Posted April 9, 200718 yr That recent thread about US vs Euro cities got me thinking of what I recalled about Germany, so here is a take on Eurosprawl, based on interpretation of aeriel photogs and google images (plus a little of what I know about the area in real life) Back in the Kaiserzeit and Weimar Republic Berlin used to be considered the most Americanized city in Germany, the German Chicago. During the Bonn Republic it is was Frankfurt am Main. Frankfurt as “Americanized” actually goes back pretty far, even before the skyscraper boom, possibly due to it being the HQ of the US Occupation, and later a big Cold War US military presence (now mostly gone). In any case Frankfurt is the only city in Germany that I know of that has a downtown skyscraper cluster the way North American cities do. …and Frankfurt is the center of an urban region made up of 5 other cities, including two state capitals (one of which, Wiesbaden, was a smallish village at the start of the 19th century). The Rhine-Main Region is Germanys “tri-state” metro area as in covers three German states, with Bavarian Aschaffenburg being brought into this urban constellation in recent years. What I will be looking at is three representative examples of Eurorsprawl in this region, noted on the map Though we love to talk about Europe’s great rail and public transit system the Germans love their cars, and need plenty of limited access highways to drive them on. Sure, the trains are there, but what do the Germans prefer to use to get around…? (here is the expressway system for the Frankfurt metro area, in green. We designate our freeways as I- this or I- that. The Germans use E, as in E-5, E-3, etc.) And with lots of cars on the road comes lots of traffic, including the “stau” or jam. Sometimes these can last for up to two hours. (incidentally the HH on that license plate in one of the pix does not mean Hilton Head, but Hamburg. Germans apparently still use place-designators in their license plate numbers) The state that Frankfurt is in, Hesse, is trying to do various traffic management things, like these freeway cams that you can check online to see how traffic is. Louisville, KY, has a similar system, …as you can see this is a very car-dependent or car-oriented culture, so lets see how this plays out in suburban Frankfurt. Lets look at a place north of town, Rossbach. This place is conveniently located off a freeway interchange…what you see are two former farming villages, grown considerably due to suburbanization, with industrial and commercial development between. Taking a close up look at the fringes of one of the towns. ..with some detail labeled, including some guess by me as to what’s down there (I am actually somewhat familiar with the place in real-life). As you can see sprawly large “auto-scale” things are happening here, as they are in the USA Suburbia in Rossbach? The Germans like their faux gingerbread too, as well as a lot of landscaping…wohnen im grune Near to Rosbach, but farther from the autobahn and a tad closer to Frankfurt is Rodheim. This is an interesting example as you can see how the place has grown by subdivisions being tacked on to one another as the place grew from farming village to suburb (but there probably is still some farming going on, as in the US outer ‘burbs), and as ribbon fields go to seed, as farmers drop out of the business… New subdivision and some larger scale industrial or commercial stuff along the rail line Example of new development tacked on to the old town. An interesting thing here is the increase in density, as some of the older subdivisions look like they may be single family, while the new development is maybe duplexes or more…maybe an indication of the property market in this hot growth area of Germany Multifamily German suburbia in Rodheim…. The above two examples are in a county just north of Frankfurt, sort of like Warren County is just north of Cincinnati. This next suburb is technically part of Wiesbaden, though it really is a village that was annexed to Wiesbaden via a local government reform in the 1970s. What makes this place interesting is its very US style freeway –interchange oriented retail development. Very good location on the autobahn between Frankfurt and Wiesbaden.. And a little map showing all the retail possibilities here. The Germans sort of group their strip development into little industrial parks (there may be some industry here as well as commercial stuff). Some of the big German retailers are here, as per some of the names on the map. Auto-oriented retail, Eurostyle…. …and, of course, the Ramada Inn…. …and a fairly big big-box (for Germany), this is Real, which bought out some German Wal-Marts a while back …getting away from the shopping complex, houses, with their back yards and garages, just like the USA..but note the mix of single family and duplex, as in the above examples…. House for sale….mit der big Picture Window, und fancy front door….. Closing with the icon of German suburbia, now gone European- wide…… (it is interesting to compare the Rhine-Main region with Daytonnati/SW Ohio, as you can see some similarities, but big differences in how they deal with sprawly, auto-scale land use like industrial and retail. Instead of strip development between village/suburbs, they cluster this stuff into little industrial parks)
April 9, 200718 yr Yes it is sprawl...but nothing like the beast that exists in the states. On a side note...could we all quit using the disgusting 'Daytonnati' term! No one has come up with a lame combo name for the east coast megalopolis...nor does any choose to. The same goes for Dallas-Ft Worth...you just say both names ie Cincinnati-Dayton Metro. [/rant]
April 9, 200718 yr ...nothing like here primarily because our population has grown by over 100 million since 1945 while theirs has only grown by 12 million. I say it over and over again but this fact is always met with hostility. Also their population is expected to nose-dive in upcoming decades with the most dire prediction a reduction from the current 85 million to 20 million by 2100. Meanwhile ours is expected to easily grow by another 100 million in that time. It's a completely different situation.
April 9, 200718 yr I bet people who live in these types of developments in the Fatherland take a lot of shit for living in them.
April 9, 200718 yr Yes it is sprawl...but nothing like the beast that exists in the states. On a side note...could we all quit using the disgusting 'Daytonnati' term! No one has come up with a lame combo name for the east coast megalopolis...nor does any choose to. The same goes for Dallas-Ft Worth...you just say both names ie Cincinnati-Dayton Metro. [/rant] ever hear of Boswash?
April 9, 200718 yr I bet people who live in these types of developments in the Fatherland take a lot of shit for living in them. I doubt it. Europeans aren't actually morally superior people to Americans, unlike the average blogger on UrbanOhio. (it is interesting to compare the Rhine-Main region with Daytonnati/SW Ohio, as you can see some similarities, but big differences in how they deal with sprawly, auto-scale land use like industrial and retail. Instead of strip development between village/suburbs, they cluster this stuff into little industrial parks) I was in Trier in the summer of 2000, which is on the Moselle, just west of the Frankfurt Rhein/Main area you are describing. I thought that the area actually looked quite similar to the Ohio valley. As I tried to describe to my suburban living hosts, the two areas appeared very similar except the hills around the Moselle were tiefer (steeper) and Cincinnati was schwueller (more humid). Of course schwuel (humid) sounded very similar to schwul (slang for gay) and my German was subpar (below par) so I'm not sure what came across. Now that I think about it right after I made the comparison my hosts broke out some kick-ass local white wine (Moselwein). Oh yeah, we don't have hillside vineyards in Cincinnati either.
April 9, 200718 yr If you want to see more views of the suburbs of European cities, check out Wendell Cox's www.rentarcartours.net site. Even if you don't agree with Cox, his cataloging of the sprawl in Europe is interesting.
April 9, 200718 yr Sprawl is ugly and inefficient. There are ways of creating healthier suburbs incorporating new urbanism principles that most of the suburban/exurban market would go for. They don't have to be 5 story row houses. This "sprawl" isn't nearly as bad as in the U.S. Residential streets look much more accessible than in the states where you have to drive 1/5th of a mile to get out of your subdivision onto the street that's right up against your house but blocked by your cul-de-sac. But I guess when you pay 5 bucks for a gallon of gas you see things differently.
April 9, 200718 yr Germanys low and negative population growth is one of the reasons the German govt. sponsored that Shrinking Cities exhibit, as it is an issue for them. In the case of this urban region, the area did see population growth in the first postwar decade due to refugee resettlment and the German version of the postwar baby boom, then decline in the later 1960s and 70s. Population growth picked up again in the 1980s. This region increased in population by 9% between 1980 and 2000, with most of the growth coming in the later 1980s and 1990s. ange. Suburbanization really started in earnest in the 1970s, though. Growth was not evenly distributed, with the suburban areas growing on average by 15%, and some areas growing even quicker. The towns in and beyond that hill country you see in the backround in the first pic increased by 30% during the 1980-1990 period (some of these places, like Usinginen, are actually pretty far out...I knew them as being country towns well out of the orbit of Frankfurt). Some inner city areas and areas with declining industry lost population or stagnated (similar to the US). Over the last two decades only 18 of the 359 municipalities...lost population. While the number of inhabitants in the urban centres stagnated, the ring areas continued to be strongly affected by the suburbanization processess,, Whereas in the 1980s the inner rings adjacent to urban cores could gain population in the 1990s strong increases could be recorded on the fringes of the..region. By increasing their population many municipalities in the suburban areas could prosper as the process of suburbanization is socially selective: socially deprived groups are concentrated in the old urban cores while wealthier groups are able to commute from their homes in the green belt to their workplace ...Source: EU document "Polynet Action 1.1" ...sound familiar? Another thing that might be driving growth further out is the high cost of housing, as this is one of the more expensive parts of Germany (same is happening in high cost US metros). But theres more. Not only are people suburbanizing, so are jobs: "The number of people in employment has also been rising, especially in the services sector. This urbanization in the residential and employment fields is continuing. Communities close to and further away from central cities are becoming increasingly attractive as places to live. At the same time, there is a `relocation of manufacturing jobs, but also of logistical, distribution, and administrative functions to (municipalities) outside the central cities, accompanied by rising concentration of `high-quality' tertiary white-collar jobs in the higher order centres'. (26) The consequences of these developments are growing commuter flows, a continuous growth in road and traffic density, and a persisting demand for land for settlement purposes." Source: Deutsche Institute fur Urbanistik occasional paper: Major Cities and their Peripheries: Frankfurt and the Frankfurt Region Current population is around 4M- 5M, with Frankfurt city being around 600,000. The other cities in the region are in the 200,000 to 100,000 size range. So this is somewhat comparable to the two big Ohio city regions of NE and SW Ohio. I am curious about this growth rate of 9% over 20 years as being comparble to Ohio urban regions. I guess one could take the old CSMSA pops (including smaller citys like Springfield, Lorain, etc that are part of ther region) and do a comparison to see if the 20 year % increases are comparable. The issue here though was investigating how suburbanization is done elsewhere. It is interesting that the Germans, though they are having inner city decline, still manage to have lively inner citys. And they also have a very comprehensive mass transit system... ...which might still make sense as there is still a big employement center in downtown Frankfurt (peope working in those skyscrapers). But will it become increasing irrelevant as this region becomes more decentralized in terms of jobs and where people live, as seems to be the case?
April 9, 200718 yr Yes it is sprawl...but nothing like the beast that exists in the states. On a side note...could we all quit using the disgusting 'Daytonnati' term! No one has come up with a lame combo name for the east coast megalopolis...nor does any choose to. The same goes for Dallas-Ft Worth...you just say both names ie Cincinnati-Dayton Metro. [/rant] ever hear of Boswash? I thought is was Bosnewash (BOS nee wash)
April 9, 200718 yr This "sprawl" isn't nearly as bad as in the U.S. Residential streets look much more accessible than in the states where you have to drive 1/5th of a mile to get out of your subdivision onto the street that's right up against your house but blocked by your cul-de-sac. On the ground these places are noticeably different as there are sidewalks everywhere, and these sidewalks sometimes turn into field paths or bike paths that connect the village-suburbs. The biggest difference, and what I like about how this area has developed, is that you have a sort of "Pepperoni Pizza Suburbia", with these enlarged villages (Pepperoni slices) in a sea of farmland (the cheese base)...you dont see subdivisions out in the middle of farmland. So, visually, the area looks somewhat rural, but economically it is suburbia. Here is a pix at ground level of that Rosbach area I posted in the thread header Also the examples I show all grew around a historic core...an old farming village, usually with an old village church as the centerpiece...here is the old village center in that Rodheim place in the thread header: Now, here in SW Ohio we actually do have some of that of that ass well...old coutnry villages and crossroads settlements (though not in such a density as in Germany, or so old and built-up...we are in North America after all), but we don't really use these old 19th century places as nodes around which to cluster development. Maybe we can do suburbia better here in America, to better fit in with our landscape and enhance our small country places.
April 9, 200718 yr Yes it is sprawl...but nothing like the beast that exists in the states. On a side note...could we all quit using the disgusting 'Daytonnati' term! No one has come up with a lame combo name for the east coast megalopolis...nor does any choose to. The same goes for Dallas-Ft Worth...you just say both names ie Cincinnati-Dayton Metro. [/rant] ever hear of Boswash? How often is the term Boswash used in conversation?? Does anyone actually refer to it as such....I always hear people refer to it as 'the east coast' or the 'northeast'.
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