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

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

STETTIN, 451 although house-room has to be found on this space for about 220,000 inhabitants, the general appearance of the streets in almost every part of the town would suggest that housing conditions were the reverse of congested. The absence of outward signs of unsatisfactory housing may be accounted for by the fact that the greater part of present-day Stettin has been built since the demolition of the old fortifications in 1873. It would seem as if, in the planning of the new parts, the guiding principle had been to make as few streets as possible, but to make each street as long, as straight, and as wide as. circumstances would permit. One finds, for instance, immediately to the west of the old town, six parallel streets running approximately north and south, at intervals of 100 to 300 yards. These vary from three-quarters of a mile to a mile-and-a-half in length, and from 120 to 150 feet in width. Intersecting them at right angles are a number of other parallel streets running east and west at intervals of about 100 yards. Each of the rectangular blocks of masonry formed by the street intersections presents four unbroken street frontages of formal-looking, stucco-fronted houses of three or four stories, containing tenements for the most part occupied by people of the middle classes. At the back of each such row of houses is a second, and sometimes a third, row of buildings invisible from the street, and accessible from the latter only through the main doorways of the front houses. Back houses are as a rule less lofty than those fronting the street, and are separated from the latter by a space of courtyard sufficient to ensure adequate lighting and ventilation. Their façades contrast with those of the front houses in being absolutely plain, instead of being ornamented with stucco relief-work. The tenements in the back houses are for the most part occupied by the families of workmen or others of similar economic position. In this way the purpose has been achieved of making a very limited area of land suffice for the housing of a very considerable population of a mixed character, while giving the streets an appearance such as in a British town they would only possess in neighbourhoods inhabited exclusively by well-to-do people. In respect of parks and open spaces, Stettin does not rank very high among the great cities of Germany. The total area of such recreation grounds in the town is 171 acres. The municipality owns 12,700 and administers on behalf of charitable endowments a further 2,200 acres of land, but only a small part ot this (730 acres) is within the urban area. The chief places of open air resort in the summer are some distance outside the town, but are brought within easy reach by the electric tramway and steamboat services as well as by the railways. The water, gas and electricity supplies of the town are in the hands of the municipality (the electric, tramways are a private undertaking) which also owns about seven miles of quays, on which it has erected warehouses and hydraulic and steam cranes and winders. In the fiscal year 1904-5—the last for which the figures are available—the Municipal Harbour Department alone employed per day on an average 580 workpeople, of whom 388 were regular and 92 temporary men. Occupations, Wages and Hours of Labour. There is no precise classification of the industrial population of Stettin for any date more recent than that of the occupation census of June, 1895. The figures of that census would, however, give an entirely misleading picture of the present distribution of that population ; not only because of the great expansion which has taken place since 1895 in the industries which were already then established in the town, and the changes in their relative importance as sources of employment, but also because of the extension of the town boundary in 1900, which had the effect of bringing within the municipal area certain districts in which some of the industries which now rank foremost in local importance were being carried on. This is especially true of the shipbuilding trade. At the time of the 1895 census the number of workpeople employed in ship building in what was then the municipal area of Stettin was 102. It is probable that the number would now be found to be at least 6,000. In 1895 the total number of industrial workpeople in Stettin was found to be 16,442. At the present day tue number cannot be far short of 45,000, as may be inferred from the membership of the local funds for effecting the assurance against sickness of workpeople employed in industry. 29088 3 L 2

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: Cost of living in German towns

Monograph

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation