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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362 MÜLHAUSEN. are 23s. and 24s. per month. These are not the only working-class houses belonging to the town, but they are the best. Several of the large employers whose works are outside the town also own a considerable number of houses, which are invariably let at low or nominal rents, and one firm facilitates the acquisition of its tenements by workpeople, who are allowed to pay by monthly instalments of 24s. Here, again, the usual accommodation consists of two or three rooms with kitchen. A large number of the working-people of Mülhausen still live in the villages in the immediate vicinity of the town. From these villages they come in daily by train or tram, and especially by the former, owing to the low fares charged by the railway authorities, who readily co-operate with the housing reform societies already named in checking congestion in the town, and in discouraging migration from the land. There is as yet no systematic inspection of houses, though in its absence a certain measure of control is exercised by the Building Police. There is a public House Bureau, which mediates between landlords and tenants, though its operations, while beneficial within their strict limitations, affect the work ing-class in but small measure. In absolute figures the rents which the majority of working-class families pay at Mülhausen are not high. Relatively to income the case is different. Only the existence of a large class of cheap dwellings prevents the housing problem from being much more serious than is actually the case. These cheap dwellings are inferior in size, in convenience, in all the attributes of the model dwellings which have been described, but they meet an urgent need—the need of people whose small earnings do not allow of such an expenditure upon rent as is desirable. Inquiry has shown that 20 per cent, of income commonly goes in this way, and this is the basis upon which the promoters of the Cité Balance worked out their building scheme. A classification of the rents of the tenements visited for the purpose of this inquiry, and of small tenements registered by the municipal House Bureau during 1905, gives the following results :— Number of Rooms per Tenement. One room without kitchen One room with kitchen Two rooms with kitchen Three rooms with kitchen Predominant Weekly Rent. Is. 2d. to Is. Id. 2s. to 2s. 9d. 3s. 3d. to 4s. Id. 4s. Id. to 5s. 6c/. Representing rent at Berlin by 100, the corresponding figure for Mülhausen is 48. The dwellings to which the above rents refer are all situated in working-class districts, and include a considerable proportion of Cité dwellings of different types, but also many tenements of the poorest class such as are to be found in the Nordfeld district. They do not, however, include one-family houses (of three rooms with kitchen) in the Cité, of which there are between 800 and 1,000 letting, so far as they are not owned by their occupiers, at from 4g. 2d. to 65. 6c/. per week. There is a certain variation of rent according to story. As a general rule the highest rents in larger houses are paid in the first and second stories, the basement comes next, and the attic tenements are cheapest. The following is the approximate range. If the rents of basement houses do not seem to bear out the rule just stated, the reason is that the rents include many houses consisting of basement and upper story only, in which cases the lower tenements are invariably superior :— Weekly Rents of Tenements consisting of One room with kitchen. Two rooms with kitchen. Three rooms with kitchen. Basement First story Second story Attic story 2s. 4d. to 3s. 2s. Id. to 2s. 9d. 2s. 9d. Is. 10c/. to 2s. 6c/. 2s. 9c/. to 3s. 8c/. 3s. 3d. „ 4s. 7c/. 3s. 3d. „ 4s. 2d. 2s. 9d. ,, 3s. 8d. 4s. Id. to 6s. 4s. 10c/. to 6s. 11c/. 5s. Ic7. to 6s. 11c/. 4s. 7c/. to 5s. 4c/.

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