Even among non-bourgeois homes there is a markedly more quality construction in 19th century homes than today's homes. Even a 900 square foot bungalow from 1890 is miles ahead in terms of quality, and even asthetic design, than a 1500 square foot newly constructed two story home today. Since we used local labour and local suppliers and people took pride in their work, homes of this period are simply superior in quality to their equivalent homes today, you cannot argue this. Today's homes couldn't last a fraction of the time older homes could.Pthug wrote:You are also being hilariously blinkered about this. The 19th century was a great era of slum-construction (which is all about housing "the greatest number of people at the expense of craftsmanship or architecture" as well as maintenance, overcrowding, etc.) but all you care about is bourgeois architecture. This makes your acceptance of the narrative of progress all the more amusing since if durability could be made widespread again anywhere, it would be among the bourgeois who are free to talk about "being able to build a better house" as though they were the ones carrying the hod.
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Quite. It sounds to me, Viktor, like you are overlooking the needs and concerns of the average joe in favor of some romanticized upper class paradise. Rather like all those fantasy fans who gush over the Middle Ages or the antebellum South without having any idea what sort hardships and horrors the majority endured.Yes. But not everyone can be upper-middle class.
Last edited by Aurora Rossa on Wed May 19, 2010 12:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"There was a particular car I soon came to think of as distinctly St. Louis-ish: a gigantic white S.U.V. with a W. bumper sticker on it for George W. Bush."
More I'm saying everyone should be able to enjoy, on some reduced scale, the quality and beauty that characterises upper class homes and that it is wrong to skimp on quality and design in favour of housing the greatest number at the least cost.Eddy wrote:Quite. It sounds to me, Viktor, like you are overlooking the needs and concerns of the average joe in favor of some romanticized upper class paradise.Yes. But not everyone can be upper-middle class.
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Viktor, no. Having lived in a lot of houses, including ones from the 1890s, 1930s, 1950s, 1960s, and 1990s, my experience is that most houses are simply better constructed than older ones.
(You may say, "Ha! That house was 100 years old - clearly it must have been good to last that long!" but it was an expensive house and it was still in a very bad state when we moved in.
And how many 1860s workers' terraced houses are still around in the UK? Not many; either they fell apart, or were demolished simply because they were so crap.)
(You may say, "Ha! That house was 100 years old - clearly it must have been good to last that long!" but it was an expensive house and it was still in a very bad state when we moved in.
And how many 1860s workers' terraced houses are still around in the UK? Not many; either they fell apart, or were demolished simply because they were so crap.)
XinuX wrote:I learned this language, but then I sneezed and now am in prison for high treason. 0/10 would not speak again.
no, he's romanticising that too. What makes the house great is the use of "local labour, ... local suppliers and [workers] who took pride in their work".Eddy wrote:Quite. It sounds to me, Viktor, like you are overlooking the needs and concerns of the average joe in favor of some romanticized upper class paradise.Yes. But not everyone can be upper-middle class.
see, now we have PROGRESS and PROGRESS means that those things don't exist anymore. if only we could have Good Old Joe back, there'd be proper houses built again!
Unless, of course, Viktor really just wants to *play* at being bourgeois and so can only afford grandfather's hand-me-downs, but that can't be right.
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You can have your opinion, of course, but mine is still different and you won't convince me elsewise. Having worked with houses and examined their construction on a daily basis, and having lived in a house built in the 20s and one in the 60s, I believe there is a marked quality difference between non-upper class post-modern homes to modern and traditional homes.thedukeofnuke wrote:Viktor, no. Having lived in a lot of houses, including ones from the 1890s, 1930s, 1950s, 1960s, and 1990s, my experience is that most houses are simply better constructed than older ones.
(You may say, "Ha! That house was 100 years old - clearly it must have been good to last that long!" but it was an expensive house and it was still in a very bad state when we moved in.
And how many 1860s workers' terraced houses are still around in the UK? Not many; either they fell apart, or were demolished simply because they were so crap.)
Those terraces probably were crap, but I'd be willing to bet they were still stronger than crap public housing built today.
Last edited by Viktor77 on Wed May 19, 2010 12:44 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Haha, what now? You can't get quality on a reduced scale -- that is *lack of quality*. You want quantity so that you can have a piece of the sweet sweet middle class pie without paying the proper cost for it. It seems the middle class is getting exactly what it wants to me.Viktor77 wrote:More I'm saying everyone should be able to enjoy, on some reduced scale, the quality and beauty that characterises upper class homes and that it is wrong to skimp on quality and design in favour of housing the greatest number at the least cost.
This is like the servant thing all over again -- local labour would demand a living wage now, but you can't even afford a single manservant to put in it once it's finished so what hope do you have of being able to afford that? Decent material would be expensive, but you can't really afford that either. Design needs an architect, but he's middle class himself and is going to want as much as any number of labourers...
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Modern housing may not be especially pretty, but at least it has running water and sewers. You know that in the Victorian Black Country life expectancy fell below 18 years? For fuck's sake, the working class had living conditions a lot worse then than now. Even in Glasgow it's 69 these days; obviously healthcare and better labour laws have had a big impact, but seriously, it must have been terrible.Viktor77 wrote:You can have your opinion, of course, but mine is still different and you won't convince me elsewise. Having worked with houses and examined their construction on a daily basis, and having lived in a house built in the 20s and one in the 60s, I believe there is a marked quality difference between non-upper class post-modern homes to modern and traditional homes.
Those terraces probably were crap, but I'd be willing to bet they were still stronger than crap public housing built today.
Oh, and if I'm not going to convince you, why are you even bothering to read my posts?
XinuX wrote:I learned this language, but then I sneezed and now am in prison for high treason. 0/10 would not speak again.
thedukeofnuke wrote:Oh, and if I'm not going to convince you, why are you even bothering to read my posts?
viktor wrote:And BTW, your opposition to me has only strengthed my views, and alotted me an outlook on the types of opposition out there. So may I say owned? Or pwned to stress the change of language.
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Less than 18 years? How did they even survive to reproduce?You know that in the Victorian Black Country life expectancy fell below 18 years? For fuck's sake, the working class had living conditions a lot worse then than now.
Whoa, that's incredibly low for a modern country, worse than many Latin American countries even.Even in Glasgow it's 69 these days; obviously healthcare and better labour laws have had a big impact, but seriously, it must have been terrible.
"There was a particular car I soon came to think of as distinctly St. Louis-ish: a gigantic white S.U.V. with a W. bumper sticker on it for George W. Bush."
Life expectancies are usually heavily skewed by infant mortality when infant mortality rates are high, and thus they do not necessarily accurately reflect the life expectancy of individuals who reach adulthood. On the other hand, though, infant mortality in and of itself is a very important measure of the quality of health care and of living conditions in general in any given place in the first place, indicating that such were very, very poor in the Black Country at the time.Eddy wrote:Less than 18 years? How did they even survive to reproduceYou know that in the Victorian Black Country life expectancy fell below 18 years? For fuck's sake, the working class had living conditions a lot worse then than now.
Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.
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Both of those figures are at birth and so are strongly affected by child mortality. Perhaps also significant is that they are for men only, and that in both Victorian Birmingham and modern Glasgow women live some years longer than men. Still... it does make you wonder how the population was maintained. Early marriages and as many children as possible?Eddy wrote:Less than 18 years? How did they even survive to reproduce?You know that in the Victorian Black Country life expectancy fell below 18 years? For fuck's sake, the working class had living conditions a lot worse then than now.
Whoa, that's incredibly low for a modern country, worse than many Latin American countries even.Even in Glasgow it's 69 these days; obviously healthcare and better labour laws have had a big impact, but seriously, it must have been terrible.
I think that the low life expectancy in Glasgow is largely due to massive consumption of cigarettes and deep-fried pizza. And a culture that encourages beatin' fuck oot each other.
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