Rapport sur l'organisation de l'enseignement industriel en Allemagne et en Suisse

Cost of living in German towns

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1799766322

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-185224

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Schultzenstein, Siegfried http://d-nb.info/gnd/117236365

Title:: Anleiherecht, Reichsschuldenwesen, Reichsschuldbuch, Anleiheablösung, Anleihen auf Grund des Dawes-Plans, Anleihen der Reichspost und Anleihen der Schutzgebiete

Place of publication:: Berlin

Publisher:: Sieben Stäbe- Verl.- u. Dr. Ges.

Year of publication:: 1929

Scope:: LV, 326 S.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: IV. Anleihen auf Grund des Dawes-Planes

Collection:: Economics Books

BREMEN. 107 Wives’ and children’s earnings are reckoned in the above table as “ subsidiary earnings ” ; there may be included in the case of the former profits from lodgers, estimated at £4 per annum where only rooms were occupied and £o where full board was given in addition. Bremen is not merely a town of small houses, it is also a town of small owners. While in 1900 only 2*5 per cent, of the inhabited dwellings of Berlin were owned by their occupiers, and 93*7 per cent, were rented dwellings, 40*3 per cent, of the private houses in Bremen were owned by their occupiers, and 58 per cent, were rented ; the remnant in each case consisted for the most part or official dwellings. The census of Bremen in that year showed that 25’3 per cent, of the heads of households belonging to the industrial class lived in their own homes, while the percentage in the case of workers engaged in trade and shipping was 27'2. An inquiry made in 1902 of 3,073 workmen of all classes showed that 631 or 20\5 per cent, owned their houses, while of 144 female workers interrogated 8 or 5 5 per cent, were house owners. This large number of small proprietors is explained by two facts, viz., the comparative cheapness of the Bremen one-family houses of the earlier types, and the credit facilities at the disposal of provident working-men. It is estimated that the price of a one- storv single-family house without basement ranges from £200 to £275, of a similar house partly cellared from £250 to £300, of a similar house with base ment and attic rooms built out front or back from £300 to £350 ; while two- family houses with two stories answering to these three types cost from £375 to £425, from £425 to £475, and from £575 to £625 respectively. Of houses visited by the investigator one, consisting of two rooms and kitchen downstairs, and two small rooms upstairs, with garden behind, cost its owner £275, and to rent it would have cost him £18 per annum ; another with the same accom modation, cost £200, of which the owner, a harbour labourer with 25&. 10(7. per week, paid £50 down and borrowed £150 at 4 per cent, interest. In the latter case interest on purchase money (£8), ground tax (8s.), and repairs (£l), were equal to a rent of 3s. 8d. per week. The desire to own his house is a powerful social instinct in the native-born Bremen working-man. Most of the houses owned by working people have been built by contractors or Building Societies, and it is seldom that a working man has a house built to his own plans. Where a man buys from a builder he must pay down a substantial proportion of the purchase money and obtain the balance from a bank on mortgage ; where he buys from a Building Society he pays the purchase money by instalments, conveniently spread over a certain number of years, with interest seldom exceeding 4 per cent. There are several societies of this kind in Bremen and neighbourhood. The " Bau und Sparverein ” (Building and Savings Society) has built a large number of small houses, each consisting of ground floor and attic, with yard, washhouse, and pig-stye adjacent. A “ Public Utility ” Building Society has existed at Bremen since 1887, and has done still more to perpetuate the traditional one-family dwelling, and to encourage working people to become house owners, though it has been found necessary, in the interest of cheapness, to build some of the more recent houses for two house holds. Since its establishment this society has erected 582 houses, of which 225 have already passed into the hands of tenants, and 15 have been acquired by the State. An important work has also been done by a Building Society established at Blumenthal, near Bremen, in the provision of dwelling houses for employees of the Vulcan Shipbuilding Company and other industrial under takings. They are one and two-family dwellings, and to each garden ground is allotted. U p to the year 190o, the society had built 247 houses containing 487 dwellings, and the great majority had been sold to their occupants on the principle of payment by instalments. The dwellings are of brick, simple in structure, yet ample in size for families of normal size, consisting of two rooms and kitchen downstairs, and two or three small bedrooms with storage room above, and so economically have they been built that the purchase price for the freehold only ranges from £150 for a single house to £230 for a double one. There has been little building by employers and none by the municipality. A philanthropic institution known as the Kohlenkampf Stiftung o 2 29088

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