Posted on 08/21/2014 1:34:28 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Home to two thirds of Germany’s population, many of its small cities and towns are struggling to revive their declining centers. […]
Big box stores on their outskirts, online shops and the proximity of larger, better serviced cities have all eaten away at the share of the retail market available to businesses that once thrived in smaller towns, says the expert in trade and retail at Niederrhein University.
In Delmenhorst, it’s a perfect storm. The retiree Bieler has watched big retail chains like Kik and Kaufland set up and thrive on the outskirts. And he’s seen how people gravitated more and more towards Bremen, a city of nearly 550,000 people only a few kilometers away, seeking jobs and commerce. “The loss of jobs here has cut down the purchasing power of citizens,” says Bieler, which immediately impacts on local trade.
The unemployment rate in Delmenhorst has hovered around 10.5 percent for the last three years, significantly higher than the current national rate of 6.6 percent. The town was also once a hub for the local textiles industry, making clothing that was known across Germany. …
(Excerpt) Read more at thelocal.de ...
Same thing going on here in the US. Probably not much can be done about it though. In fact, big box stores such as Best Buy are struggling. Tire kickers use them to preview and item then find it cheaper on line. But, someone once said “change is the only constant”. And, it is.....
I think eradicating socialism would be a good start.
Big problem in the US; high taxes for bloated bureaucracy chase many people and businesses away from established downtown areas (even in suburbs, in the case of NJ). People are coming to understand that the price of maintaining our government worker class is killing them, and those built-in costs are rising constantly (often related to people who retired years ago).
The politicization of race issues hasn’t helped; an increasing number of people see no reason to expose themselves to the unassimilated predators that frequent such places.
More than costs for bureaucracy, is the availability of transportation. Prior to ~1910 most of the US had a small market every 3-10 miles with ~6 miles being quite common. The smallest dried up and blew away before 1930. With those large enough to have broader services lasting into the 1970s. It is the availability of personal travel that killed the small towns.
That certainly started the trend; the loss of urban jobs killed suburbs as well. Why live close to our unassimilated permanent underclass when more and more people commute from one suburb to another? In my area, office parks have sprung up in suburbs that have made the concept of a city obsolete; as a result, the encircling towns serve no other purpose than housing the imported Hispanics and Asians.
Sounds like the “No More Walmart” crowd is going to start learning Austrian.
Keine Kaufland
Urban obsolescence bump for later....
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