The week-on, week-off schedule has been working quite well for me lately. Not only does it give me more flexibility with work-life balance with Theo at home (can you believe he is almost one?!), but it also gives me time to add in more detail, first-hand videography and research to my videos.
Case in point: Next Week's Video!
As an old trading and university city as well as an industrial city, Leipzig was the fifth largest city in Germany before the Second World War with a population of about 700,000. During the war, however, the number of inhabitants fell sharply and in the decades that followed Leipzig became one of the few major European cities with an almost continuously declining population.
By 1989, only 530,000 people still lived in Leipzig, And after the opening of the Wall between east and west Germany, the city lost more than thirty thousand inhabitants in the following 14 months alone in a mass exodus to the more prosperous western states. Coupled with the rapid and transitionless integration into the EU and the world market, as well as the economic and political shock therapy, the city was de-industrialised by about 80% and mass unemployment followed.
By the turn of the century, Leipzig gained the unfortunate nickname as the “capital of poverty” in Germany, and one in five homes within the city were vacant. Which is extraordinary. (Paritätischer Gesamtverband 2020).
Between 2011 and 2019, the annual population increase ranged from 10,000 to 16,000 people, which corresponds to 2% to 2.5% growth… in fact, it even reached 3% at the peak in 2016. From 2011 to 2020, the total increase in population was around 96,000 people or 17.4%. This means that Leipzig grew by almost as many inhabitants in the 2010s as it shrank in the 1990s.
For some time in the 2010s, Leipzig was actually the fastest-growing major city in Germany, the paradigmatic example of a “swarm city”.....that’s right - the city that was nicknamed the “Capital of Poverty” became the poster child of urban growth and renewal.
And what might be even MORE interesting is that the vast majority of these new residents were moving to the largely redeveloped Gründerzeit inner-city districts... not NEW developments.
So what EXACTLY was going on? And how has the city managed to transform the nearly 70,000 vacant apartments and 3000 brownfield sites into a desirable urban neighborhood with green spaces?
THAT is what I traveled all the way to Leipzig to explore and I am so excited to share the video with you next week. So while I do not have a new video for you today, I hope you tune in next Sunday to explore this city with me.
Type Ashton
Happy Sunday!
The week-on, week-off schedule has been working quite well for me lately. Not only does it give me more flexibility with work-life balance with Theo at home (can you believe he is almost one?!), but it also gives me time to add in more detail, first-hand videography and research to my videos.
Case in point: Next Week's Video!
As an old trading and university city as well as an industrial city, Leipzig was the fifth largest city in Germany before the Second World War with a population of about 700,000. During the war, however, the number of inhabitants fell sharply and in the decades that followed Leipzig became one of the few major European cities with an almost continuously declining population.
By 1989, only 530,000 people still lived in Leipzig, And after the opening of the Wall between east and west Germany, the city lost more than thirty thousand inhabitants in the following 14 months alone in a mass exodus to the more prosperous western states. Coupled with the rapid and transitionless integration into the EU and the world market, as well as the economic and political shock therapy, the city was de-industrialised by about 80% and mass unemployment followed.
By the turn of the century, Leipzig gained the unfortunate nickname as the “capital of poverty” in Germany, and one in five homes within the city were vacant. Which is extraordinary. (Paritätischer Gesamtverband 2020).
Between 2011 and 2019, the annual population increase ranged from 10,000 to 16,000 people, which corresponds to 2% to 2.5% growth… in fact, it even reached 3% at the peak in 2016. From 2011 to 2020, the total increase in population was around 96,000 people or 17.4%. This means that Leipzig grew by almost as many inhabitants in the 2010s as it shrank in the 1990s.
For some time in the 2010s, Leipzig was actually the fastest-growing major city in Germany, the paradigmatic example of a “swarm city”.....that’s right - the city that was nicknamed the “Capital of Poverty” became the poster child of urban growth and renewal.
And what might be even MORE interesting is that the vast majority of these new residents were moving to the largely redeveloped Gründerzeit inner-city districts... not NEW developments.
So what EXACTLY was going on? And how has the city managed to transform the nearly 70,000 vacant apartments and 3000 brownfield sites into a desirable urban neighborhood with green spaces?
THAT is what I traveled all the way to Leipzig to explore and I am so excited to share the video with you next week. So while I do not have a new video for you today, I hope you tune in next Sunday to explore this city with me.
See you next Sunday!
Ashton
9 months ago | [YT] | 350