I should next like to examine housing conditions among the poor. In the Edo period, with the exception of the Nihombashi area (the central ward in Tokyo) where wholesale merchants lived in close quarters, the proportion of rentals in each district was, on average, very high, for both rich and poor, ranging from 50 to 70 per cent of available housing units. This situation continued unchanged after the Meiji Restoration. Virtually all slum dwelling on side streets and in back alleys were, needless to say, rentals reserved for the poor.