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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474 STUTTGART. and learn from the officials in charge if these wants can be supplied. The house owner notifies the Bureau, by post-card, directly he obtains a tenant for a registered house, and by the co-operation of all parties concerned the Bureau is enabled to play a very important part in the housing arrangements of the town. The number of dwellings registered and the number of tenancies concluded by the Bureau increase from year to year as its existence and usefulness become better known. Thus during the year 1905,10,567 dwellings, places of business, workshops, &c., were registered and 10,430 changed hands, against 9,367 and 9,275 respectively in 1904. Several times a week lists of dwellings, &c., to let are published in the official “ Gazette ” of the municipality. But municipal action in respect of housing reform has not been confined to such measures. No less a sum than ¿0150,000 has already been expended in the removal of old insanitary property of all kinds, and a considerable amount has also been spent on the provision of dwellings suitable in size and rent for the officials and workpeople in the municipal service. The town has also helped public societies engaged in similar works of housing amelioration by lending them money at the rate of 3 per cent., or ^ per cent, under cost. Stuttgart does not own any large area of building land. The policy of trading in land which some large German towns have adopted does not appear to have commended itself to the rulers of the town, whose purchases of real estate are confined to the immediate and prospective needs of the public service. A far more important work, in the provision of cheap dwellings for the working classes, has been done by an energetic society of philanthropists, including many of the best known citizens of Stuttgart, called the Association for the Welfare of the Working Classes (Verein für das Wohl der arbeitenden Klassen). Founded more than twenty years ago, this society has pursued a well-considered policy of social reform in many directions, though no branch of its work has been more beneficent than the establishment of the three working-class colonies of Ostheim, Westheim, and Siidheim, which all lie within the municipal area. “ Colony ” is in general an unpopular term with the working classes, who resent the idea of segregation which they associate with it, but the colonies of this association are so unique in plan, in outward accessories, and in internal arrangement and convenience that they stand quite apart from the ordinary residential quarters of industrial Stuttgart. Altogether some 500 houses have been erected, containing 1,600 dwellings of various size, and here, too, the detached block system has been adopted. The largest and most attractive of the colonies is Ostheim, which consists of 367 separate houses and 1,203 dwellings. The general impression made by this pleasant home of labour is that of a small garden suburb, for each house has a flower garden in front and a larger piece of ground behind, devoted to flowers and fruit, while the streets are planted with shady trees ; many of the houses have also picturesque balconies and verandahs. As a rule a house contains three stories, each occupied by a single dwelling. The usual accommodation is either two or three living and bedrooms and a kitchen—larger and more homely than the typical cooking corner of the normal working man’s tenement in Stuttgart—with an attic room and a portion of the cellar for storage, though the Ostheim “ Bühnenkammer ” is often good enough to be used as a bedroom. A limited number of one-room dwellings (with kitchen) are offered where flats are divided, and there are a few four-room dwellings in the larger corner houses. The rents which rule at Ostheim for accommodation of a very superior kind are from £5 8s. to £7 4s. per annum (2s. Id. to 2s. 9d. per week) for one room with kitchen ; £9, £ll, £12, and £13 per annum (2s. 5d., 4s. 3<A, 4s. 7d. and 5s. per week) for two rooms with kitchen and appurtenances ; and from £13 to £20 per annum (5s. to 7s. 8d. per week) for three rooms, with the same adjuncts ; the higher rents in each case being for the lower stories. Dwellings of equal size and quality in private hands cost 40 per cent. more. These houses can also be bought by the occupants on easy terms, subject to conditions suggested by the purpose of their builders. That the Ostheim colony houses are appreciated is proved by the fact that there is never any lack of tenants, though they are situated at a considerable distance from the centre of the town.

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