British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume II - Page 804

CHAPTER XVIII.

49. It is probable that the information obtained by the subcommittee is less reliable than that obtained in respect of Jewish areas. In Jerusalem, for example, detailed figures were not obtainable and the estimate of room units required to reduce congestion to a density of 2 persons per room was estimated on the basis of the mean of the densities in the Arab areas of Jaffa and Haifa as follows :

Arab population (1944)

No. of rooms required to reduce density to 2 persons per room

Jaffa Haifa

68.000 73,000

141,000

8,217 6,874

15,091

Number of room units required per 1000 of population

= 107 rooms

Arab population of Jerusalem Number of room units required

56,000 5,992 say 6,000

50. Rural areas. The information relating to housing congestion in the Arab rural areas is limited to that contained in the "Survey of Social and Economic Conditions in Arab Villages" to which reference has already been made. In respect of the five villages covered by the Survey, the information obtained enables an accurate estimate to be made of the number of rooms required to reduce the density to any desired level and has been used to prepare table 5 in Part I above. The complete data will-be found at pp. 561-567 of volume X of the General Monthly Bulletin of Current

Statistics for September, 1945. .

51. The following extracts from the Survey are of interest :

11113. Table 46 shows that 40% of the population of the five villages live in conditions of severe overcrowding at densities of four or more persons per room. The overcrowding was less severe for 51 % of the population at a density of two to four persons per room. Only the remaining 9% enjoyed a density of less than two persons per room. The average density in all the villages was about three persons per room.

Conditions varied widely as between villages. The average number of persons per room in each village was as follows: 4.2 in village B, 3.5 in village A, 3.1 in village E, 2.8 in village D and 2.2 in. village C. The proportion of the population of each village which was severely congested in densities of 4 or more persons per room, was as follows: Village B 69%, village A 53%, village E 47%, village D 27% and village C 12%.

804