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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DÜSSELDORF. 211 Wages in Düsseldorf are considerably higher than in almost all other towns in Germany. Representing wages in Berlin by 100, the following figures indi cate the level of wages in Düsseldorf in certain trades :—Building trades, 85 for skilled men, and 103 for labourers ; engineering trades, 98 for skilled men, and 103 for labourers ; printing trades, 90. The working classes of Düsseldorf, as might be judged from the character of the staple industries, are highly organised. All three types of Trade Unions —the Social Democratic, the Hirsch-Duncker, and the “Christian”—exist in the town and work on independent lines, occasions of common action occurring but seldom. The Social Democratic organisation has a large Central Bureau, the Gewerkschaftshaus, in which the allied societies and the Workmen’s Secretariate have their rooms, while the Roman Catholic societies are worked along with a Hospice for travelling and single workmen and a People’s Inquiry Bureau. The Hirsch-Duncker societies have also an Inquiry Bureau. Employment agencies are conducted by all three organisations. Housing and Rents. The census of December, 1905, showed that there were in Düsseldorf 12,846 dwelling-houses containing 57,416 dwellings, giving an average of 4 5 dwellings per house. Large buildings are becoming more and more the fashion, as land increases in value, yet Düsseldorf still retains a considerable proportion of houses of one and two stories, viz., 24 per cent, of the whole, though the number steadily decreases ; in 1893 the proportion of such houses was 36 per cent., and in 1878 54 percent. The one-story buildings have decreased from 24 per cent, in 1878 to 7 per cent, in 1905. The characteristics which, generally speaking, distinguish the streets of any modern industrial town in Germany from those of corresponding towns in the United Kingdom—such as greater width and regularity, brighter and more ornate house fronts, absence of advertisers’ hoardings and of public-house signs, wider and less crowded pavements—are particularly noticeable in those parts of Düsseldorf which are inhabited mainly by the working classes, namely, the Oberbilk, Flingern and Derendorf districts, the Grafenberger Allée, and the Coiner Chaussée. The stranger entering a street in any of these districts for the first time finds it difficult to reconcile its outward appearance with the fact that each house contains probably from eight to ten working-class families. As a rule the houses here are four stories high, and, as in practically all large German towns, the fiat system is universal. Another feature common to the working- class dwellings is that every family renting a tenement in a house has a share in the cellarage, which, as a rule, is extensive and divided by means of wooden railings into separate compartments, each with its own lock and key. I hese cellars are generally used for the storage of coal and lumber. Again, each tenant in turn has a right to the use of the loft space immediately beneath the roof as a place in which to dry the family linen. The portion of the lort set apart for this purpose is in most cases that iurthest from the street, and is fitted with horizontal wooden bars (or occasionally with lines) on which the clothes are hung. The part of the attic space towards the front of the house is in most cases divided into habitable compartments with plastered sides and ceiling, and a small dormer window or skylight in the sloping side formed by the roof. These compartments are known as or éyMzcAgrnmmgr, and are let either separately or as adjuncts to the tenements below. It is therefore no uncommon thing in Düsseldorf to find a workman’s dwelling consisting of one or two rooms, say, on the ground floor and one in the loft. It is a peculiarity of the houses in the Rhineland and W estphalia that the kitchen is not, as a rule, reckoned separately. The reason for this is that the stove is portable and belongs to the tenant. As a rule a back room is used as a kitchen, though the choice depends in some measure on the Requirements of the family in bedroom accommodation. If large enough, the kitchen may also be used as a sitting-room. With few exceptions ail the houses aie provided v\ith w.c.’s on each landing ; in very many cases with one for each family. The floors of the landings and stairs are generally painted, and bv the teims of the contract the tenants of each flat are required to wash them twice a week on Wednesday and Saturday—in turn. The duty of sweeping and cleansing the pavement in front of the house falls to the tenants on tue ground floor. 29088 2 D 2

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