PLAUEN,
409
Housing and Rents.
Flauen is one of the few of the great industrial towns for which the results
of the housing census undertaken in December, 1905, by most of the urban
authorities in Germany have so far been published in any degree of detail.
This town is therefore one of the comparatively small number for which it is
possible to show, for so recent a date as December, 1905, the proportions in
which the population is distributed among the dwellings of different sizes. The
newness of the town and the suddenness of its growth are shown by the fact
that of a total of 22,874 occupied dwellings enumerated on December 1st, 1905,
11,567, or more than half have been constructed since 1895. About five-sixths
of all the dwellings consist of flats or tenements.
The following Table shows the distribution of the population according to
the number of rooms which constitute the dwelling :—
Number of Rooms.
Number of
Dwellings.
One room
Two rooms
Three „
Four „
Five „
Six
Seven „
and over
769
4,291
5,308
7,332
4,160
733
281
Total
22,874
Number of Persons boused in suck
dwellings.
Total.
1.369
14,519
22,432
36,147
21,970
4,545
1,851
Per cent, of
Population.
102,833
1-3
142
21-8
35 2
213
44
1*8
100-0
From this it appears that 71 per cent, of the population are housed in
dwellings consisting of two, three or four rooms.
For the general bulk of the working classes in Flauen the dwelling
consists of a flat containing two or three rooms, and there is little to distinguish
a flat of this size occupied by a working-class family from similar flats occupied
by the middle classes, unless it be that the former seldom has a separate kitchen,
the principal room being used as a kitchen and living room combined. Thus
the bulk of the Flauen tenements of two to four rooms were found to consist of :
No. of dwellings.
(a) one general living room and one bedroom ... ... 3,630
(Ò) one general living room and two bedrooms ... 3,058
(c) one general living room, two bedrooms and a kitchen 3,772
10,460
The above three classes of dwellings represent 59 per cent, of all dwellings
in Flauen of which the occupiers were tenants (i.e., not owners), excluding
dwellings with which business premises were combined.
In 5,709 dwellings, or about one of every four, in Flauen the occupier
was found to be letting one room or more either furnished or unfurnished.
Among these letters of rooms, 1,558 were women not otherwise defined, while
2,061 are described as “ workpeople ” or else as “ subordinate postal or railway
officials.” The accommodation most frequently let is a furnished bedroom,
i his was found to be the case in 3,668 of the 5,709 dwellings of which
portions were sub-let. That sub-letting is attended with a certain degree
of overcrowding may be inferred from the fact that in 597 bedrooms belonging
to dwellings of which certain rooms were sub-let the occupants at night
numbered more than six persons. A working-class family intending to sublet
usually rents a four-roomed dwelling, so that for the purpose of determining
the rent most usually paid by working-class families in Flauen it will be best to