Mapping the Housing Question: Social Segregation as Reflected in the Housing Enquets at the End of the 19th Century
Sebastian Kohl
Florian Müller
Supported by the research fund "Forschung 'Ellen Rifkin Hill'"
At the end of the 19th century, rapidly growing European cities were characterized by a large social housing and rent inequality, which was documented in detail by contemporary housing surveys. The project aims to use these surveys to gain new insights into inner-city segregation in a comparative perspective. The interdisciplinary project investigates the Swiss and German housing inquiries as examples of urban spatial inequalities in the distribution of housing space, housing comfort, and rent burden and visualizes them using the innovative approach of the historical geographic information system HGIS. Visualization using GIS allows us to draw more precise conclusions about the spatial segregation of urban populations by dwelling size, dwelling amenities, and rental prices, and to compare these with historical indicators between neighborhoods and cities and over time. The analysis of housing inquires promises to add to the existing research literature on the social segregation of European cities at the end of the 19th century on two levels. On the one hand, we would like to use the detailed surveys to comprehensively present segregation at the neighborhood level for the first time. On the other hand, we would like to make use of the unusually rich and relatively standardized housing surveys to compare Swiss and German cities comparatively.
