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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ESSEN. 241 In general rents are .highest in the centre of the town, and lowest in the Frohnhausen and Holsterhausen districts and in Altendorf, while the East and North take an intermediate position. The difference between the floors is usually very little—Is. or 2s. a month : generally the first floor is the dearest, and the ground and second floors cost about ;he same. Taking rent in Berlin as 100, the index number for rent in Essen is 62. One very useful institution found in Essen is the system of municipal house inspection, founded some years ago, and very successful ; in the three years 1903-5 over 8,000 dwellings were visited, and action taken to secure the remedying of defects. The principal of these were (a) inadequate sanitary equipment, especially the inefficiency of closet accommodation, and (5) overcrowding. The latter evil is due to two facts. The first is the indifference of the tenants themselves towards a proper standard of accommodation. This is in part due, undoubtedly, to the height of the rents as compared with wages ; but that this pressure of rents is not the sole cause of indifference appears from the reports of the House Inspection. In the report for 1905, for example, it is remarked that even in comparatively well-to-do and well-educated families little regard is paid to adequate sleeping accommodation or the separation of the sexes. The inspectors point out, as illustrating their contention that over crowding does not always arise fr un lack of means or lack of room space, that out of 224 cases of offences against the bye-laws which impose a minimum air-space in sleeping rooms of 353 cubic feet for each adult, 188 were remedied by the simple device of adopting a larger room as the bedroom, or by making an additional bedroom out of a seldom-used parlour. The other potent cause of overcrowding is the development of the lodger system. Not only does this take the form of the sub-letting of a room or an attic, but often a bed or part of a bed is let to the lodger, who takes either breakfast or all his meals with the family. The police regulations require the registration of all bedrooms occupied by lodgers, and impose various restrictions, but these are not always easy to enforce, especially in recent years, when there has been a great and very rapid influx of single workmen, or workmen whose families have been left behind, so that the temptation to the ordinary tenant to take such lodgers has been very great. The usual charge for board and lodging is 11s. or 11s. Qd. per week. The evils which the system brings in its train are recognised on all hands, and the authorities are doing their utmost to deal with them. There is one Building Society (“ Spar- und Bau-Genossenschaft ”) in Essen, but its operations are not very extensive. At the commencement of 1905 it had 55 houses with 284 dwellings, of which 48 had two rooms, 1 78 three rooms, and 58 four rooms ; in 186 dwellings there were small bathrooms, and in five houses there were common baths. These houses are of the ordinary type, but the society is now erecting, on the open outskirts of the town, a colony in which the houses are to be small, for the occupation pf only one or two families. Reference has already been made to the fact that a very considerable number of dwellings in Essen have been erected by employers. The most important work in^this direction has been done by the Krupp firm, which in 1905 had 4,327 dwellings in eight colonies, in addition to a number of dwelling houses scattered throughout the town. These colonies may be divided into two groups, the one representing the early efforts of the firm to meet the need for dwellings in the simplest and most severely practical manner ; and the other dating from 1890, in which, as the firm’s report states, “ in addition to practical considerations hygienic and aesthetic considerations were also borne in mind.” In the Alfredshof colony the houses are usually small, sometimes for one family only, but generally for two or three families, and only in a few cases for more : each dwelling is absolutely separate and has its own cellar and attic drying-room. Each house stands in its own small garden, and thus resembles a detached cottage ; and uniformity of style is carefully avoided. The rents for three rooms (the minimum) are about £10 10s. per annum, for four rooms (one small) £12, and for five rooms £15 10s. : the rents include water, but the tenants do the papering themselves. Gas is supplied at a cheap rate from the Krupp 2 H 29088

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