
Future Leipzig: Incredible Shrinking City (2015) - Tomte
https://www.inverse.com/article/5287-future-leipzig-the-incredible-shrinking-city
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thecivil
i find this arcticle almost completely misleading. just a couple of thoughts:

the city "once boasting a population of over 700,000" never saw more than
600,000 people after 1957. it's correct that it lost about 100,000 between
1990 and 2000, but as it is gaining more than 10,000 per annum for a couple of
years now, it is approaching 600,000 in 2017 or 2018. in fact, it is the
fastest growing city in germany[1]. i don't see how this correponds to "Since
2007, the city is regaining some population at a very slow level." Concerning
vacant houses: "large parts of the city still remain quite empty" is definitly
untrue. There's almost nothing left of the huge vacancy of the 90s and
property prices skyrocketed.

long story short: think this article is a fairly accurate description of the
situation of the Leipzig -- fifteen years ago.

[1] [http://leipglo.com/2015/12/09/germanys-fastest-growing-
city/](http://leipglo.com/2015/12/09/germanys-fastest-growing-city/)

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323454
Seems like Leipzig would be an excellent place to work remotely. Cheap
lifestyle, good proximity to interesting places like Berlin and maybe some
cool stuff of its own going on.

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jhbadger
I visited Leipzig and quite liked it. It has a lot of Bach-related things as
he worked most of his life and died there.

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mk89
Funny that this article does not even mention once that East Germany is pretty
well known for right-party extremists - and this might be one of the reasons
of its shrinkage, instead of further development.

As a non German native, I find this one of the main reasons not to live in
such a city. As far as I know ( but please don't take my words for granted )
Germany is investing pretty much to develop and to grow in this region (lower
tax rates/fares for mortgages, lower house prices, and so forth), due to the
fact it was deeply underdeveloped compared to the rest of Germany before/after
1990. However, my understanding is that this region is destined to be the
"cheap" region with low paid salaries (companies like Zalando hire there). It
would be a cool idea to attract cheaper workers, but first they need to solve
these "right-party" problems - but this won't change any time soon,
considering the political situation in Germany.

This is the region you hear about in the news when they mention people with
"molotov against refugees camp" or similar episodes; this is the region Pegida
comes from: exactly the cultural hub of Germany. Seriously? Germans are not
like that (and if you talk with many of them, you'll realize it).

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martin_a
While it´s true that lots of the right extremist stuff started in East
Germany, you have to see that there is a nationwide rise in right party
activities and election shares. I think it´s also a European problem caused by
the "refugee crisis" at all.

National "sponsorship" was a big deal in East Germany to develop that part of
the country after the fall of the DDR and the Berlin wall. It didn´t work out
so well, I think. Lots of companies moved over there, took the money they
could get and moved on, once funding was over and you could produce (cheaper)
somewhere else. Some companies obviously stayed, yes, but they do not
necessarily provide well paid jobs, so the overall living standard won´t
increase for most of the people, although rent, taxes and more are lower in
some areas, yes.

This is what frustates people and makes them throw molotov cocktails against
refugee camps, because they think the refugees are the problem. This damages
the areas' reputation and keeps companies from starting there. I think the
situation "over there" is quite complex and will keep Germany troubled for
quite some time.

What I like about East Germany is the nature. There are really some quite
untouched places which are great for holidays. I´d love to have a house or an
old farm over there, somewhere in the nowhere for the times you want to get
down.

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mk89
It's pretty well known everywhere in Germany that East Germany is more right
wing than other regions - at least all people I spoke with, who live in the
West/South-West and North of Germany - and it was already like this before the
"refugees" crisis (as we Europeans call it).

I am sorry, but you can't minimize the issue to "they think the refugees are
the problem because of +30 years old problems". I don't know the history of
Germany in the last 30 years, but I find it more correct to say that these
people are just extremists because of other issues (the frustration was
already there before refugees came).

I just found the article pretty biased. This is more marketing than
journalism: hiding important negative aspects of your product while
highlighting what you want to sell. But after all, Germany is getting better
and better at it, unfortunately ... :(

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martin_a
Oh yeah, East Germany always had a, "well-earned", bad reputation concerning
racists or right wing extremists. I don´t want to question that and I don´t
want to minimize the issue, I just wanted to point out that right-wing
positions are on a rise all over Germany, so it´s nothing "exclusive" to the
East anymore.

And the frustration surely arises from lots of reasons, the refugees are just
an easy outlet for those people there now. Like the somewhat-undefined
unhappiness of the last 30 years can now be pointed to the refugess. That
obviously is not true, but some people benefit from the fact that other people
think that way.

I am totally with you that the article is not very well written regarding
that. Perhaps the whole situation is not very known to the author and he most
probably had some official documents and marketing brochures as sources and
you will most probably not find "East Germany is nice, except that we like to
hit immigrants and burn their houses down." in there.

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mk89
> ... and he most probably had some official documents and marketing brochures
> as sources and you will most probably not find "East Germany is nice, except
> that we like to hit immigrants and burn their houses down." in there.

LOL!

