| No. of rooms. | Predominant Weekly Rents. | Ratio of German to English (100) | Ratio of French to English (100) | |
| England. | Germany. | |||
| 2 rooms | 3/- to 3/6 | 2/8 to 3/6 | 95 | 79 |
| 3 rooms | 3/9 to 4/6 | 3/6 to 4/9 | 100 | 86 |
| 4 rooms | 4/6 to 5/6 | 4/3 to 6/- | 102 | 78 |
If the mean of the English and German figures be taken it shows a very slight difference in favour of Germany; the mean weekly rent per room being 1s. 5d. in England and 1s. 4¾d. in Germany. But in England rent usually includes local taxation (rates) whereas in Germany it does not; if this be added German rents are to English as 123 to 100, or nearly one-fourth more.
The statistics given above indicate a wide range of variation in the conditions prevailing in different towns in Germany; and that holds good with regard to improvements. The administration of the laws relating to public health and housing is in the hands of the local authorities. The public health service is generally efficient and sometimes very good. Increasing attention has been paid in recent years to the sanitary inspection of houses and in some towns it is now thorough and systematic, but active efforts to deal with old and insanitary quarters en masse are isolated and exceptional. Hamburg is an instance; scared by the visitation of cholera in 1892 the authorities put in hand an extensive improvement scheme on the English plan at a cost of half a million sterling. But demolition is exceptional; slums are usually subjected to supervision and are not allowed to be in a state of dilapidation, and sometimes, as at Mannheim, notices are served to abate overcrowding. In Munich a policy of gradually buying up insanitary houses has been adopted. But improvement has principally been promoted by new building and the reduction of the population in old insanitary quarters, to which cheap locomotive facilities have greatly contributed. The great bulk of urban Germany is new, and the most valuable contribution made by it to the housing question is the more effective control of new building and particularly the principle of town-planning, coupled with the purchase of neighbouring ground with a view to future extension. This policy is comparatively recent and still very partially applied, but it is now rapidly extending. A general act providing for the planning of streets was passed in Prussia in 1875 and still forms the basis of building legislation; but as noted above no effective by-laws were adopted even in Berlin until after 1887, and consequently a very faulty style of building was adopted, especially in large blocks which conceal grave defects behind an imposing exterior. The Saxon towns have been conspicuously successful in regard to housing. Leipzig stands alone among German towns in having 83.4% of its population living in dwellings of 4 rooms and upwards. Yet it is a great commercial city, the fifth in the empire, with a population of upwards of half a million. It also comes low on the rent table, having an index number little more than half that of Berlin. All the Saxon towns are low, Chemnitz and Zwickau particularly so, and the position of Dresden, being a capital, is remarkable. More than two-thirds of the population live in dwellings of 4 rooms or more, and the rent index number is only 54. In Saxony a general Building Act, especially providing for town planning, was passed in 1900; and the Grand Duchy of Hesse, which alone among the German states has a government Housing Department, adopted a Housing of the Working Classes Act in 1902. Other states have followed or are following and the air is full of movement. The distinctive features of urban housing reform in Germany are (1) the systematic planning of extensions, (2) purchase of ground by municipalities, (3) letting or sale of municipal land for building under prescribed conditions. Many of the great towns, including Berlin, Munich, Dresden, Leipzig, Cologne, Frankfort and Düsseldorf, are owners of land to a variable but sometimes large extent. This policy seems to have been originally adopted on economic grounds and those municipalities which bought or otherwise came into possession of town land at an early date derive a substantial revenue from it now, besides being in a position to promote housing improvement. There is comparatively little municipal building, and that as a rule only or principally for municipal servants, as at Düsseldorf, Mannheim and Nuremberg; but there seems to be a tendency to venture further in this direction and some towns have built houses for letting. The municipalities generally sell or let their land, and the building agencies which enjoy most official favour are the societies “of public utility”; they are encouraged in every way and have greatly developed, particularly in the Rhine province. Some are co-operative, others semi-philanthropic in that they aim at building good houses and limit their profits. In 1901 the Prussian Government issued an order urging municipalities to support these societies by remitting the cost of constructing streets and sewers, placing the assistance of building officials at their disposal, taking their shares, lending them money and becoming security for them. A great deal of public money has been advanced to building societies, and one very important source of supply has been developed, since the Old Age and Infirmity Insurance Act of 1889, in the National Insurance Funds which invest their surplus capital in this way. Down to 1906 the Boards of insurance had lent £8,650,000 to societies for building; the Imperial Government had lent £1,250,000, the Prussian Government £1,825,000, and the other states further large sums in addition to the municipalities. Money lent by the state is usually limited to building houses for state employees and Insurance Boards lend on condition that the houses are let to persons who come under the insurance laws. The development of building societies has been promoted by the formation of general building associations of which the earliest was established in Düsseldorf in 1897 for the Rhine provinces; under its influence one-fifth of the new housing provided in 1901 was erected by the societies. The example was followed at Frankfort, Münster and Wiesbaden. Housing by employers has also been carried out on a large scale in Germany. States and municipalities have to some extent built houses as employers, the former chiefly for railwaymen, besides lending money to societies for the purpose; but most housing of this kind has been done by private employers. Krupps, who had built 4274 dwellings housing nearly 27,000 persons down to 1901, are the most famous example; but they are only one among many. In Rhineland and Westphalia employers had in 1902 provided 22,269 houses containing 62,539 dwellings at a cost of £10,500,000; more than half the families so housed belonged to the mining industry, the rest to various manufactures. These two provinces, in which industrial development has been extremely rapid, are exceptional; but housing by employers is not confined to them. At Mannheim for instance over 1000 working-class households have been so provided. At Nuremberg the Siemens Schuckert Company have encouraged an interesting system of collective building among their employees, by which 722 dwellings have been provided.
Holland.—In 1901 a Public Health and a Housing Act were passed, and these two embody most of the features of housing reform adopted in other countries. The first provides for a general sanitary service under the Ministry of the Interior. The second ordains that local authorities shall frame by-laws for building and for the maintenance and proper use of dwellings; that they shall inspect existing dwellings, order improvements or repairs or demolition; empowers them to take land compulsorily for the purposes of the act, to prohibit building or rebuilding on sites reserved for public purposes and to make grants or loans to societies or companies operating exclusively for the improvement of working-class dwellings. If they fail to make by-laws the provincial authorities may take action. Land buying with a view to extensions has been adopted by a number of municipalities including Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and other important towns, and the practice is increasing. Amsterdam has also begun the systematic planning of extensions. There has been a little municipal building in some small places, but it is on an insignificant scale; the tendency is rather to favour societies of public utility as in France, Germany and Belgium. The new laws are too recent to have had much effect and housing reform is as yet in an early stage. Rents are high in the large towns, namely, 1 room 1s. 8d. to 3s.; 2 rooms 2s. 6d. to 5s.; 3 rooms 3s. 6d. to 6s; 4 rooms 4s. 2d. to 7s.
Italy.—A Housing of the Working Classes Act was passed in 1903, to promote the improvement and provision of workmen’s dwellings. Municipalities have the power to purchase land compulsorily for housing purposes and also to build workmen’s dwellings. A few towns, of which Milan is one, have done so. There are building regulations relating to the area and height of rooms and the thickness of walls. The antiquity of the Italian towns and the great quantity of old and insanitary building make housing improvement a very difficult matter. La Società Umanitaria, a benevolent trust founded by Prosper Loria of Milan in 1902, has taken up this subject among others and has built two model tenements, housing 2000 persons.
United States.—Interest in the housing question in the United States is confined to a few of the largest cities and can only be said to be acute in New York, though there have been investigations by commissions elsewhere and Miss Octavia Hill’s work in London has found admirers and imitators in Philadelphia and Boston as well as in New York. The evils of housing in New York have been the subject of much sensational writing which has elevated them to the position of a world-wide scandal. It is not necessary to accept all the allegations made in order to see that several circumstances have combined to produce an exceptional state of things in this great city. The limited space—the island or peninsula of Manhattan—in which central New York is built has compelled the erection of large tenement blocks, otherwise rare in American towns; the incessant inrush of immigrants from the poorest parts of Europe has filled these tenements with immense numbers of persons of many nationalities accustomed to a low standard of living; the generally backward state of public sanitation in America, and the absence or evasion of regulations and supervision, have permitted the erection of bad dwellings, their deterioration into worse, and their misuse by excessive overcrowding. Other large cities in which bad housing conditions are known to exist are Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Pittsburg, Jersey City. There are doubtless many others, but bad housing conditions are not so general in the United States as in Europe. Outside the very large cities there is more space, more light and air, less crowding together, less darkness, dirt and dilapidation. Large houses, occupied by two or perhaps three families, are common, but they have more room space than is usual in Europe. The 18th annual report (1903) of the Commissioner of Labour gives the result of a special inquiry embracing 23,447 families distributed in 33 states. The average number of rooms was 4.95 per family and 1.04 per individual. It is a fair inference that overcrowding is confined to a comparatively small number of exceptional places. A large number of the schedules were furnished by the eminently urbanized and manufacturing states of New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Ohio and Illinois; and in all these the average number of rooms to a family exceeded 4, ranging from 4.2 in Ohio to 5.5 in Massachusetts. The condition of homes as to sanitation and cleanliness was statistically stated thus: Sanitary condition—good 61.46%, fair 32,59%, bad 5.95%; Cleanliness—good 79.63%, fair 14.66 bad 5.71%. Other special inquiries have been carried out in particular towns. In 1891-1892 the tenements in Boston were investigated for the Massachusetts Labour Bureau, which found 3657 sleeping rooms without outside windows and about 8% of the population living in conditions objectionable from one cause or another. In 1892 Congress authorized a special inquiry into the slum population of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Baltimore, the results of which were published in the seventh special report (1894) of the United States Commissioner of Labour. It was estimated that the total “slum population” (presumably those living in unhealthy conditions) was—New York 360,000, Chicago 162,000, Philadelphia 35,000, Baltimore 25,000. In Baltimore 530 families, consisting of 1648 persons, were living in single rooms with an average of 3.15 persons to a room; in Philadelphia 401 families were so living with an average of 3.11 persons to a room. The proportion of 1-room dwellings was less in New York and Chicago. In New York 44.55% or nearly half the families investigated were found living in 2-roomed dwellings, in Baltimore 27.88%, in Philadelphia 19.41% and in Chicago 19.14%. These figures conclusively prove that European conditions reproduce themselves in American cities. Poverty was not the cause, as the average earnings per family ranged from £3, 4s. a week in Baltimore to £4, 6s. a week in Chicago. Another official investigation in New York was carried out in 1895 by the Tenement House Commission appointed by the State of New York. It reported “many houses in the city in an insanitary condition which absolutely unfits them for habitation.” Further details have been compiled from the census by the New York Federation of Churches, chiefly relating to density of population in the city. In 1900, out of a total of nearly 250,000 dwellings, 95,433 (38.2%) contained from 2 to 6 persons, 60,672 (24.2%) from 7 to 10 persons and 89,654 (35.9%) 11 persons or more. The density of population for the whole city as now constituted was 19 persons to the acre, in Manhattan 149; in the south-eastern district of Manhattan 382 and in one ward 735. Between 1900 and 1905 the density increased in every district, and in the latter year there were 12 blocks with from 1000 to 1400 persons to the acre. The number of persons to the acre in London (1901) is 60.6; in the most densely populated borough 182, and in the most densely populated district (a very small one) 396. This will give a measure of comparison. The large tenement blocks in New York have been constructed with far less regard to health than those in Berlin, and reproduce in an aggravated form the same evil of insufficient light and air. In place of the inadequate courts round which many are built in Berlin, the New York tenements have merely narrow air shafts. In 1904 there were reported to be 362,000 dark interior rooms, that is with no outside windows.
If American cities have nothing to learn from other countries in regard to bad housing, they have nothing to teach in the way of reform. They are following Europe slowly and a long distance behind. There is no serious attempt to deal with insanitary areas as they have been dealt with in England, or to prevent the creation of new ones by regulation and planning of extensions as in Germany, or to promote the provision of superior houses by organized public effort as in several countries. A little has been done in New York to improve the worst housing. A Tenement House Act was passed after the report of the Commission of 1895 and a Department formed to give effect to it. Some cleansing and repairing and insertion of windows is carried out every year, but more attention seems to be paid to fire escapes. Societies for providing improved dwellings exist in New York, Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia. The oldest is one formed in Boston in 1871, called the Co-operative Building Company; it was followed in 1876 by an Improved Dwellings Company in Brooklyn, and in 1879 by a similar society in Manhattan, and in 1885 by another in Boston. The largest concern of the kind is the City and Suburban Houses Company in New York, formed in 1896 under the guidance of Dr E. R. L. Gould; it has built four groups of tenements housing 1238 families in the city and 112 houses on a suburban estate at Brooklyn; in all it has housed some 6000 persons. More recently Mr Henry Phipps has given £200,000 for the provision of model dwellings in New York, and a building has been erected on the plan of the Maison des Enfants in Paris. In Chicago the City Houses Association works at housing reforms in various ways. There are some other institutions of a like kind, but the aggregate results are inconsiderable. Two other building agencies have done far more in the United States than philanthropic societies; these are the building and loan associations and private employers. The former are co-operative provident societies; they are widely diffused throughout the United States and their operations are on a very large scale. They date from 1831, when the Oxford Provident Building Association was formed at Frankfort, near Philadelphia. Pennsylvania has still the largest number of associations, but from 1843 onwards the movement spread rapidly and continuously in other states. The high-water mark appears to have been reached in 1897, when the total assets of the associations amounted to about £133,000,000. In 1905 there were 5326 associations with an aggregate membership of 1,686,611 and assets of about £130,000,000. The states of Pennsylvania and Ohio head the list, but the movement is very strong in many others. It accounts for the comparatively large number of houses owned by working-class families in the United States. With regard to housing by employers, no comprehensive information is available, but the total amount is certainly considerable though probably not so large as in Germany or in France. Some of the better-known instances are the Pelzer Manufacturing Company at Pelzer in South Carolina, which has built about 1000 dwellings; the Maryland Steel Company at Sparrows Point, Maryland, 800 dwellings; Ludlow Manufacturing Associates at Ludlow, Mass., 500 dwellings; Whitin Machine Works at Whitinsville, Mass., 600 dwellings; Westinghouse Air Brake Co. at Wilmerding, Penn., 360 dwellings; Draper Co., Hopedale, Mass., 250 dwellings. These are all more or less “model” settlements, not in cities, but in outlying or country places, where works have been established, and that is generally true of housing by employers in the United States, whereas in Germany much has been provided by them in the large towns. Rents are very much higher in American cities than in European towns of comparable size and character.
Authorities.—Board of Trade Reports—“Cost of Living of the Working Classes (England)” (1908); “Cost of Living in German Towns” (1908); “Cost of Living in French Towns” (1909). Proceedings of International Housing Congress (London, 1907); The New Encyclopaedia of Social Reform; E. R. Dewsnup, The Housing Problem in England; T. C. Horsfall, The Example of Germany; J. S. Nettlefold, Practical Housing Reform; A. Shadwell, Industrial Efficiency, ch. xi. on “Housing”; W. Thompson, The Housing Handbook, Housing up to Date.
(A. Sl.)