delhi would never become as clean as New York, London or Paris.
However, a lesser-know fact is that Western cities were once very similar to today's Delhi or Mumbai. They, too, were once breeding grounds of diseases, and were known as death traps. Most cities went through such phases before they became prosperous. But, their development shows that so much is possible.
In his book, How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York, Danish-American social reformer Jacob Riis documented the living and working conditions of people living in New York's tenements in the 1880s.
Here are 10 ways in which New York of 1880s that Riis describe was similar to modern Indian cities:
Fresh air was a luxury
Gardiner Harris, a New York Times correspondent in Delhi, recently left the city because his eight-year old son Bram's breathing problems intensified. Harris said that he jeopardised his children's life by living in Delhi. This may seem to be a characteristic of many third-world cities, but in the New York Riis described, many babies died during summers because windowless apartments lacked fresh air. Over the years, building standards in New York improved because:
1) Elevators allowed real estate developers to build tall buildings.
2) An increase in automobiles usage allowed people to live far from downtown, allowing people to consume more floor space. Population density in Manhattan declined. While 16 people lived on a typical floor of 920 sq ft in 1910, four people lived on a comparable floor in 2012. Fresh air is no longer a luxury in New York.
People died from diseases because of poor sanitation
In 1880s, poor sanitation led to many deaths in New York. Real estate developers were seen as the culprit for not installing sanitation pipes to earn more profits. However, the fact is that income levels in the city were low that many could not afford sanitation facilities. With rising income levels and local authorities building citywide sewage systems, such diseases became history.
Roads were not clean
In 1894, Colonel George Waring, the man who built Memphis' sewage system (a city where water-borne diseases were common) , started cleaning work on cleaning up New York's roads. Asphalt-paved roads, a new technology then, also helped city roads to be cleaned easily. This is said to be a major factor in New York's life expectancy rising by 4.7 percentage points, from 1901 to 1910.