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I live in a relatively small (~30k people altogether, ~12k when you disregard all the small villages that officially belong to it too) town in southern Germany. The explosion of rents in Munich thorughout the last 20 years or so has meant that my hometown, even though it's about 45min by car away from Munich, slowly has become part of the greater Munich area with all the advantages and disadvantages coming with it. The advantages are: generally speaking the people have more money; we have profited greatly from the economic situation in southern Bavaria and are now in our fifth year or so of unemployment being below 3%. A couple of years ago we got our own road connecting us to the Autobahn, and since the German Railways let a private business put trains on the local railway line there are way more trains coming and going, during peak hours every 15 minutes even. Also the population around here has been growing, as even more people take jobs in Munich but don't want to pay out of their rear end for rent there. Probably next year we should finally break the 30k, which means that our mayor into an Oberbürgermeister with a larger salary and an official car. We'll probably also turn into a Große Kreisstadt afterwards, which means that the county will delegate some of its duties and privileges to us. The cultural scene is comparatively vibrant with lots of concerts, exhibitions, and the nightlife, which until not too long ago was virtually non-existant (one lovely club and that's it), now also has at least a bit more to offer (the same lovely club is still around, but now there's three (!) hip bars where you can order cocktails and whatnot) On the negative side traffic has gotten increasingly worse throughout the last couple years, what with the growing population and people having enough money to afford a car or several. Used to be that you could lie down and sleep on the main road through the town after 10pm. Now it's cars, cars, cars everywhere. The old characteristics of my hometown - the dialect, the connection to the farmers of the surrounding villages, the blue-collar people, the craftsmen and so on - slowly fade away, and the rent has exploded with no signs of it slowing down. My parents are really glad that they own the house we're living in, otherwise rent would be brutal and potentially non-affordable for us. Lastly there's something which I don't want to put either in the "good" or "bad" camp because it's a huge complex all of its own: the refugees. The ethnic makeup of my hometown already has changed a lot from when I was a kid (I still remember seeing a black dude around here ~20 years ago and being really surprised about that), and the mass of refugees that has arrived during the last years and continues to come will change the face of all of Germany permanently. It's fascinating to see all those "foreign" faces around and hearing many different languages being spoken, and I'm glad to say that my hometown has adapted really well and given the newcomers a heartfelt and kind welcome, and that city, parish and private initiatives have done great work and cooperated really well. We'll have to wait and see what the long-term consequences of that will be, but I'm optimistic that at least my hometown will cope really well.
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Sep 6, 2016 20:38
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 05:43 |
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