Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/462

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444 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

appreciation of the department officials. The importance of art in such matters is coming more and more to realization, but does not yet seem to be definitely recognized in the complicated boards of public works. The arrangement, direction, and width of streets are planned, as are paving, drainage, and sewerage; the division of the city into residence, factory, and business quarters is in the hands of the Baupolizei; the building line, the proportion of the building lot to be left vacant, the size and form of court areas, the amount of light and air a room should possess proportional to the number of persons for whom it is planned are decided by the same department ; sections of the city are set aside for detached or semi-detached houses, others for tene- ment rows, and parks are laid out by them ; further regulations as to size, height, materials, and general style are made by this same building department.

A few specific building regulations will serve to show the working of the plan. In Mannheim a house may not be taller than the distance between it and the opposite building line, and the maximum height is twenty meters. Windows must open upon streets or upon courts, and must be of specified size so as to furnish a sufficient amount of light and air. In Breslau, not more than three-tenths, or on corners five-tenths, of the lot is to be built upon in dwelling-house (i. e., "tenement row") dis- tricts. The height of these buildings is fixed by the breadth of the street, with twelve meters as the minimum and fifteen meters as the maximum height. In sections where detached houses are the rule, the front garden is arranged for, and houses are not allowed to approach the neighbor's line nearer than five meters (leaving a minimum of ten meters between houses); and the house must on all sides have a presentable appearance. In such buildings windows are allowed in the side walls though where the distance between houses, as in more closely built districts (e. g. y semi-detached) is less than ten meters, the side walls must be left blank ! Why an extra window on the side, even though it did not add a specified quantum of light and air, would not be better than a blank wall, it is hard to see. Chem- nitz differs from most German cities in not having definitely