Emil Sax · 1869
Emil Sax’s 1869 pamphlet presents regulation of the Danube as an opportunity to transform Vienna’s housing system. Moving from statistical diagnosis through political economy and urban history to a development proposal, he argues that increased construction alone cannot remedy housing distress. Reform requires coordinated expansion, single-family dwellings, wider access to ownership, and land acquisition before river regulation raises prices.
Housing distress means more than high rents. Overcrowding, inadequate ventilation, and deficient sanitation make accommodation a question of public health and domestic life. Sax measures inequality through access to elementary environmental benefits:
Ist es Uebertreibung, zu sagen, daß für die min- der begüterten Classen der Bevölkerung die freiwilligen Gaben der Natur: Sonnenlicht, frische Luft und reines Wasser, fast zum Luxus geworden sind?
English translation: Is it an exaggeration to say that for the less well-to-do classes of the population the free gifts of nature — sunlight, fresh air, and pure water — have almost become a luxury?
His concern for health accompanies a normative ideal of family privacy and stability. Housing reform promises material improvement and moral discipline; his criticism of working-class domestic conditions is therefore a social programme as well as a sanitary diagnosis.
Sax places his intervention within an established controversy:
Die ungeheure Steigerung des Wohnungsmangels und der Miethzinse im Laufe und gegen Ausgang der fünfziger Jahre mußte natürlich die Publicistik viel beschäftigen.
English translation: The tremendous increase in the shortage of housing and in rents in the course of and towards the close of the fifties necessarily occupied the public press a great deal.
Demolition of the fortifications, expanded credit, building concessions, tax exemptions, and competition had stimulated construction without eliminating scarcity. Comparing population, houses, dwellings, rents, and occupancy, Sax argues that households increasingly paid more for less space. One comparison captures the disparity:
Während des folgenden Decenniums gestaltete sich das Mißverhältniß noch ärger; es vermehrte sich nämlich die Bevölkerung der Reichshauptstadt um 22½%, die Zahl der Häuser dagegen nur um 6%.
English translation: During the following decade the disproportion grew still worse; for the population of the imperial capital increased by 22½%, whereas the number of houses increased by only 6%.
The argument goes beyond a numerical shortage of buildings. Sax identifies the continental multi-household building system, or Casernement, as a mechanism reproducing scarcity. Concentrating residents raises land rents, absorbing construction savings and obstructing affordable expansion. He contrasts this with England’s Cottagesystem, which brings house and family dwelling into closer correspondence. While acknowledging severe deprivation among English workers, he distinguishes it from Vienna’s generalized housing distress.
Building form and tenure are inseparable in this account. Smaller houses allow families to become owners and mobilize their resources instead of depending exclusively on landlords. Ownership also avoids rental charges covering damage, arrears, and vacancies. The economic case supports an ideal of independent households attached to home, property, and the existing social order.
Urban history explains the persistence of dense housing. Fortifications compelled cities to build upward; habit preserved this form after its necessity disappeared. Rising land values then made continued density appear unavoidable. Sax reverses the apparent causal relationship: expensive land is not merely a reason for intensive development but also its historical consequence.
Following Faucher, he proposes planned settlements beyond land already valued for dense construction. Wealthier households would move first into houses with gardens, connected to the city by inexpensive transport. Their departure would release existing accommodation and weaken speculative valuations of intervening land. Changes in working hours and the separation of business premises from residence would facilitate this reorganization.
The Danube lands give the programme its Viennese application. A large enterprise should acquire extensive territory on both banks before anticipated development increases its price. Nearby sites would accommodate middle-class households, while more distant reserves would support eventual working-class provision. Commercial and industrial land sales would contribute to profitability. Streets, tramways, bridges, gardens, utilities, and markets require coordination, alongside attention to groundwater and industrial waste. Houses could form continuous terraces: the essential principle is a separate family dwelling, not architectural isolation.
Private enterprise would implement the project under public direction. State and municipal land transfers, municipal investment, and, if necessary, expropriation would secure land and enforce the undertaking’s social purpose. Instalment purchases and temporary repurchase rights would promote ownership while restraining speculation. Sax warns that piecemeal development risks reproducing expensive housing patterns and that tax relief may ultimately enrich landowners. His distinctive contribution connects infrastructure, land values, tenure, and domestic reform: public works can relieve housing distress only when their spatial consequences and development gains are deliberately governed.
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