307
LEIPZIG.
From this it appears that 74’7 per cent.—i.e., practically three-fourths of
the population of Leipzig—live in tenements of three, four, or five rooms. Among
these the four-roomed tenements represent the most important group, and
it is these which are most in demand among working-class families, as will
appear later.
In Leipzig, as in all large cities with a history, there is a strong contrast
between the central and oldest part of the town—the City, as it were—and the
more modern parts lying outside the promenades which occupy the site of
the old city walls. In 1871 there was still a population of 26,200 residing in
the area comprised within the central zone, an area consisting of a congeries of
narrow streets and dark airless courts. Since then the population of this
area has declined to 14,600 (December, 1905), largely made up of caretakers
of offices and shops, proprietors and staffs of restaurants, and wine and
spirit taverns—which are particularly numerous in this part of Leipzig—-and
Jewish fur dealers. The process of migration outwards is not confined to
the City however ; it applies to the much wider area of what is known as " Old
Leipzig,” the population of which has declined from 192,000 in 1900 to 188,000
in 1905. While a certain proportion of the industrial working-class population
resides in this part of the town, there are no streets or districts in “ Old
Leipzig ” which could be regarded as exclusively or even mainly working class
in character. These are to be found only in the suburbs, more especially those
of Schleussig, Lindenau, Plagwitz, and Kleinzschocher on the west, and Xeu
Schönefeld, Reudnitz, and Volkmarsdorf on the east. In outer aspect there is
very little to distinguish one working-class street from another in any of these
suburbs. All are long, wide, straight, clean, and somewhat deserted-looking so
far as vehicular traffic is concerned. All present on either side an unbroken line
of four or five-storeyed stucco-faced houses with frontages of 40, 50, and
sometimes 60 feet, rising direct from the footway without any intervening forecourt
or railings. The cleanliness, it may be observed, is secured by a municipal
regulation which makes the owner of each house responsible for the cleansing,
before a certain hour every morning, of that portion of the public thoroughfare
which fronts his own property and extends as far as the middle of the settpaved
roadway. Adequate provision for light and air in the front of the houses
is secured by a regulation under which the height of the buildings must not
exceed the width of the street. The same purpose is effected at the back by
prohibiting, or restricting as far as possible, the erection of buildings on the
rectangular areas of back-land enclosed through two parallel streets being
intersected by two others.
A rectangular block of working-class tenement houses formed through the
intersection of the Ludwigstrasse and the Eisenbahnstrasse by the Louisenstrasse
and the Kircliweg, four streets situated in one of the eastern suburbs already
mentioned, may be selected by way of illustration. Here one finds a rectangle
measuring 270 feet by 220 feet, formed by 12 tenement houses, and
enclosing somewhat over half-an-acre of land overlooked by the surrounding
back windows. This space is apportioned among the surrounding houses by
means of concrete walls, and often provides the occupants of ground-floor
tenements with an opportunity for gardening on a small scale. In very many
cases the yards or gardens contain a wash-house for the use of the tenants in
common, but laundry is never hung out to dry there, provision being made for
this in the loft space immediately beneath the roof.
But although this example may be regarded as typical of the plan on
which most houses have been built in recent years in Leipzig, with a view to
providing a sufficiency of light and air on both sides, the enclosed back land is
not always kept so free of other buildings. There are numerous instances of
its utilization for the erection of what are called back houses and side houses
{Hinterhäuser and Seitenhäuser), especially in the outer districts of the area
alreadv referred to as Old Leipzig. Thus within a mile to the south of the
centre of the City there are many blocks measuring as much as 750 feet by 350
in which the houses visible from any of the four streets by which they are
formed are occupied almost exclusively by middle-class families, but which
conceal a large number of back houses consisting mainly of working-class
tenements. Access to the back houses is only possible through the main
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