Talk:Tenement

Variety of English

I appreciate British English, and write many articles using it (the vast majority of my translations on European topics, in particular). However, there is no obvious candidate variety for this article, since the two main sections are on New York and Berlin, with important introduction material on Scotland (and others have since added Scottish and Indian cities, and I intend to add Chicago if no one else does first). I therefore chose US English for this one, frankly because I am relatively unfamiliar with urban planning vocabulary in British English and this way I didn't have to translate the terminology in the New York section. I avoided specialized terms when possible, or explained them - "yard" when discussing tenements would also be "yard" in the UK - but you will note "fire truck" in the Berlin section, and free use of "block", which I'm not sure is used in the UK. The WP:ENGVAR policy specifically leaves choice of regional language variety to the article creator in the case of topics without a particular national or regional applicability, requires consistency (so if there is unclear British English in the Glasgow section it should be changed - I thought "tower blocks" would be clear enough to US English speakers that it did not require glossing) and mandates that the original variety be maintained unless there is a good reason for a change. There isn't in this case. It's not that I'm saying this has only or primarily been studied by US-variety scholars, rather that that's the choice I made for expediency's sake when I started the article. (The primary use on scholarship argument does apply to the Scottish usage, which is purely regional and explained as such at the start of the article, and to the fact it's pejorative - remove the pejorative and one is talking about flats/apartments/rental housing as a whole. There's a telling quotation on that within the article, by a resident speaking of not thinking of their building as a tenement. Yngvadottir (talk) 12:17, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Re value judgement on tenements

Following a difference of opinion, referred to above, on whether British English "storeys" or American English "stories" should be used on this page, the latter has been left in place. I would, however, question the intro statement that tenements are a substandard form of housing. While this may be the case in many parts of the world, it is perhaps worth recording that the tenement was the standard form of city housing in 19th-century Scotland and still lived in by over 80 per cent of the country's urban population until the 1950s. Many are still well maintained to the extent that "substandard" would not be an appropriate description for them. And just for everyone's edification, the Scottish equivalent of a paved "yard" is a grass-covered "backgreen". Kim Traynor | Talk 12:19, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

The article covers this. Scotland is unique in still using the word in its historical meaning: rental housing/accommodations for tenants. It's an important point to have in the article, but kind of an aside to the rest of the article. Note I tried to cover this above; I hadn't realised until just now when I looked at your user page that you're Scottish. Yngvadottir (talk) 12:27, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

No probs. Like James Boswell, " I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it." I also happen to live in a rather nice tenement! Kim Traynor | Talk 12:30, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Excellent :-) I lived in one in New York as it happens ... but it very much had a yard and not a garden :-) I note that the Glasgow section added by someone (this is what I hoped would happen, with people adding sections on cities throughout the world that have been studied for their tenements) kind of bridges the gap - they got run down but are now again valued. Yngvadottir (talk) 12:39, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Merge from Kamienica (architecture)

Two comments on Talk:Kamienica (architecture) asks whether this shouldn't be merged to tenement. I am not sure about this; for example this article suggests that tenement were build for poor people, which is true for some kamienica buildings (kamienica czynszowa), but others were build as luxurious appartment buildings. The question is: is the concept of kamienica (a Polish word) distinct enough to be used in English language, or should be merge it somewhere? If not here, to apartment? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 15:19, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Some tenements originated as houses, some for the well-to-do, and some originated as reasonably nice apartment/flat buildings; some were also designed to be decent housing for the poor (notably "model tenements"), but except for in Scotland (see the article and see above) it's now a pejorative term in English, implying housing for the poor or old and therefore substandard buildings. I don't see that in the Kamienica (architecture) article. So unless there are reliable sources saying they're just the same thing as the tenements of other countries, or defining the word in terms of deficiencies related to the buildings being old and out of date, then I'm inclined to leave it separate. The article currently suggests to me that the Polish word is used the way "tenement" is used in Scotland. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:59, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

I have boldly merged the article. Epicgenius (talk) 14:43, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Guys, I am not a member of Wikipedia, but want to throw my 2cents into the mix: A kamienica in Polish is not a tenement. Quite simply; a "kamienica" is strictly speaking the property of one person/family, similar to how a townhouse is. So in my opinion, kamienica should be under the townhouse entry. thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.97.239.218 (talk) 20:13, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

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Super-POVvy slant

This article's introduction reads like it's been given a gentrifying real estate developer and corporate landlord lobbyist's PR spin treatment. It really does not inform anyone very well where that term is from and what it's generally understood to mean, and what it meant when it was most current. Only closer towards its second paragraph does it very briefly and lightly touch upon any negatives at all, but for the most part the reader is informed that everything is fine and glam now, and the general impression thus conveyed is that there basically are no bad tenements anymore. The unsuspecting ingenue or naïf thus learns that tenements are "spacious" and "high-quality"; that they were only initially iffy and that they "continue to be desirable" (emphasis added) – though it is reluctantly admitted in an image caption that "decorative lintels" are "atypical" for tenements (but the picture showing these niceties is still prominently featured of course). I don't even know where one would start rewriting any of this, nor do I have much taste for entering into what would obviously soon devolve into an edit war with well-funded people with a substantial pecuniary vested interest in keeping the crassly ahistorical promotional messaging as it is, thank you very much. But hey, I cared enough to note for the record that this commercial bias is obviously starkly at odds with Wikipedia's ideals as stated. —ReadOnlyAccount (talk) 00:30, 20 November 2023 (UTC)