Posted on 04/08/2007 5:54:29 PM PDT by blam
E German towns 'left to poverty'
By Harry de Quetteville in Hoyerswerda
Last Updated: 1:10am BST 09/04/2007
After two decades of promises to revitalise its former communist east, Germany has abandoned swathes of the ex-GDR to poverty and depopulation, a scathing new report has revealed.
The trend, which has seen hundreds of thousands flee westwards from the neglect, is so bad that the old communist east is now studded with "ghost towns", it says.
The report, released late last month and called the Future Atlas 2007, is the most detailed examination of 439 towns and regions in Germany, and shatters the pledges made almost 20 years ago.
It reveals that investment worth hundreds of billions of pounds in selected eastern "hotspots" such as Dresden and Potsdam has helped resuscitate their once downtrodden economies.
But beyond these much publicised symbols of success, it says, is an economic desert where the concrete tenement blocks of communist times endure, but the communities, industries and jobs do not.
"The state has focused on economic clusters like Dresden in the east," said Peter Kaiser, the report's author. "But elsewhere people are running away.
"It's like the American Midwest after the gold rush. These are becoming ghost cities."
The town of Hoyerswerda, once a hub of East German industry with its highest birth rate, is at the bottom of the report's chart.
From a population high of 72,000 people, drawn 30 years ago to its coal mining, its power plant and glass factories, there remain only 40,000 today.
The vast majority, according to Peter Kaiser, have left in the last 10 years.
For those who remain in Hoyerswerda, the prospects are grim. Unemployment is well over double the national average.
On a Friday morning, its local mall was filled with working-age men and women.
"The work market is a disaster here," said Rene Bohm, 20, a sales assistant at a shoe shop.
"Young people like me don't stay, they leave. I'm saving up a bit and then I'll go too."
In a country renowned for its road network, Hoyerswerda is marooned from motorways. The 40 miles down the slow road to Dresden, the regional capital, takes more than an hour to drive. The economic gap is far wider.
The city once levelled by a single night's Allied bombing in 1945 is now a tribute to the regenerational power of money and political will.
Blindingly gilded statues glimmer as glistening trams swish silently by.
Tourists fill the city's many five star hotels before heading to its world class art galleries and opera house.
"We have islands of success in the east, like Dresden," said Peter Kaiser.
"But we have to face the fact that towns like Hoyerswerda have really very low future prospects. They might just disappear."
...what’s a mother to do???
Merkel’s fault.
East Germany wanted the West to come and rebuild their ruined cities for them after Communism ran them into the ground. It’s the same “come do it for us” syndrome that New Orleans has manifested after Katrina. Socialism cripples people so they can no longer fend for themselves but sit and wait for someone else to take care of them. Democrats are hoping to do that to the entire USA.
It’ll take time to repair the damage done by the communists. Sadly, people suffer.
Eventually, Germany will even out again; but it will take time: Horrible damage was done.
"It's like the American Midwest after the gold rush. These are becoming ghost cities."
Ummm...then maybe there is no reason for those cities to exist in the first place? Just because the Communists threw up a bunch of cheap concrete apartment blocks in these places doesn't mean they had any economic justification for doing so.
Sounds like the problem is solving itself - people are leaving the economic dead zones and going where the work is. Kind of like Michigan in the United States. ;)
Coming soon to West Germany if the trend continues toward socialism.
High taxes ?
Socialism ?
Communists ?
Apparently, West Germany already suffers greatly from the influx of East Germans. As I understand it, the unemployment has soared because of the load of job seekers from the East.
Do they know the cause of the bad fertility rate?
:-(
I figured that the Germans would filter back in to fill the niches once they reappear.
The trouble with East Germany is that it is dotted with 19th Century towns that have lost their reason to exist. The same thing happened to much of “small town middle America” in the last 70 years.
To make matters worse, much of the East is still suffering from the horrible ecological catastrophe known as communism. Terrible pollution with vicious toxic chemicals with take generations to erode through natural means.
However, this can be turned to the national advantage, by having the government buy up these ghost towns and their surroundings and converting them to nature conservatories. That is, to rebuild large forests instead of the tiny “volds” seen in the west.
Not as forest preserves, but as recreational forests that would not only help restore much of Germany’s depleted wildlife, but for national pride and enjoyment.
Then, after nature had cleaned up most of what the communists had contaminated, then they could start “sensible growth” back into those forests.
All of Europe is in a crisis of population decline. Only their ‘guest workers’ are growing in numbers through continued immigration and large birth rates. Here in the US, our native TFR is near zero. Slight positive rate to the national average is due to large families and birth rates of our immigrants.
No desire to marry, have families and shoulder responsibilities have very real consequences. You might say that we’re consuming our seed corn without regard to future crops. Abortion has killed 44 million fellow citizens in this country alone.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Why is the government responsible for the economic health of—anything? The government CANNOT run an economy—case in point—the Soviet Union.
They could build up the infrastructure—the highways & railroads. but anything else, it’s up to the people to get education and produce.
We're doing fine here in Columbus, thank you very much.
Not with their birthrate. They are finished as the Muzzies take over.
“As I understand it, the unemployment has soared because of the load of job seekers from the East.”
Then they need to turn loose the greatest system of wealth creation yet devised: capitalism. Slash taxes, shed the nanny state and provide other business incentives.
The German people are highly capable and industrious..... well at least they used to be. Some social remedies are in order as well.
Yeah, and sell the carbon credits from those preserves to AlGore to fob off on his hollywood friends.
Post #4 well said.
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