Overcrowding
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Overcrowding or crowding is the condition where more people are located within a given space than is considered tolerable from a safety and health perspective. Safety and health perspectives depend on current environments and on local cultural norms. Overcrowding may arise temporarily or regularly, in the
home A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or more human occupants, and sometimes various companion animals. Homes provide sheltered spaces, for instance rooms, where domestic activity can be p ...
, in
public space A public space is a place that is open and accessible to the general public. Roads, pavements, public squares, parks, and beaches are typically considered public space. To a limited extent, government buildings which are open to the public, su ...
s or on
public transport Public transport (also known as public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) are forms of transport available to the general public. It typically uses a fixed schedule, route and charges a fixed fare. There is no rigid definition of whic ...
. Overcrowding in the home can cause particular concern, since the home is an individual's place of shelter. Effects on
quality of life Quality of life (QOL) is defined by the World Health Organization as "an individual's perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards ...
due to crowding may include increased physical contact, lack of sleep, lack of privacy and poor hygiene practices. While
population density Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geog ...
offers an objective measure of the number of people living per unit area, overcrowding refers to people's psychological response to density. However, definitions of crowding used in statistical reporting and for administrative purposes depend on density measures and do not usually incorporate people's perceptions of crowding.


Measures of overcrowding


United States

The American Housing Survey is conducted by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) every two years. A 2007 literature review conducted for HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research found that the most commonly used measures of overcrowding are persons-per-room or persons-per-bedroom. The United States uses persons per room, and considers a household crowded if there is more than one person per room, and severely crowded if more than 1.5 persons share a room.


World Health Organization

The World Health Organization is concerned with overcrowding of sleeping accommodation primarily as a risk for the spread of
tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...
and has attempted to develop measurement indicators.


United Kingdom

The
Housing Act 1985 The Housing Act 1985 (c. 68) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The act introduced laws relating to the succession of council houses. It also facilitated the transfer of council housing to not-for-profit housing associations. Se ...
states: "The room standard is contravened when the number of persons sleeping in a dwelling and the number of rooms available as sleeping accommodation is such that two persons of opposite sex who are not living together as husband and wife must sleep in the same room. For this purpose, children under the age of ten shall be left out of account, and a room is available as sleeping accommodation if it is of a type normally used in the locality either as a bedroom or as a living room." The Housing Act describes how many persons are permitted per room, as well as amount of floor space per room as outlined in the table below. Children under 1 year are not counted, and children between 1 and 10 years are counted as half a unit.


European Union

Eurostat Eurostat ("European Statistical Office"; also DG ESTAT) is a department of the European Commission ( Directorate-General), located in the Kirchberg quarter of Luxembourg City, Luxembourg. Eurostat's main responsibilities are to provide statist ...
uses a stricter definition of overcrowding, known as 'the Bedroom Standard'. An overcrowded household is defined as one which has fewer rooms than the sum of: * one room for the household; * one room per couple in the household; * one room for each single person aged 18 or more; * one room per pair of single people of the same gender between 12 and 17 years of age; * one room for each single person between 12 and 17 years of age and not included in the previous category; * one room per pair of children under 12 years of age. For example, a household of a single person living alone is considered overcrowded unless he or she has a living room which is separate from the bedroom (points 1 and 3 apply). However, while the Bedroom Standard is generally advocated by policy advocates, statutory space and occupancy standards are usually either less generous, partial (for instance they apply to social housing only) or non-existent. According to Eurostat, in 2011, 17.1% of EU population lived in overcrowded households by the above definition, with the number varying strongly between countries: the overcrowding rate stood at 43.1% in 12 newest member states compared to only 10.1% in 15 oldest members. Within the EU post-communist states, the extent to which the commodification of housing has improved occupancy standards appeared to be modest. For instance, during 2005-2010 the percentage of overcrowded population in Romania and Latvia remained the highest in the EU (55%). Conversely, the Czech Republic showed the best performance in 2010, with overcrowding falling from 33% to 22% over the period, becoming lower than in Italy and Greece. In the remaining EU post-communist states, overcrowding fell moderately over the period, accounting for 35-49% in 2010. Lifecycle has remained a powerful determinant of overcrowding. Eastern Europeans aged under 18 are on average 2.5 times more likely to experience overcrowding than those aged over 65. Affordability problems of young adults, who had to delay home leaving, contributed to unrelenting overcrowding, but so did the legacy of a housing stock composed of many small dwellings. In the EU post-communist states, between 51 and 87% of dwellings had no more than three rooms.


Sweden

Swedish statistics and politics have used three different definitions over the years: The most dramatic change took place according to "norm 2" between 1960 and 1975 because of the Million Programme. Of the households that are regarded as overcrowded according to "norm 3", two thirds are single persons living in 1-room apartments without a separate living room.


Risks due to overcrowding

* Spread of infectious diseases * Psychological distress * Violence * Break down of relationships * Poor sleep * Slow development


Solutions

In response to overcrowding on
public transport Public transport (also known as public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) are forms of transport available to the general public. It typically uses a fixed schedule, route and charges a fixed fare. There is no rigid definition of whic ...
, cities and transport operators are turning to technology for solutions. For example, the London Assembly is exploring modern carriage designs and apps that guide commuters to less crowded carriages. Technologies like Wi-Fi tracking and mobile signal analysis are being trialed to monitor passenger flows and optimize train capacity. These initiatives aim to improve commuter experience by reducing overcrowding and enhancing the efficiency of public transport systems. Cities like New York and
Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
are leveraging open data and cross-agency collaboration to tackle overcrowding. By gathering detailed
data Data ( , ) are a collection of discrete or continuous values that convey information, describing the quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted for ...
on
housing Housing refers to a property containing one or more Shelter (building), shelter as a living space. Housing spaces are inhabited either by individuals or a collective group of people. Housing is also referred to as a human need and right to ...
, occupancy, and zoning violations, cities can preemptively address potential overcrowding and efficiently allocate resources for inspections and enforcement. This approach also includes innovative measures like monitoring illegal conversions and using
predictive analytics Predictive analytics encompasses a variety of Statistics, statistical techniques from data mining, Predictive modelling, predictive modeling, and machine learning that analyze current and historical facts to make predictions about future or other ...
to identify at-risk properties.


See also

*
Housing Housing refers to a property containing one or more Shelter (building), shelter as a living space. Housing spaces are inhabited either by individuals or a collective group of people. Housing is also referred to as a human need and right to ...
*
Human overpopulation Human overpopulation (or human population overshoot) is the idea that human populations may become too large to be sustainability, sustained by their environment or resources in the long term. The topic is usually discussed in the context of wor ...
*
Overtourism Overtourism is congestion or overcrowding from an excess of tourists, resulting in conflicts with locals. The World Tourism Organization defines overtourism as "the impact of tourism on a destination, or parts thereof, that excessively influ ...
* Prison overcrowding *
Social Determinants of Health The social determinants of health (SDOH) are the economic and social conditions that influence individual and group differences in health status. They are the health promoting factors found in one's living and working conditions (such as the dist ...


References

{{Authority control Housing Determinants of health