Cost of living in German towns

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 866449027

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-93831

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Cost of living in German towns

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Stat. Off.

Year of publication:: 1908

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (LXI, 548 Seiten)

Collection:: Economics Books

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86 BOCHUM. Representing wages in Berlin by 100, the wages of skilled men in the building, engineering and printing trades at Bochum would be represented by 83, 87 and 88 respectively, while the wages of labourers in both the building and engineering trades would be 96. Housing and Rents. The dwellings of the working classes of Bochum must not be sought in the busy centre of the town, for there dear land and high rents leave no room for small tenements. Further away from the centre the pressure diminishes, and shops below and two or three stories of dwellings above are the rule, the highest rooms being occupied by artisans and working people. In the neigh bourhood of the iron works it often happens that the smaller officials and foremen inhabit the dwellings immediately over the business premises on the ground floor, and above them live the so-called " little people.” It is on the outskirts of the town, however, that the working-classes are chiefly found. There whole streets of large houses consist of labourers’ tenements, always excepting the front premises on the ground-floor, which are used as shops, workshops, or both combined. The style of building is not attractive. Brick with stucco facing, painted, yet seldom relieved by any plastic ornament, represents the working-class house at its best ; common brickwork in its rawest state is not uncommon ; while in some districts blocks of brick and timber buildings of the old “ peasant ” type still stand in isolated positions and And ready tenants in people whose means do not allow them to be too discriminating in the matter of house accommodation. In general, however, Bochum’s dwelling houses are of modern erection, though they may not represent a very high standard of excellence. A local peculiarity, which extends to the suburbs as well as to the town, is the practice of laying the ground floor 3 feet or more above the street level, the effect of which is to save excavation for the cellaring ; the feature is chiefly characteristic of the older buildings, but it has not yet been abandoned in the case cf new erections. As a rule there are from five to seven rooms on a landing, and these rooms are divided into two or three tenements according to the class of tenants for whom they are intended. Five rooms are found to work out best, inasmuch as they afford to two families the accommodation usually required by the working- classes in Bochum, viz., tenements of two and three rooms. It is not uncommon for all the rooms on a landing to be inter-communicable, an arrangement which further facilitates their apportionment as tenancies change ; invariably the rooms in a single tenement are en suite. Tenements of a single room are very rare and for practical purposes may be disregarded, while four rooms are seldom rented by working people, save in the case of dwellings provided by their employers and let at a reduced rent. Of 412 tenements in private ownership whose rents were obtained by visitation or inquiry of their owners for the purpose of this report 140 or 34 per cent, consisted of two rooms, 202 or 49 per cent, of three rooms, and 61 or 14*8 per cent, of four rooms ; only 9 were tenements of a single room, and these were for the most part sublet or occupied by poor widows. Kitchens are not let separately, save in large dwellings, and a working- class rent contract makes no mention of such a room, the usual specification being “ — rooms with (or without) attic (Bodenzimmer), cellar, drying-loft (Trocken boden), and wash-house,” though it is understood that where drying-lofts and wash-houses exist small tenants have only a joint use of them. In practice the same room is used as a kitchen by successive tenants, for the plainest apartment,, and by preference one at the back of the house, is generally devoted to this purpose, but in size it is hardly inferior to the other rooms, and where the dwelling is small and the family large it is used as a living room, and even as a bedroom as well. In typical tenements of three rooms one room generally has separate ingress from the landing, so that it may be let separately if desired, and this room is often let to lodgers, who can come and go at will without trouble to the rest of the household. Separate corridors or fore-spaces ( Vorpldtze) are not yet universally regarded as essential. Often the dwelling is entered through the kitchen direct from the landing j the most favourable arrangement is a corridor for two adjacent dwellings. A variant upon the latter plan is a passage open to the landing, from which the rooms are entered, though there seems no reason

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