Leipzig

Though the underdeveloped east Germany has come a long way since then, the wounds inflicted during the 40 long years of communist rule is yet to heal in Leipzig, the second largest city in the eastern part of the country, next to the capital, Berlin. The city planners are now keeping their fingers crossed over the looming possibility of Leipzig plunging into what they call “the second phase of shrinking.”

Contrary to the problem of booming cities in India, including Bangalore, Leipzig with its 5.40 lakh inhabitants has been experiencing the unique and dangerous crisis of shrinkage -- both in terms of urban space and demography. Thousands of old residential apartments have remained abandoned, youth are migrating to other cities (mostly those in the western part of Germany) in large numbers and the city’s population is fast growing older.

Latest statistics on the demography of Leipzig obtained from the Free State of Saxony (Leipzig is a city in the Saxony province), depict a gloomy picture: the average age of people is 44 years (it was 43.9 in 2006), number of youth in the age group of 15 to 18 years has declined to 7,694 from 12,940 in 2006, number of working population in the age group of 15 to 45 years has seen decreasing tread from 1,04,904 in 2006 to 1,04,400 in 2010 and number of aged people (above 65 years) has increased from 1,10,340 in 2006 to 1,17,167 in 2010. More surprising is that the death rate is more than the birth rate: While 5,788 people died in 2010, just about 5,414 births have been recorded in the same year.

This is despite both the local and Federal governments spending an impressive 6.70 million Euros on giving the much-needed facelift to the city in the last 15 years. The city infrastructure has been upgraded on par with other German cities. Leipzig has an effective public transportation service with trams and taxies, swanky shopping malls and boutiques and plenty of green space.

Old coal mines skirting the city were closed and converted into beautiful water bodies, and hundreds of parks and gardens were developed to make the city an attractive place for people to live. Big ticket companies like Porsche, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, DHL and Siemens were successfully wooed to set up shops here. However, the effort does not seem to be yielding the desired results and the problem of shrinkage continues to persist.

Similar has been problem with many of the smaller east German cities like Dresden and Halle. Of late, tax-payers in western part of Germany are said to be grumbling about the government’s huge spending on rejuvenating eastern cities.

The city planners blame it on the 40 years of communist rule (1949 to 1989). Records at the city archives show Leipzig as a booming and vibrant city with nearly 7 lakh inhabitants in 1920’s. It came under the grip of communism after two world wars. The then socialist regime did not bother to build and upgrade the infrastructure nor did it allow owners of private buildings to repair and upkeep their properties.

Absolute rights

The regime had fixed the house rent so low that the owners could not even afford taking up repair works, let alone re-building. Moreover, owners were not having absolute rights over their properties. When Leipzig reunited with West Germany along with other East German cities, the urban space had literally decayed. And soon after the fall of the communist regime, about one lakh people lost their jobs due to massive de-industrialisation (most of the coal mines were closed as they had caused wide-spread environmental damage), and they all migrated to other cities, Kersten Gerkens, head of the Office for Urban Regeneration and Residential Development, Leipzig, explained.

As a result, the city’s population shrank from 5.80 lakh to 4.80 lakh in 1990s and about 60,000 residential apartments became empty in the heart of the city. Since then, a number of rejuvenation prorgammes have been implemented to re-use the old buildings, including ‘watcher house project’ wherein a private individual or a commercial enterprise will use the building after restoring it and she/he or the enterprise need not have to pay anything to the owner.

Still, of 2.50 lakh residential complexes in the city, about 16,000 of them are vacant and they are in dilapidated condition, and there are no takers for thousands of housing units which are fit for living. The small amount of developments in the urban space that has happened over the last few years are concentrated on the outskirts of the city. Those who are staying in the city are not eager to use the old buildings, leading to shrinkage in the core of the city.

The city government has demolished as many as 14,000 dilapidated buildings in last the one decade and tried to re-use the space. “We are now concentrating on about 2,500 old and vacant buildings located on the main thoroughfares. They are denting the image of the city. We are tracing the owners and persuading them to renovate the buildings. Of late, people from outside are investing on properties in Leipzig and we hope that the trend will pick up in coming days,” Gerkens said.

Experts have predicted that if the present tread of demographic shrinkage continues, the city population would come down to around 4.50 lakh from the present 5.40 lakh by 2015. The city planners are now worried and are closely watching the development, hoping against hope that Leipzig will soon get back its past glory as an emerging urban centre in east Germany.

NOTE BY THE LVZ EDITORIAL OFFICE:

This article, which was written for publication in the Deccan Herald by our guest journalist (using his own research) is based on incorrect figures.

According to the Quarterly Statistical Report (published on 19 August 2011, source: City of Leipzig, Urban Planning Office) Leipzig has a population of 523,815. The predicted population for 2015 is approx. 532,000.
According to the 2010 Monitoring Report, approx. 13,000 subsidized dwellings have been dismantled – i.e. torn down –in Leipzig since 2001.
According to the 2010 Housing Market Report, residential vacancies in Leipzig in 2009 took up about 11 percent of almost 316,000 dwellings.

The author has been informed.