Infrastrukturnetze und soziale Ungleichheit. Die historische Perspektive

Abstract

The paper aims to question, how far the current goals of infrastructural provision – to provide for a basically equal and universally accessible provision of basis services of energy, hygiene and communication for everyone – were present and relevant in the initial phases of introduction and diffusion in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. It shows, that the theoretical availability of gas, water and electricity and the actual usage in private households differed widely in the phase of introduction. Municipalisation of utilities guaranteed municipal control but was frequently used more to bolster municipal revenue rather than introduce social rates in order to push usage across socially wider ranges of the citizenship. The use of public transit differed according to the policy employed in terms of fares and network coverage. However, the combined influence of hygiene movement and housing reform by 1900 exerted pressure to introduce bath rooms, WCs and modern gas-fired kitchens also in lower class housing which however had to wait until the bottle-necks of World War I in lighting provision and the breakthrough of public housing policy after World War I to materialize.