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Quote by Lewis Mumford

“In both the old and the new quarters a pitch of foulness and filth was reached that the lowest serf's cottage scarcely achieved in medieval Europe. It is almost impossible to enumerate objectively the bare details of this housing without being suspected of perverse exaggeration. But those who speak glibly of urban improvements during this period, or of the alleged rise in the standards of living, fight shy of the actual facts: they generously impute to the town as a whole benefits which only the more favored middle-class minority enjoyed; and they read into the original conditions those improvements which three generations of active legislation and massive sanitary engineering have finally brought about.”

Quote by Lewis Mumford

Book:The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects
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The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects

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Author

Lewis Mumford
Lewis Mumford

Historian and urban planner, known for his influential work on city planning and design, including the seminal work 'The City in History'. more

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