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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NUREMBERG. 391 holder of a workman’s ticket can travel between any two points as often as he likes, Sunday included ; and for 2s. od. a month he may travel to and from his work any distance once a day. A system of house inspection has been exercised by the municipal authority since 1901, but on restricted lines, and special trained inspectors have not yet been appointed. A Committee of seven, nominated by the Magistrat * or Municipal Executive, and containing representatives of the Town Council as well as technical and legal experts, has charge of this work. Although Nuremberg by no means suffers from lack of dwelling houses to-day, there was a time when the working classes were not so well provided for. Several years ago the municipality built, in different parts of the town, five blocks of houses, containing together 57 tenements, in order to meet what was believed to be a pressing need, and from that time to this they have been occupied by municipal workpeople. The tenements consist of three or four rooms (the kitchen being counted), and the rents are something under those of private houses of equal accommodation, with the result that the municipality suffers loss financially by the transaction. The State Railway Administration has also built a considerable number of small houses, with front gardens, for its employees, and it is about to build many more in the neighbourhood of a contemplated new goods station. Of industrial companies the Augsburg-Nürnberg Maschinenfabrik has erected for its foremen a number of commodious houses in villa style near its works on the southern fringe of the town, and building societies have been formed for house building on purely business principles. The most noteworthy experiment in collective building, however, is that which has been carried out by a society formed solely of employees of the Siemens-Schuckert Electrical Machinery Company. The subscribed capital is only £5,000, and plays no important part in the working of the scheme except that, being the investments and savings of the tenants themselves, it gives to the latter a direct personal interest in the houses they inhabit. Nearly the whole of the £165,000 of capital employed consists of loans obtained on mortgage, at rates varying from 3 to \\ per cent., from the Insurance Board of the province, from local banks, and from members of the Siemens-Schuckert firm, and with this capital 722 dwellings have been built in six colonies excellently planned alike as to the accommodation of the individual tenements and the external appearance of the property, for there are avenues of trees, playgrounds, and sweeps of green sward. The houses are four stories high, and the dwellings are of three, four, and five rooms (kitchen included), each having also a share of attic and . cellar, while washhouses furnished with centrifugal washers are provided for common use. The rents for dwellings of two rooms and kitchen range from £8 to £9 per annum, for dwellings of three rooms and kitchen from £9 10s. to £11 10s., and for dwellings of four rooms and kitchen from £12 10s. to £16 10s., figures which are held to be 25 per cent, below the usual rents in the localities concerned. Retail Prices. Groceries and other Commodities. It is a notable fact that in spite of the increase of wages which has fallen in recent years to most branches of industry in Nuremberg, the consumption of meat and bread per head of the population has for some time steadily fallen. The consumption of meat is referred to below. The highest consumption of flour fell to 1893, viz., 253'4 lb. per head, 1895 and 1897 coming near this figure with 246 6 and 247*2 lb. respectively, since which time the consumption has gradually fallen to 227*2 lb. in 1904 and 221*3 lb. in 1905. The higher prices which prevailed throughout Germany in 1905 will in large part explain the less consumption of meat in that year as compared with the years immediately preceding, but they do not throw light upon the fact that the decrease has been continuous for a long period, and has been accompanied by no corre sponding increase in the consumption of bread, nor yet of beer, which forms an important element in the diet of the Bavarian working classes. Less bread is consumed to-day than for many years, and the consump tion of beer per head was in 1905 the lowest of any year save one since 1892; taking ~ the average for the last five years, the consumption of beer was 56*3 gallons against 75 gallons per head per year during the preceding

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