A Place to Live (1941)

It is quite interesting to look at this film, from a British perspective, and observe that though we exported a great deal to the USA - a bicameral parliamentary system, Magna Carta, Charlie Chaplin et al - I hadn’t quite appreciated that slum dwellings was also one of them! This is a rather stark depiction of a young boy’s life in a Philadelphia that has seen many better days. It showcases all the historic sights of this former American capital city before contrasting those images with some squalid sights that would not have look out of place in a bombed out London, or Manchester, or Glasgow - and at least they could blame the Nazis! That these tiny accommodations were ever built in the first place is a question worth asking, but that they were expected to house families is one too imponderable. The photography almost makes you want to look, nervously, at where you are walking as we are taken through the squalor from the youngster’s perspective for a quarter of an hour that ought to be shown now to anyone planning large scale, economic, housing as an example of how not do do it.