Why were victorian cities so unhealthy? The victorian era took place between 1837 and 1901, during Queen Victoria’s reign and the industrial revolution. During this time period industrial cities, like Leeds or Manchester, were one of the most unhealthy cities in the world’s history. Water and waste; and housing were the biggest problems, leading to diseases and overcrowding. Yet victorians solved most of their problems, and evolved into the cities we live in nowadays. During this time period, housing was one of the biggest issues, which lead to other big problems. The building and materials used for the houses were unregulated, and land was expensive. These were built with the cheapest materials, and cramped together to maximize space and profits. There were three main types of housing: Back-to-back, yard houses and cellar dwellings. The back-to-back houses were the better quality ones, yet experienced a huge amount of problems. These houses were terraced —one up and one down— with the same concept at the back of each. All windows were on either one side or another of the house, causing them to have …show more content…
The quality of housing did not help, but worsen the overcrowding issue, being one of the biggest reason why this was such a big problem. Cities grew a huge amount in a very short period of time. This can be seen when the city of Manchester went from 17,000 to 70,000 people in a period of 50 years. Because there were so many people cramped in the cities, enormous amounts of human waste were produced, with nowhere to be disposed. Cess pools overflowed, and waste was everywhere, making diseases the product of such filthy conditions. Overcrowding caused a “mass production” of waste and the very quick spread of diseases, which led to the dirty conditions of the cities and the death of lots of