The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1914-09-25
Germany'S Housing Problem

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Germany has vigorously taken in
hand her great housing problem. 1t is
troublesome task. Bad housing, says
Count Posadowsky, former minister of
the interior, is the reason why the ma
tional birth rate has fallen from AZ to
20 per 1000 in the last forty years.
The absence of imperial housing legis-
lation is one source of the evil.
Other social problems have been
beneficially regulated by the bundles
rath and reichstag, but housing has
been left to the state legislatures, and
these have done very little. Their neg
lect has caused friction. A year ago
DR.. Delbruck, who now holds Posa-
dowsky's portfolio, threatened that II
Prussia did not improve her housing
the empire would intervene. This
threat made the reformers hurry up.
The Prussian and other state govern
ments set to preparing bills, and pri-
vate organizations and individuals be-
|
plans of betterment.
| Mainly the reformers are fighting the
specific evils which spring from a
brand new urban civilization. Every
fifth German lives In a town of over
100000 population. Housing on the
land is fairly satisfactory, but in the
great cities it is worse than In Amer1-
ca, England. Belgium, Holland and In
some respects France.
Germany's broad, straight streets
and imposing facades, which arouse
foreign admiration, are rich sources
of evil, for they have brought terr1f1-
cally high rents, unhygienic construc-
ton and unexampled overcrowding.
This is the fault of the town planners,
who copied the concentrated building
system of Paris and Vienna, system
devised for medieval fortified towns
and useless for Berlin, which has no
Notifications.
BY planning broad streets and deep
| blocks the town planners compelled the
construction of five stored apartment
houses instead of the dispersed one
| family houses of America, England,
Holland and Belgium. The so called
flat barracks" dominate. The aver
age Berlin house shelters eighty-two
persons as against seven persons per
house in London and Antwerp.
On hygienic, social, moral and eco
nomic grounds the big apartment
house system is universally condemn
ed. The apartment houses are IN
healthy, being excessively hot in sum-
mer, thus conditioning high infant
mortality. Half the apartments look
on to airless, ljghtless courtyards. The
working class apartment houses have
no elevators. The bad results are
proved by the fact that the mortality
of women and of sufferers from heart
disease increases with each floor. The
apartment house prevents the owner
ship of a home, turns people into
nomads, produces overcrowding and
makes for higher rents
Germany now will take radical meas.
ures against these evils. Her methods
are three-f1rstly, new housing laws;
secondly, a campaign by the munich
palities against high rents and housing
famines; thirdly, the building Of work.
mems dwellings out Of public funds.
A powerful influence for the Inn
provement Of German housing is being
exercised by the state social insurance
system. The insurance organizations
have become capitalizers of the move
ment for providing working class dwell
| ings
In Hanover $1,000 workmen's houses
have been provided, the homes OF
about 250,000 persons. Berlin's second
mayor, Burgomaster Reicke, advo-
Gates a plan of housing Berlin's popu-
ation out Of insurance bureau accumu-
lations. He stands for building out
side the city vast settlement of model
working class houses. With him is an
other housing reformer, Professor e.
Francke the general secretary of the
Society For Social Reform. All these
houses would be owned by their ten
ants. Rapid underground communica.
tons would bring the workmen to the
center of the city in twenty minutes.
Other states than Prussia are legis-
lating and working in the same direc-
ton Bavaria will check the building
of apartment houses by changing the
police building lfws. Saxony will pre-
vent municipalities favoring the con-
struction Of dear and large apartments
to the exclusion Of workingmen. These
state initiatives have checked the de-
mand for an imperial housing law for
all Germany. but such law, say ex'
perts, is bound to come In few years.
His Idea Of Acting.