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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468 STUTTGART. An enumeration of the rents of the woodworkers of the town made in 1902 by their trade union showed that the average annual rent was £15 8s., or 6s. per week, a figure only exceeded in three other towns in Germany to which the inquiry extended. The vast majority of working-class households live in tenements of one, two, and three rooms, with appurtenances to which reference will be made later, and of these three types the tenement of two rooms is predominant. Classifying the whole of the 10,430 houses which were recorded by the books of the Municipal House Bureau as having changed hands during the year 1905, it was found that 7,890 or 75*6 per cent, were of one, two, and three rooms, with cooking places attached, 1,273 (12*2 per cent.) being of one room, 3,043 (29T per cent.) of two rooms, and 3,574 (34*3 per cent.) of three rooms. But these houses embraced every section of the population, and confining attention solely to working-class tenements a classification covering 1,095 changes of tenancy shows that 21"0 per cent, were tenements of one room, 51 *8 per cent, of two rooms, and 26'9 per cent, of three rooms. Of these 1,095 working-class dwellings only three consisted of four rooms. The two-room tenement is the typical and normal working-man’s home, so this tenement is in greatest demand, insomuch that the supply is always insufficient, a remark which applies with only slightly less force to the three-room dwellings. In regretting this insufficiency the director of the House Bureau states in his report for 1905 :—“ The more the dwellings of this class are multiplied, in order to cope with the still unsatisfied need, the less will the great mass of the population be compelled to rent dwellings whose cost exceeds their means and also their personal requirements. Then an unhealthy and undesirable feature of our housing arrangements will gradually disappear, and tenants in more regular economic circumstances will be found for the smaller dwellings, to the satisfaction of the house-owners, though a further consequence would be the necessity of providing homes for unmarried people of both sexes belonging to that section of the population which at present lodges with families who, if living alone, would have to pay more rent than they could afford.” Without considering now whether any considerable number of the dwellings of the Stuttgart working classes exceed in accommodation the requirements of health and morality, there is no doubt that in general a relatively large proportion of their income goes in the one item of rent, and that far more often than is desirable lodgers are taken with a view to lightening this inevitable expenditure. Where a dwelling consists of but two rooms the practice of letting-off is as a rule impossible, but where three rooms have to be rented, either because the size or sexual division of the family requires it, or because a smaller house cannot be found, the few shillings a month that can be earned by letting a bed or half a bed to a lodger are a welcome help. In enumerating the rooms of a dwelling it is always understood at Stuttgart that there is in addition an apartment which is used as and called a “ kitchen,” unless the contrary is expressly said. But this “ kitchen ” is not a room in the sense of the “heatable room” known to German housing statisticians, nor yet does it correspond to the convertible kitchen (which may serve as a living room or bedroom or both) of some of the Rhenish towns of the North. The Stuttgart “ kitchen ” is a small corner cut off anyhow from the general scheme of the dwelling, invariably at the back, and generally placed at the end of the corridor or sandwiched between a living room and the offices, which are here found within the tenement and not outside upon the landing. Such a kitchen is as a rule six or seven feet square— in newer and better houses it may be a little larger—and only serves for cooking operations and for the necessary utensils connected therewith ; even a chair is the exception. Sometimes the “ kitchen ” is merely a corner of the living room partitioned off, sometimes it is without a window though a separate apartment, and only seldom is it a cheerful place in which a housewife can take any satisfaction. Nevertheless, the arrangement, though barely adequate, has the advantage that it increases the utility and value of the actual rooms for living purposes. There are in Stuttgart, however, many dwellings of a single room, which has to serve every function of a home, but this room has nothing in common with the kitchen as locally understood.

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