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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DRESDEN. 197 wide, and 6 feet 4 inches high. This is probably one of the most inferior types of three-roomed tenements in Dresden. From the foregoing it will be seen that there is a certain amount of variation in the rents charged for dwellings consisting of the same number of rooms in one and the same house. Thus we find three rooms on the first floor front costing 5s. 9d. a week, and three rooms at the back on the fourth floor costing only 3s. 6d. The former tenement, however, has one room containing two windows looking into the street and is more conveniently situated on the first floor. The latter is less easily accessible and none of its rooms are directly lighted from the street. Similarly, and for like reasons, we find four-roomed tenements varying from 4s. Id. (1st floor back) to 8s. 0d. (2nd floor front). These somewhat wide limits of variation prepare one for what is to be expected when the inquiry is extended to a larger number of examples. The rents of most of the three-roomed tenements in the old town fall within the range of 2s. 4d. and 5s. 9d., and most of the four-roomed tenements within the range of 3s. 6d. and 6s. 11 d. per week. The difference in the average weekly rent as between the three-roomed and the four-roomed tenements is only 7d. Among the many causes for variation in the rents payable for the same amount of house room, the facilities for heating in winter occupy a prominent place. For in Dresden, and throughout Saxony generally, the stove is a fixture and not (as in the Rhineland, for instance) the property of the tenant. Of two three-roomed dwellings, one having a stove in every room and the other with stoves in two of the rooms only, the former will always fetch the higher rent, other things being equal. The comparatively slight difference in the rents payable for working-class tenements of three rooms and four rooms respectively is in great measure due to the importance attached to a high in-door temperature in the winter. The majority of the industrial working classes in Dresden live in tenements of three rooms, and where a working-class dwelling has a fourth room, the latter is almost invariably stoveless and fetches but little, if any, extra rent. The dwelling may even fetch less rent than one of three rooms all provided with heating facilities. Thus, for 15 three-roomed tenements situated in the Zahngasse, Töpferstrasse and Webergasse (all narrow streets in Old Dresden), and having stoves in every room, the average rent was found to be 5s. 2d. per week, while for 25 four-roomed tenements in the same streets, but each with a stoveless room, the average rent worked out at 4s. 10c/. per week. The same thing is found to be true in respect to dwellings in the outlying and more modern parts of the town, where, as already stated, the bulk of the industrial working classes live. Rents, moreover, are but very little higher at the outskirts than in the inner town although the accommodation provided is as a rule far superior. Here we find that for the three-roomed tenements the bulk of the rents lie between the range of 3s. 6c/. and 5s. 9d. per week, and for the four-roomed tenements between 3s. 6c/. and 6s. 11 d. The average rent works out at 4s. 8d. for the former and at 5s. 2d. for the latter. As typical of the general principles on which the suburban streets and houses are constructed a rectangular block of buildings bounded by the four streets known as the Hechtstrasse, Erlenstrasse, Gustav Meyerstrasse and Fichtenstrasse, in the northern extension of this town, may be taken for illustration. Here, as in the old town, the building plok aie deep. Lut while in the old town the whole plot is covered with masonry, with the exception of the well or air shaft, here only about one-half of the site is built upon and the remainder left open. In point of structure, both external and internal, it is difficult to distinguish one house from another in a neigh bourhood of this kind. All are four-storied, with seven or eight windows on each story. All are entered through a large and somewhat ornate and massive doorway, admitting to a lofty tiled passage leading past the staircase to a yard or garden across which one has to pass in order to reach the Hinterhäuser or ba¿k houses. On either side of this passage and before reaching the staircase is a door admitting to the ground-floor tenements. Each of these consists of four rooms divided by a corridor into two pairs, of which the windows of the one look into the street while those of the other look into the ) ard or garden at the back,

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