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Show NOT YET NATION OF RENTERS Home Owning Is by No Means a Lost Ambition Among People of the United States. Is home owning a lost ambition! Are we becoming a nntlon of cliff dwellers and renters? Not If we put faith In the figures compiled by the lately established bureau of housing of the Department of Commerce, observes ob-serves the Nation's Duslness. Of C8 cities of more than 100,000 population but 20 show a loss In percentage of. homes owned between be-tween 1010 and 1920 (the figures are from the census bureau), and the losses are more than offset by the gains of the other 43. Of the .20 where losses were recorded, four. Detroit, De-troit, Cleveland, St. Louis and Los Angeles, are In the first ten cities In point of population. Although In New York more homes are owned than In any other city, the" percentage Is the lowest, but 12.7. yet even here the percentage has grown kfrosi 11.7 in 1910 and 12.1 In 11)00. Manhattan presents the most .striking situation. With more than half a million mil-lion homes, less than 11,000 were owned, little more than 2 per cent If home owning be a form of civic virtue, then Des Moines may gather her chaste skirts about her as painted Manhattan passes, for the Iowa paragon para-gon among cities shows a percentage of home ownership of 51.2, a growtn from 45.0 per emit In 1910 and 38.3 In 1900.' In only one other community of more than 100,000 Inhabitants are half the homes owned and that It Grand Rapids, Mich. |