Located in Eastern Germany, Leipzig is well known
for its Oct 9th, 1989 peaceful candle protest. The peaceful candle
protest began in Nicolaikirche, an old church in downtown Leipzig, where people
gathered to stand up against the socialist GDR regime. As events continued to
unfold the Berlin Wall came down almost a month later and this led to German
Reunification. At the same time, however, this meant significant changes for
the city of Leipzig (and East Germany in general).
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| New Town Hall |
To learn more about this German city, we were lucky enough to be able to schedule a meeting at its
New Town Hall, focusing
on the topic of urban renewal. German reunification brought the city of Leipzig many new
challenges. After reunification, industries in Leipzig quickly closed down when exposed to the competitive nature of West Germany's capitalist market in the newly reunified Germany. This led to a
dramatic loss in jobs in Leipzig– about 100,000 jobs were lost in the 1990s.
To make matters worse for the city, many of its citizens decided to move to West Germany
in order to find employment. This resulted in a striking decline of
the city’s population and many vacant residential areas as people could not afford to pay rent anymore. This problem persists into today where many vacant buildings remain and/or are in need of serious renovation.
We were able to understand the effects of
reunification on Leipzig quite well because we had already seen a glimpse of them during our first day in
the city. While we were travelling on the streetcar from the train station to our
accommodation, we passed many abandoned looking buildings with metal bars on the windows which led us to ask ourselves: ‘Why does this neighbourhood look abandoned – is
it really? Why do the streets look so empty?’ The neighbourhood in which we stayed had an almost eerie quiet
atmosphere. At our town hall meeting, we learned that the
particular area we were staying in was the one that needed the most renovation. While this eerie, quiet, abandoned look was our first impression of the city, we soon discovered that
Leipzig has a different side to it - it is aiming to be a competitive and vibrant city.
Reunification brought many challenges to Leipzig, but the city
has been hard at work addressing them in order to make itself
more competitive and vibrant. In the last decade there was a slight increase in
population (from 493,000 to 522,000) in the city - mostly people migrating from other parts of East Germany - and Leipzig is doing its best to attract
new businesses. Right now Leipzig houses sites for BMW, Porsche, Amazon and
DHL. This is significant because it gives the city a good economic boost, in the wake of the great de-industrialization it faced only a couple decades ago. For example, when BMW
came to Leipzig about 5,000 new jobs were created. The city also has a number
of projects and commitments in place in hope of being able to attract new investment and people
looking for a place to call home. In order to ensure Leipzig would face the future and be able to
continuously adapt to its changing economy and demography the "Integrated City
Development Concept" was put into action in 2009. This plan focuses on many aspects such as
housing, education, civil society, culture, historical preservation, etc. This
vision falls in line with the Leipzig Charter on Sustainable European Cities
which shows that the European Union recognizes the important role of cities.
For information about the Leipzig Charter
link: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/archive/themes/urban/leipzig_charter.pdf
For a recent report
link: http://urbact.eu/en/projects/disadvantaged-neighbourhoods/lcfacil/news/?newsid=718
For a recent report
link: http://urbact.eu/en/projects/disadvantaged-neighbourhoods/lcfacil/news/?newsid=718
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| Mädler Passage Arcades |
Further transformation of the city will take time and effort as things
cannot simply be done overnight. One important aspect the city is prioritizing
is tourism and its downtown area. After settling in our accommodation we went
out to explore the city and found ourselves in the downtown core. The downtown area
was very polished, bright and busy, with simply amazing architecture. It
was evident that much investment had gone into the city's downtown core. One particularly spectacular building
was the Mädler Passage Arcades consisting of many high-end stores. The reason this area receives special attention is because, not only does it aim to attract different sorts of businesses and tourists in order to bring revenue into the city but it also presents itself as an attractive place for potential migrants looking for a city to settle in.
After visiting the central part of the city, we went on a
walking tour led by Dr. Bernd Adamek-Schyma. This tour opened our eyes to the
western part of the city and it was important to us because we were able to
explore an area where the average tourist would be unlikely to visit. Unlike
the area where our accommodations were located (in the east), the west part of
the city was much brighter and many renovations were underway. The
neighbourhoods we passed by in this part of the city appeared to be very close-knit and almost everyone in the community
seemed to know each other.
Guardian Houses
One of the things that stood out for me the most was the concept
of a guardian house. (Wächterhaus) It’s quite a fascinating project which was initiated by HausHalten
e.V and is supported by the city of Leipzig and the European
Parliament. The purpose of the project is to bring people
into vacant residential areas. As mentioned earlier, as a result of reunification the city has many vacant
buildings due to out-migration and unemployment. As many of these buildings have remained empty for years they have begun to
deteriorate and we now have what we would call, ghost neighbourhoods. The HausHalten
e.V established itself in order to help address the problem and preserve the buildings.
The way this project works is that the owner of a vacant building provides living
space for the tenant rent-free. The types of tenants consist of students, artists,
and entrepreneurs. They move into these
buildings and in return cover maintenance costs and ‘look after’ the space. This
in turns prevents the building from further decay and it is the tenant’s
responsibility to keep the space in good shape. The tenant and owner enter
into a legal framework which mediates their relationship.
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| Sign above door indicating that it is a guardian house |
This is a great idea because not only does it revive neighbourhoods
but it also helps to preserve historical buildings. Leipzig has many 19thcentury buildings in rough shape and this project can help maintain them. As
people move in, they take care of the space as if it were their own living space and the
buildings come alive once again – in this sense they are the guardians of the building. Many
of the tenants tend to be artists who use these building as a way to display their creativity. This is particularly
great because it gives the city a cultural dimension.
If you're interested in this subject, there is a video I found on YouTube which delves into the specifics of the concept, and can help give a visual of the city and the projects in progress.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGeUPre2_lI
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| Scenery from our walk near the end of the tour |
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