
Freiburg: Germany's futuristic city set in a forest - mitchbob
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20200715-freiburg-germanys-futuristic-city-set-in-a-forest
======
woodpanel
_Apparently, owning a car is the easiest way to commit social suicide in
Vauban_ — That is the spirit unfortunately.

Unfortunately, because once you allow to degrade strangers/neighbors in public
for something malign like that, it doesn’t stop there.

Because of this Vauban is not always admired, rather sometimes regarded as tax
payer funded dystopia for upper class people to live in.

E.g. your amount of thrash you can dispose per month is highly regulated, via
communal key-card opened dumpsters. Once you’ve reached your threshold, the
dumpsters stay closed. If you ever where to forget, say, your toddlers diapers
you have two options:

Enjoy the smell for the remaining time period or brace for the walk of shame
of asking your neighbors to forgive your sin, alleviate your family from the
smell and selflessly take in your diapers. Rest assured that this selflessness
will at least come with an inquiry of why you aren‘t using reusable diapers in
the first place.

Alas, people who are annoyed by this leave, with the share of those who think
such behavior is ok ever increases.

~~~
Fishysoup
This has been my experience with Germany / Switzerland as well. Very
punishment-based

~~~
neuronic
Yes, it's called social responsibility.

Vauban is very special and strange even for German eyes. But one thing is
abundantly clear among many German communities:

The egocentric individualism where all the problems you produce are offloaded
to some ephemeral society funded by taxes you don't want to pay is not
sustainable unless you exploit external communities around you.

~~~
Fishysoup
Right. If your job as a Phillip Morris or Nestle exec (both headquartered in
Switzerland) makes people's lives a lot worse in some other part of the world
but you don't leave your garbage bin out before 8pm the day before it's
collected, then you're a model citizen.

Conversely if you need to do laundry in your apartment building on a holiday
because you're a single parent, that's an outrage. The person leaving all the
racist and xenophobic notes about respecting local traditions is a model
citizen.

------
tannhaeuser
Freiburg is a super nice place as long as you've got disposable income to
spend to live in one of the preferred quarters, like Wiehre, Herdern, etc. If
you don't, then like in many south-German cities (located in mountain valleys
where space is scarce), you're living in a place without any green in sight
(ok Freiburg's Stühlinger is quite green, and still affordable, though I'm
guessing it's been getting more expensive in recent years). The problem with
living in Vauban-style high-tech houses with photovoltaics, ground energy,
etc. is the cost of maintenance, or finding people for maintenance in the
first place. We really only can tell something about sustainability towards
the end of life of polystyrole or mineral wool walls (30 years?).

~~~
ChuckNorris89
I live in Austria and it's the same. Houses in the urban forests are really
picturesque and a marker for high quality of life but unless you're a 10%er
millionaire they're out of reach. Everyone else is cramped in concrete blocks
but of course, that's rarely shown in photos or articles.

~~~
tluyben2
Just clicking around on real estate sites, large houses with gardens in nature
seem to be rather cheap there. Maybe you are in another region but with
mortgage % low, the prices like [0][1][2] are far from needing to be a
millionaire.

[0]
[https://en.arkadia.com/eden-t67035189/](https://en.arkadia.com/eden-t67035189/)
[1]
[https://en.arkadia.com/eden-t67126374/](https://en.arkadia.com/eden-t67126374/)
[2]
[https://en.arkadia.com/eden-t66305759/](https://en.arkadia.com/eden-t66305759/)

~~~
ChuckNorris89
Of course prices of old houses in need of maintenance, far away from the
nearest city, in regions with little to no jobs, next to the border with
Eastern European countries, will be cheap.

Nobody wants to live there.

Try looking at homes in the suburbs of desirable cities with jobs and see 10x
prices.

If we're just looking for random homes on the internet you can find better
deals in villages in southern Europe but there's always at least one catch why
cheap homes are cheap.

~~~
tluyben2
> Nobody wants to live there.

Nobody besides everyone I know... I (nor my friends or family) would never
want to live in or close to a city. Let alone in a suburb; if in a city then
the center.

But you are right; still, to pay a 2m mortgage, you do not need to be a
millionaire. And for 2m I see nice stuff in Vienna.

> catch why cheap homes are cheap.

I live in such a home in southern eu and for me there is no catch. Huge
garden, swimming pool, large villa for 130k. Always sunny, nature, no
polution. Just not close (40min drive; probably faster than a lot of suburb-
center commutes though) to a city, that’s a benefit, not a catch.

~~~
ChuckNorris89
Yeah, you don't need to be a millionaire for a 2m mortgage but you need at
least a six figure salary which is nearly unattainable here, especially as an
expat.

Yeah, you have swimming pools, but if you live in the cheap areas in Austria
that you pointed out you compromise with underfunded infrastructure and public
services(shit internet, shit infrastructure, shit schools for your kids
without good teachers, almost no doctors, too far from the nearest hospital
with specialists, etc.).

Do you know why? Because all good doctors and teachers move to or next to
cities with opportunities, not in the middle of nowhere. That's why nobody
wants to live there.

~~~
tluyben2
True, not for a lot of people on HN but yeah, then you are at the 10% or less
indeed.

> on infrastructure and public arrives(shit internet, shit infrastructure,
> shit schools for your kids, no good doctors, too far from the nearest
> hospital with specialists, etc.)

Those things are more relevant for some than others but also true; if any of
that matters enough to someone to live in a small concrete box and still work
40 hours a week then sure, go for it. I value other things like quiet, space,
no stress, nature over any of the above.

~~~
ChuckNorris89
Plus, how will you fund your mortgage if you chose to live in a rural area
with no tech jobs? Employers here don't accept remote work outside of
government mandated quarantine.

~~~
tluyben2
That is the same in NL and DE, however, I have never worked in an office and I
have been professionally coding for 30 years, mostly for Dutch companies. The
‘secret’ (it is not a secret and it works in Austria too) is to start a
limited (or specifically not a 'freelance') company; 30 years ago I borrowed
20k guilders to open it (which used to cost 18k alone) and have cards,
leaflets and style for letterheads etc made. Companies hire companies,
especially if it looks professional. The company always had 1 employee for 30
years and I never had issues allowing to work wherever; even for large corps
like ING, Kluwer and so on.

Also, a guy I hire on upwork sometimes made well over a million in the past
years via that site, sitting in his house in ukraine. Without a company or
anything like that; in modern times it is not so hard as it was.

~~~
ChuckNorris89
You have a cool story and thanks for sharing it but how much of that is
survivorship bias? Also, out of professional curiosity, how many clients did
you get in Austria.

~~~
tluyben2
> how much of that is survivorship bias?

No idea; it's only anecdotal obviously. But not unheard of; it used to be
quite normal in Germany to have small (1-2 person) GMBH's to get rather large
contracts for big corps and if you have a 'real company' suddenly no-one
expects you to rock up monday morning at 9. In the Netherlands it still works
well, as it does in Portugal and Spain; other markets I do not know.

> how many clients did you get in Austria

1 around 17 years ago. But, at least from friends and limited experience, so
excuse my personal ignorance, I understand that Austrian business is not very
different from eastern germany business and I have (also had) quite a lot of
clients there. I have more in the western part, but the eastern part is
different in etiquette and I had the same, I guess conservative' feel 17 years
ago with the Austrian company (trying to find what they are/were called).

~~~
ChuckNorris89
But how did you get your customers to just let you be remote from the get go?

Here it would be impossible as, due to the culture, trust is made only through
in person meetings. Nobody will just pay company for services without face-to-
face meetings and on-prem presence.

~~~
tluyben2
There are many consultancy bureaus that don't visit. You need to have a face
to face (end 80s/beginning 90s there were telephone calls, but indeed you
would not get it cross the line like that) meeting(s). I still do that now.
But after you discussed basically the ideas, you can go home to build the
software. They don't accept that from freelancers sometimes in NL or DE
either, but from 'serious companies' they do. I have not had any case where I
had to sit in the office; sure, visit once per few months, but that's it. And
driving/train-ing/plane-ing that is a small price to pay (company pays
ofcourse).

------
jgehring
Nice to see my neighborhood (Vauban) featured here :) It's an awesome place to
raise kids as it provides an almost village-like environment, being right at
the edge of the city and hence the edge of the black forest. But it also comes
with the immediate benefits of a nearby regional hub and with plenty of next-
door daycare/kindergarten institutions, playgrounds and a ton of other kids.
This was one of the main factors that made us move back here after two years
in SF.

As elsewhere, affordable, or even available housing is now an issue, in
particular for families. Prices have been on a sharp increase over the last
years, and although the there's quite some construction (and plans to add a
whole new district) it's not keeping up with demand.

------
danrl
Not ITT: The obvious topic of crime in Freiburg. OK, in 2019 the lost the lead
of city with most crimes per 100.000 inhabitants. But Freiburg still scored
3rd place. Freiburg has many faces and the linked article is a very selective
subset of what Freiburg is. Don't be fooled.

~~~
oh_sigh
What explains the high rate of crime there?

~~~
0x008
bicycle theft maybe? 34% of people living in Freiburg do their daily commute
on a bike and I guess most households own 2-3 bikes. I couldn't find any
statistics, but Münster, for example, also has a bike usage of >40% and they
have a horrendous crime statistic beacuse of bike theft (on average 13 people
will have their bikes stolen each day).

------
codr7
Lived there for about a year, reasonably close to the center; but moved to a
smaller country side village once our son was born.

It was very nice to have the Black Forest right around the corner but the city
had an icky hipster vibe from my experience.

~~~
Melting_Harps
Consider Baden then, my backyard was facing the Black Forrest, I could see
what appeared to be a skiing slope lift and on clear day you could see castle
from my room and when I was working outdoors. It's my favorite part of Baden-
Wuttenberg and of all Germany really. But, as someone above mentioned its
rather expensive, not Switzerland expensive, but still pretty expensive.

The recent Netflix series Biohackers [1] was essentially just one big promo
for Freiburg, perhaps trying to compete with Berlin in 'coolness' factor for
Gen Z?

1:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atHBOUvgBI8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atHBOUvgBI8)

------
brailsafe
Also home to SmashingMagazine. Attended their conference there in 2012, and I
left with a very positive impression of the city.

~~~
raindropm
Didn't know they're based in Germany. Several years ago it is THE web I need
to check everyday haha.

~~~
brailsafe
It was one of the first sites I used even when I was learning the basics of
Illustrator and InDesign techniques about 12 years ago. I still get their
newsletter and check the site every so often, particularly when it comes to
CSS techniques (as well as css-tricks).

------
porknubbins
400km of bike trails is an insane amount for a small town, assuming they
aren’t counting bike lanes. I doubt any of the 1M+ pop cities I’ve lived in
came anywhere close to that in bike or MUTs.

~~~
mihaaly
I'd call it adequate instead.

> I doubt any of the 1M+ pop cities I’ve lived in came anywhere close to that

And this sad.

~~~
pierrebeaucamp
> I'd call it adequate instead.

It's above average for sure. As a counterexample, take the city of Münster,
which covers twice the area of Freiburg and is often praised as one of the
most bike-friendly cities in Germany. It only claims to have 300km of bike
lanes.

> > I doubt any of the 1M+ pop cities I’ve lived in came anywhere close to
> that

> And this sad.

There are a lot of 1M+ cities that have more than that. Just from personal
experience:

* Munich - 1,200 km

* Berlin - 422 km

* Toronto - 973 km

* Metro Vancouver - 4,600 km

But comparing the cumulative length of bike-paths is a bit of a silly
comparison anyway.

~~~
kiliantics
I don't think it's that silly if you compare it to the cumulative length of
roads for cars

------
alimw
In spite of the obvious conclusion that the rights of pedestrians have won out
over cars in Freiburg, the lasting memory I have of my visit is of people
waiting obediently on the kerb of an entirely empty road because the green
light to cross hadn't come on yet

~~~
throwaway8451
I'm german and I often wait there too.

As long as I can remember thinking about this, I've seen it as habitual
practice of self-control, i.e. practising self-control by not giving in to the
urge to cross the street early - and automatically on top of that because it
became a habit long ago.

------
Fooloo
Fun fact: There is a new series which places it's stories in Freiburg:
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9849210/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9849210/)

This resembles student life in that city quite good except the fucking housing
market. Where it is really a pain to find an affordable shared flat.

------
nicky0
Do they still have the cool little water channels flowing through the city
center streets?

~~~
flohrian
Yes.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freiburg_B%C3%A4chle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freiburg_B%C3%A4chle)

------
valuearb
I found it interesting that an article on a city is chock full of photos but
only one has an easily discernible person, and they are a bike rider in the
distance with their face blurred. In the photography architecture is
preeminent over people.

~~~
brettt
That may be due to privacy laws in Germany, a lot of houses are blurred out on
google maps for example.

~~~
usr1106
Privacy laws are the same nowaday all over EU more or less (the are some
national differences). The difference is that the awareness for privacy in
Germany has been much higher at least since the early 1990s when a census was
declared unconstitutional in supreme court. A long time becfore surveillance
capitalism was thing. Germany probably has the biggest share of people
opposing Google in all markets they operate in. And still one of the bigger
Firefox market shares.

~~~
Dahoon
Sad that the awareness makes very little difference. Looking at CryptoAG,
Maximator, etc. Germany is one of the worst sinners right below UK and US.

~~~
wusel
What's that about Maximator?

~~~
LargoLasskhyfv
Spooks meeting in a pub, backstaging deals, while drinking (strong) beer of
that brand.

------
mdale
For some reason hyper minimalism comes to mind :) [http://www.cc.com/video-
clips/2zifz2/upright-citizens-brigad...](http://www.cc.com/video-
clips/2zifz2/upright-citizens-brigade-woodsy-office)

------
turing_complete
When I think of futuristic, I think of anything but Freiburg.

------
kkdsafjid
"Freiburg: the German citiy whose politics align best with our (the BBC's)
ideology" would have been a more accurate title.

They have some bicycles and some solar cells, and the major is from the
leftist Green party.

------
CharlesMerriam2
Well, yeah. Good luck with that. -- California

------
gautamcgoel
I lost interest in the city as soon as the article pointed out that the city's
"environmentalism" was rooted in opposition to a nuclear power plant. This
kind of thinking is backwards and self-destructive.

~~~
Aperocky
Not just the city, Germany made the decision to shut down ALL of the nuclear
power plants when Fukushima happened.

Now they found they're dependent on Russian gas.

~~~
Melting_Harps
> Now they found they're dependent on Russian gas.

They always were, maybe you don't recall the shortage in 2009 when Gazprom
shut off the gas to Ukraine, which happened 2 years before 3/11 [0].

I jokingly asked if that's why they still kept their wood burning furnaces in
the building I lived and why they made it a priority we knew how to keep the
backofen going throughout the Winter months and while I got slight a chuckle I
knew it didn't go over too well.

0:
[https://money.cnn.com/2009/01/07/news/international/russia_u...](https://money.cnn.com/2009/01/07/news/international/russia_ukraine/index.htm)

~~~
Aperocky
wondering if it got worse - if they did manage to build more nuclear plants
like French did (75% from nuclear) instead of closing them all down, maybe
Germany will be able to heat their homes without CO2 emissions in winter.

~~~
Melting_Harps
> wondering if it got worse - if they did manage to build more nuclear plants
> like French did (75% from nuclear) instead of closing them all down, maybe
> Germany will be able to heat their homes without CO2 emissions in winter.

They don't need to build anymore, they just import it.

I lived 30km away from Alsace, and despite us having a significant amount of
solar on all of our buildings, as did most of the local
community/neighborhood, it was well understood that a significant amount of
Baden-Wuttenberg's energy (the 'greenest-centric' Stat of Germany) needs were
just bought from France.

I don't have the figures in front of me, but I was there in 2012-13 during the
transition, and I lived in an old 7 bedroom old Chateau style home that had
its top floor being renovated, which was exposed to the cold winter.

We lived on the bottom floor and mainly relied on wood heat from the backofen
in the center of the home to heat the rest, and when we didn't/forget to keep
it goin I could literately see my breath while I laid in bed as I lived the
furthest away from the source, and as someone born and raised in SoCal it was
incredibly terrifying at first.

Before I wised up and figured out the heating method I often made my bed
before having a shower and going to bed and I stuck a 2L glassflasch with hot
water from those instant water heater kettle's. But it wasn't long before I
summoned the inner pyro in me I had suppressed since my early teens.

~~~
_ph_
So what was the reason for your house being cold other than the ill-timed
rennovation?

Germany is a net electricity exporter, we don't "depend" on French nuclear
energy. But of course, Germany is part of an Eurpean grid, so depending on the
load distribution and the weather, there is a lot of inporting on exporting,
because eletricity is traded across long distances. While often there is a
significant amount of elektricity going to Germany, that is usually just
transiting to other countries. And at other times Germany is exporting to
France (which then often is transiting to the UK).

~~~
Melting_Harps
> So what was the reason for your house being cold other than the ill-timed
> rennovation?

I was there for my Biodynamic farming apprenticeship, and that was just what
it was. It was fine, and I spent quite a bit of time there I enjoyed my time
there and it taught me a lot how to cope with issues with older homes and it
helped me learn to do repairs where needed.

> Germany is part of an Eurpean grid, so depending on the load distribution
> and the weather, there is a lot of inporting on exporting, because
> eletricity is traded across long distances.

I figured, but I was there not long after the phasing out period and solar was
still being deployed, so much so I actually got to work on a few builds.

> Please stop spreading myths. Germany was an energy exporter for most of the
> last years and even to France in the last 5 years

Look at the years I listed, I was there 8 years ago not long after Fukushima.
Was that still the case back then?

~~~
_ph_
First of all, I want to point out that some parts you "quoted" in your answer
were not written by me. It is quite a bit irritating how this appears.

And while the oldest plants were switched off after Fukushima, Germany didn't
just "switch off" the nuclear production. The nuclear contribution to the
electricity production gradually declined from 19% of all electricity in 2011
to 12% in 2020 so far. The next years should bring a steeper decline though,
as more plants get phased out.

------
ornornor
> why you aren‘t using reusable diapers in the first place.

A good question indeed?

~~~
hdjdbtbgwjsn
Even the Amish use real nappies rather than messing around with reusables.

Real nappies are better for baby and toddler bums, easier for already stressed
parents and more hygienic.

Reusables result in massive energy and water waste, they are a health hazard
if not washed properly (many manufacturers washing instructions are very
inadequate. They must be washed at a minimum of 60°C whatever your
manufacturer said), release loads of microplastics and are a lot more work.

~~~
Fooloo
Are you Procter and Gamble??

The argument for and against reusable is pretty much undecided. There also
services which do the washing for you. And they are probably way more
efficient than people washing at home in terms of energy used.

Anyhow, real eco-parents go diaper-less as most parents in the world. Google
split-pants, elimination communication! Compared to this letting children
sitting in their own feces in reusable or not-reusable nappies is pretty
unhygienic.

Downvotes? I know it is a big leap for the western mind, that most human ever
lived have never seen a nappy. There is a lot of problems with diapers e.g.
rash etc.

~~~
hutzlibu
Have you actually tried that, while living in a urban environment and not in
the bush?

Because shit on the floor is also not really hygienic.

~~~
Fooloo
Lol, your baby tells you that it must go and you hold it over toilet. And yes
I raised two child like that.

~~~
hutzlibu
And pee?

... and I know the technic and I know it requires more time. And the people I
know applying it .. were only partly succesfull. With the result of shit
around. And pee.

~~~
Fooloo
Obviously for pee it is the same. Does not mean you have to do it everywhere.
I would not get in an airplane without a diaper. And obviously western nursery
does not work without it either.

About accidents: And then what is more unhygienic?

Feces, urine on the floor or feces, urine all around your bottom? For the
first you can use almost any cleaning liquid you want, for the second even to
much soap is not good.

~~~
hutzlibu
Well, with poo it is quite easy. If you pay attention to your baby, you know,
when he wants to, I can imagine it, doing without (we simply lacked the time).

But peeing he just do without warning. I would have to pay attention to him
100% the whole time - and this is not what I want or can afford.

------
Ericson2314
Pity its genesis was anti-nuclear, but looks like mostly good stuff since.

Ban those cars!

~~~
Meandering
Fear has a way of disarming logic.

~~~
pvorb
I don't think it's unreasonable to fear nuclear accidents, as history has
shown us.

~~~
Meandering
Of course it isn't. The issue is that the majority of fear against nuclear
comes from nuclear weapons and improper management. People have erroneously
thought that nuclear power technology is similar to nuclear weapon technology
when they meltdown. The reality is that a meltdown isn't even close to a
nuclear chain reaction. Chernobyl was an example of poor management and
Fukushima was an example of poor design. These failures were not do to nuclear
material.

Nuclear material is obviously dangerous when used improperly. The fear of
'fallout' has stunted the growth of a superior technology. I believe we would
have made a far more significant change to C02 output if society had invested
money and effort into nuclear technology instead of renewable technology. Not
that I'm anti-renewable but, MSR and other nuclear technologies have the
potential to be far more reliable, cost effective, and environmentally
beneficial in the long run.

~~~
pvorb
> The issue is that the majority of fear against nuclear comes from nuclear
> weapons and improper management.

But aren't these valid sources of fear?

War is still a thing and Uranium enrichment can be used for both nuclear power
plants as well as nuclear weapons.

Improper management is something that is hard to control. Usually the people
who live nearby a nuclear power plant have absolutely no insight into how the
plant is managed. So why should they be confident in everything being fine.
Human error is inevitable and has led to numerous accidents. Why shouldn't
this happen again?

~~~
Meandering
Absolutely, healthy fear is beyond valid. It's the fear from ignorance that I
was referencing. A nuclear meltdown is not an explosion. It's literal a
meltdown where the material burns through containment... there is no
explosion. The fear of nuclear has prevented investment which could of
resulted in far safer technologies entering the market. Technologies like
Molten Salt Reactors that have passive meltdown protection[1] and thorium
reactors[2] which utilized a material that can't be weaponized through
enrichment. A passive safety feature in the Fukushima plant could have
prevented that catastrophe.

People have a right to not approve of nuclear. I'm only saying that the
technology is heavily repressed due to an uneducated public. The truth is that
renewable energy will never be as cost effective as gas or oil for base load
energy. Nuclear is a clear and viable option for the energy portfolio. It's a
shame to see a completely valid option ignored because of unchecked fear.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety)

[2][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-
based_nuclear_power](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-
based_nuclear_power)

