This book was originally published in 1985. During the 1920s and 1930s, a series of housing developments was built in Europe, based on unprecedented levels of public finance allied to innovative policies of planning, and architectural design. How did these developments, which were the foundation of later social housing programmes, come into being? This study sets out to answer the question by looking into the evolution of the movement for housing reform in Germany and France, from the middle of the nineteenth century until the outbreak of the First World War. This book also examines the social and political nature of 'the housing problem', and traces the response through a series of central themes: the public health campaign; land reform and planning proposals; the elaboration of architectural types; and the search for fresh means of financing the construction of cheap housing.