Intermediate English Course Programme 14 Text One

Topic: Flats in the Clouds

Blocks of "high-rise" flats have been erected in large numbers in London and in many other big cities. Just after the Second World War these immense twenty-to-thirty storey buildings, hundreds of feet in height, were thought to be the ideal solution to the dual problem of acute housing shortage and lack of space in urban areas. At first, the ultramodern apartments were much sought after by city-dwellers, and hundreds of the vast blocks had been built before anyone began to doubt that they were suitable places for people, children especially, to live in. A wellknown British architect, who personally designed many of these buildings, now believes that they may well have inflicted a great deal of suffering on those people who have been housed in them, and evidence has been amassed by sociologists which suggests that severe loneliness and deep depression are brought about by life within these great towers. Some psychologists even maintain that an unduly large proportion of their inhabitants suffer from mental disorders and develop criminal tendencies. As a result of the recent queries, plans for new high-rise blocks are being scrapped. They are going to be replaced by so-called "lowrise" blocks, at most six storeys high.

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