Healthy housing?

Three-decker cityscape in Worcester in the 1950’s, when Worcester was still a major manufacturing center and many industrial workers lived in three-deckers.

“People in the field of public health believed that {three-decker residential} buildings did much to account for the general good health of Worcester’s populations. Each apartment received sunshine and fresh air from all sides. People, young and old, took their daily airings on the comfortable porches, where they could enjoy some of the best views in Worcester. Each back porch held a clothes reel where the laundry could hang to dry in the beneficial sunshine….’’

From Heart of the Commonwealth, Worcester: An Illustrated History, by Margaret A. Erskine and Worcester Area Chamber of Commerce (1981)