MUNICH.
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belongs to an independent property and for which Munich uses the expression
“ Anwesen.” This tendency towards an ever greater concentration—implying
also a greater congestion—of population is clearly illustrated by two facts, of
which the first is the steady increase of the number of tenements and households
per house, and the second the growing habit of dividing up the tenements, so
that a dwelling of three or four rooms is made to accommodate two families
instead of one and a dwelling of two rooms is let in single apartments. As to
the first of these facts the census returns for the last 30 years are very decisive.
In 1875 there were on an average 6*1 households and 26*1 inhabitants to every
house ” ; ten years later the ratios had become 6 7 and 28*7 respectively ; by
1895 the ratios were 7*7 and 33*5, in 1900 they were 8*6 and 33*9, and hi 1905
every “ house ” lodged on an average 9'0 families and 35 5 individuals. These
averages are for the whole town, but in individual districts the averages
are much higher, and even twice as large. Nevertheless, a larger number
of inhabitants per “ house ” need not necessarily indicate overcrowding, and
if this greater concentration of population simply meant that the " houses ”
were built larger and on more extensive plots of land than formerly there would
be little fault to find.
The significant fact about the housing conditions of Munich—and it
applies to the lower middle as well as to the manual working classes—is the
sub-division of tenements already alluded to, for this implies that the dwellings
are becoming smaller and hence that there is growing congestion. The cases are
numberless of tenements which were originally constructed for single households
being cut up into two and even three dwellings, approached still from the corridor
which formerly was the appurtenance of a single home. Taking individual
districts largely inhabited by working-class families, it is found that as many as
30, 50, and occasionally even 70 per cent, of the dwellings have been so divided.
The housing census instituted by the municipal authority in December, 1905,
showed that Munich had 18,289 more dwellings than in 1900, though the buildings
erected in the interval only provided 15,844 more dwellings than formerly, even
disregarding the leakage caused by clearances. The larger increase of 2,445
was, of course, due to the sub-division of existing tenements. Hence it comes
about that tenements of one to three rooms predominate in Munich. At the
census of 1905 these tenements formed 57*1 per cent, of all the dwellings in the
town, against 54 3 per cent, in 1900. No less than 28*7 per cent, of the entire
population lived in tenements of one or two rooms, the percentage in those of
one room being 4*6 and in those of two rooms 24 1.
In purely working-class districts in Munich, however, the small tenements
form a much larger proportion of the whole. For example, in district 18,
12 per cent, of all the rented dwellings (6,676 in number) consist of one room
only, 50 per cent, consist of two rooms, and 22 per cent, of three rooms. In
district 15, 12 per cent, of the rented dwellings (8,051 in the aggregate) consist
of one room only, 38 per cent, of two rooms, and 28 per cent, of three rooms.
In district 20, 16 per cent, of the total rented dwellings (9,398) consist of
one room only, 47 per cent, of two rooms, and 24 per cent, ot three rooms. In
December, 1905, the average number of persons per dwelling throughout the
town was 3*69, against 3*97 in 1890, but the reduction does not necessarily
imply less congestion, for during the interval the number of dwellings of from
one to three rooms increased from 62*2 to 63*3 per cent, of the whole. It
is uncertain how far this prevalence of small dwellings, often quite inadequate to
accommodate the families by which they are used, yet for which many of them
were never intended, is a question of rent and individual means, and how far it
is due to other factors, such as social habits and traditional modes of life.
Munich cannot be said to have any distinctly defined type of working-class
house, and even had it been different in the past the practice of sub-dividing
tenements has been carried so far that in general all traces of formal design and
plan have been effaced. As a rule the blocks have been built one by one, sometimes
adjoining and sometimes detached, and each builder has followed his own
tastes in the matter of form, size, and internal division, subject, of course, to the
regulations of the Building Authorities. One notable characteristic does, indeed,
mark the Munich house : the “ Hinter bau ” (back house), where it exists, is
seldom, as in some towns, a dreary adjunct to the front building, inhabited by
a poorer class of tenants and stamped in every detail of its structure and
arrangement by inferiority.
