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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307 LEIPZIG. From this it appears that 74’7 per cent.—i.e., practically three-fourths of the population of Leipzig—live in tenements of three, four, or five rooms. Among these the four-roomed tenements represent the most important group, and it is these which are most in demand among working-class families, as will appear later. In Leipzig, as in all large cities with a history, there is a strong contrast between the central and oldest part of the town—the City, as it were—and the more modern parts lying outside the promenades which occupy the site of the old city walls. In 1871 there was still a population of 26,200 residing in the area comprised within the central zone, an area consisting of a congeries of narrow streets and dark airless courts. Since then the population of this area has declined to 14,600 (December, 1905), largely made up of caretakers of offices and shops, proprietors and staffs of restaurants, and wine and spirit taverns—which are particularly numerous in this part of Leipzig—- and Jewish fur dealers. The process of migration outwards is not confined to the City however ; it applies to the much wider area of what is known as " Old Leipzig,” the population of which has declined from 192,000 in 1900 to 188,000 in 1905. While a certain proportion of the industrial working-class population resides in this part of the town, there are no streets or districts in “ Old Leipzig ” which could be regarded as exclusively or even mainly working class in character. These are to be found only in the suburbs, more especially those of Schleussig, Lindenau, Plagwitz, and Kleinzschocher on the west, and Xeu Schönefeld, Reudnitz, and Volkmarsdorf on the east. In outer aspect there is very little to distinguish one working-class street from another in any of these suburbs. All are long, wide, straight, clean, and somewhat deserted-looking so far as vehicular traffic is concerned. All present on either side an unbroken line of four or five-storeyed stucco-faced houses with frontages of 40, 50, and sometimes 60 feet, rising direct from the footway without any intervening fore court or railings. The cleanliness, it may be observed, is secured by a municipal regulation which makes the owner of each house responsible for the cleansing, before a certain hour every morning, of that portion of the public thoroughfare which fronts his own property and extends as far as the middle of the sett- paved roadway. Adequate provision for light and air in the front of the houses is secured by a regulation under which the height of the buildings must not exceed the width of the street. The same purpose is effected at the back by prohibiting, or restricting as far as possible, the erection of buildings on the rectangular areas of back-land enclosed through two parallel streets being intersected by two others. A rectangular block of working-class tenement houses formed through the intersection of the Ludwigstrasse and the Eisenbahnstrasse by the Louisenstrasse and the Kircliweg, four streets situated in one of the eastern suburbs already mentioned, may be selected by way of illustration. Here one finds a rectangle measuring 270 feet by 220 feet, formed by 12 tenement houses, and enclosing somewhat over half-an-acre of land overlooked by the surrounding back windows. This space is apportioned among the surrounding houses by means of concrete walls, and often provides the occupants of ground-floor tenements with an opportunity for gardening on a small scale. In very many cases the yards or gardens contain a wash-house for the use of the tenants in common, but laundry is never hung out to dry there, provision being made for this in the loft space immediately beneath the roof. But although this example may be regarded as typical of the plan on which most houses have been built in recent years in Leipzig, with a view to providing a sufficiency of light and air on both sides, the enclosed back land is not always kept so free of other buildings. There are numerous instances of its utilization for the erection of what are called back houses and side houses {Hinterhäuser and Seitenhäuser), especially in the outer districts of the area alreadv referred to as Old Leipzig. Thus within a mile to the south of the centre of the City there are many blocks measuring as much as 750 feet by 350 in which the houses visible from any of the four streets by which they are formed are occupied almost exclusively by middle-class families, but which conceal a large number of back houses consisting mainly of working-class tenements. Access to the back houses is only possible through the main 2Q 2 29088

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