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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MUNICH. 373 belongs to an independent property and for which Munich uses the expression “ Anwesen.” This tendency towards an ever greater concentration—implying also a greater congestion—of population is clearly illustrated by two facts, of which the first is the steady increase of the number of tenements and households per house, and the second the growing habit of dividing up the tenements, so that a dwelling of three or four rooms is made to accommodate two families instead of one and a dwelling of two rooms is let in single apartments. As to the first of these facts the census returns for the last 30 years are very decisive. In 1875 there were on an average 6*1 households and 26*1 inhabitants to every house ” ; ten years later the ratios had become 6 7 and 28*7 respectively ; by 1895 the ratios were 7*7 and 33*5, in 1900 they were 8*6 and 33*9, and hi 1905 every “ house ” lodged on an average 9'0 families and 35 5 individuals. These averages are for the whole town, but in individual districts the averages are much higher, and even twice as large. Nevertheless, a larger number of inhabitants per “ house ” need not necessarily indicate overcrowding, and if this greater concentration of population simply meant that the " houses ” were built larger and on more extensive plots of land than formerly there would be little fault to find. The significant fact about the housing conditions of Munich—and it applies to the lower middle as well as to the manual working classes—is the sub-division of tenements already alluded to, for this implies that the dwellings are becoming smaller and hence that there is growing congestion. The cases are numberless of tenements which were originally constructed for single households being cut up into two and even three dwellings, approached still from the corridor which formerly was the appurtenance of a single home. Taking individual districts largely inhabited by working-class families, it is found that as many as 30, 50, and occasionally even 70 per cent, of the dwellings have been so divided. The housing census instituted by the municipal authority in December, 1905, showed that Munich had 18,289 more dwellings than in 1900, though the buildings erected in the interval only provided 15,844 more dwellings than formerly, even disregarding the leakage caused by clearances. The larger increase of 2,445 was, of course, due to the sub-division of existing tenements. Hence it comes about that tenements of one to three rooms predominate in Munich. At the census of 1905 these tenements formed 57*1 per cent, of all the dwellings in the town, against 54 3 per cent, in 1900. No less than 28*7 per cent, of the entire population lived in tenements of one or two rooms, the percentage in those of one room being 4*6 and in those of two rooms 24 1. In purely working-class districts in Munich, however, the small tenements form a much larger proportion of the whole. For example, in district 18, 12 per cent, of all the rented dwellings (6,676 in number) consist of one room only, 50 per cent, consist of two rooms, and 22 per cent, of three rooms. In district 15, 12 per cent, of the rented dwellings (8,051 in the aggregate) consist of one room only, 38 per cent, of two rooms, and 28 per cent, of three rooms. In district 20, 16 per cent, of the total rented dwellings (9,398) consist of one room only, 47 per cent, of two rooms, and 24 per cent, ot three rooms. In December, 1905, the average number of persons per dwelling throughout the town was 3*69, against 3*97 in 1890, but the reduction does not necessarily imply less congestion, for during the interval the number of dwellings of from one to three rooms increased from 62*2 to 63*3 per cent, of the whole. It is uncertain how far this prevalence of small dwellings, often quite inadequate to accommodate the families by which they are used, yet for which many of them were never intended, is a question of rent and individual means, and how far it is due to other factors, such as social habits and traditional modes of life. Munich cannot be said to have any distinctly defined type of working-class house, and even had it been different in the past the practice of sub-dividing tenements has been carried so far that in general all traces of formal design and plan have been effaced. As a rule the blocks have been built one by one, some times adjoining and sometimes detached, and each builder has followed his own tastes in the matter of form, size, and internal division, subject, of course, to the regulations of the Building Authorities. One notable characteristic does, indeed, mark the Munich house : the “ Hinter bau ” (back house), where it exists, is seldom, as in some towns, a dreary adjunct to the front building, inhabited by a poorer class of tenants and stamped in every detail of its structure and arrangement by inferiority.

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