History

Introduction
Jacob Riis book is a well-concocted mixture of factual research and emotionally heart-rending stories about the lives of those who lived in New Yorks notorious tenements.

The book discusses the problem thoroughly and then ends with a practical solution citing examples where such changes have been implemented.

For this book the poor are the thousands of immigrants to America who are stuck in low paying jobs(some with wages as low as 2) and living in terrible conditions in the tenements. The conditions that he describes are appalling and it is these discussions which actually help define what poverty. Poverty is degrading, with human beings living in filthy and overcrowded badly-maintained buildings and it destroys the human spirit and mind. Poverty is when a mother kills her infant because it is crying for food and she cant feed it or when a girl is forced into something prostitution because she can no longer support her family on the measly salary she gets as a sales-girl.

Jacob Riis touches on many issues affecting these poorer areas of New York. One of the most painfully obvious being the terribly dehumanizing living conditions that individuals in these areas are forced to survive in. The tenements are painfully over crowded, no proper mechanism of sanitation and no means of even a little ventilation or light. Then there are a host of other issues that are connected with these areas including disease, crime, truancy and in some cases starvation.

The author also points out why these issues cannot be continued to ignored. Other then the simple inhumane conditions in which so many people live he warns that the huge class chasm that such tenements engenders will have painful consequences of its own.

Tenement-Cause and consequence of poverty
One of the main reasons that  such living conditions have been allowed to grow is because of the massive number of immigrants crossing into America everyday man of whom choose New York as their home. These immigrants come from all over Europe(specially Germany, Italy and Russia) and Asia(mostly China). There was no plan on how to manage or house these immigrants. Initially the tenements were a blessing since they were the only areas in the city which the immigrants or the working-class poor could afford. Eventually however this came to be deemed a business opportunity. Older houses became of more values because of their potential as tenement houses, as the book describes large rooms were partitioned into several smaller ones, without regard to light or ventilation, the rate of rent being lower in proportion to space or height from the street and they soon became filled from cellar to garret with a class of tenantry . squalid as beggary itself.( Riis A Jacob How the Other Half Lives-Studies Among the Tenements of New York ).

The immigrants wanted to live near the main city area and the tenement owners exploited this opportunity. The rooms were impossibly small and hardly anything was spent on maintaining the building or making it even slightly more livable. The poverty of the immigrants, many of whom had come with very little from their country made these tenements acceptable to them and the fear of being asked to leave incapacitated them from asking for improvements or even lower rents. Therefore these tenements were a consequence of poverty. However the sin, the disease and the apathy they bred are also causes of poverty.

Crime
The metropolis offers the possibility of a new life and a future but more often than not sees people worse of then they started . Jacob Riis builds a clear picture when he speaks of the lodging houses. The lodging houses range from those asking for 25 cents a night to those asking for 7 cents a night. Moving from one lodging house to a cheaper ones means increased desperation and moving down in life. It is here that many criminals look for desperate young men to recruit who are running out of opportunities with which to make money legally, thus making these a centre of criminal activity,
As a matter of fact, some of the most atrocious of recent murders have been the result of schemes of robbery hatched in these houses, and so frequent and bold have become the depredations of the lodging-house thieves, that the authorities have been compelled to make a public demand for more effective laws that shall make them subject at all times to police regulation.(Riis A Jacob How the Other Half Lives-Studies Among the Tenements of New York )

The authors research led him to an example where a young man unable to find employment elsewhere and fast running out of any money he might have had, falls into the hands of a criminal who teaches him how to pick-pocket. However unable to get him to generate enough through this activity he burns the boys hand and turns him out to begging.

Crime makes the issue of the lodging houses central to the greater community and makes these an important concern for citizens and for politicians specially at election time.

Another sort of criminal activity that the sheer poverty breeds is prostitution. The author explains that women are paid much less for doing the same job than men. This is supported by his research between the different pays that salesmen and saleswomen get. Young girls forced to survive maybe tempted by the desire of a slightly better life take this rou thinking it will offer them an escape.

Alcohol
The alcohol consumed here is of low quality and very destructive to health.  According to the author many tenement owners and citizens in general blame the poverty and filth of the masses on this poisonous brew that they consume. Many families have been destroyed because the little that the bread-earner managed to bring in was wasted on alcohol.

An important issue connected both to alcohol and crime is the impact that it has on the children in New-York. Although legally forbidden from serving children the authors research has indicated that this law is not respected at all. The alcohol and the company that he finds in the saloons destroys any hope the future that boy might have outside the crime and poverty of the tenements. As the author writes

For the corruption of the child there is no restitution. None is possible. It saps the very vitals of society undermines its strongest defences, and delivers them over to the enemy. , baffling the most persistent efforts to reclaim him. There is no escape from it no hope for the boy, once its blighting grip is upon him..( Riis A Jacob How the Other Half Lives-Studies Among the Tenements of New York )

The importance of reform
One of the earliest recognition of the needs of reform comes at the time when the fear of cholera hangs over New York. The city is painfully aware of the filth and overcrowding in which so many of the city live and the danger that this posed as far as the spread of the disease grows. Soon after this a Tenement-House Act was adopted the first legislation of its kind. Also the newspapers by covering some of the painful stories that the author accounts probably played their role in inciting public out-rage. Legal regulations become together and sanitation officers were assigned to improve the conditions of these buildings. Although at the time this book was written many tenements were still in very terrible states the reform process was underway. The author himself accounts the example of tenement owners who have made the effort to interact with those staying in their buildings and have simultaneously improved the conditions of the building and raised the standard of hygiene expected from their tenants. The experiments in this regard that he quotes have been successful. For the author this is an important part of the solution, a relationship of mutual benefit of owner and tenant.

Conclusion
This book played an important role in highlighting the issues that it did creating greater awareness of the terrible conditions in which many of the tenants live and the social responsibility of working to improve these conditions.

Although the tenements are no longer an issue for New York the issue of poverty still remains a painful and poignant problem. The very title of the book reminds us that the developed world cannot turn its back on what the rest of the world faces. Recent world events have brought this painfully to our attention. The point that Jacob Riis makes is still relevant today and as he says.

The gap between the classes in which it surges, unseen, unsuspected by the thoughtless, is widening day by day... Against all other dangers our system of government may offer defence and shelter against this not. I know of but one bridge that will carry us over safe, a bridge founded upon justice and built of human hearts. (Riis A Jacob How the Other Half Lives-Studies Among the Tenements of New York ).