Contents Page 1 — New Apartments? Not in my neighborhood-page 2 — How democratic is that? On a page
The free arable to read is in front of the gates of the city. He has 110 acres of surface area and space for 6,500 apartments. There are already precise plans on how he could cultivate. The living room for a maximum of 15,000 people could be here. Something, now have many cities, because in many places, the housing shortage prevails. Also, the city of Freiburg is in need of new homes. And it has the field: in the place Dietenbach.
The 230,000 inhabitants of the city of Freiburg is growing; according to the population prognosis of the municipality will draw up to the year 2030 of about 15,000 people here. Around 1,000 new homes would have to be incurred each year to meet the demand. Alone by Recompacting, and Increase in the city centre, is not to create. The solution to the housing problem lies on the field in Dietenbach.
this way out is barred but it could happen that soon. Because this Sunday, the residents agree the interior and local residents about the development plan and the new residential area. Some do not want that in Dietenbach new apartments, and have initiated a referendum. If you win the vote, will remain the terrain of a field.
citizens against new dwellings
in other cities, citizens protest initiatives against new construction projects, even if these are located in the middle of the city, where nature is far. On the mühlenkamp canal in Hamburg-Winterhude, the residents foiled a new building. In Munich, citizens stopped a municipal housing project in Pullach. In the North of Munich, an Alliance is fighting against a new urban development area with several Thousand apartments, but also resistance to the new enemy is forming now. In Berlin, four of the thirteen areas on the Butt, and in Frankfurt, hundreds of people moved for a new residential area in Northrend on the road.
Basically, citizen participation is considered desirable. The strength of the democracy and the trust in the politicians, they refer the Knowledge of citizens and improve policy decisions, and concern for the people, writes the Alliance is a Variety of democracy, the Bertelsmann Stiftung is a member of, in a study. “Citizens know that political decisions are the best by consensus, but often only by compromise. The helps, to not accept decisions, which correspond to the own ideas.”
Many national governments have promoted in recent years, the Trend for citizens ‘ initiatives, by reducing by law the barrier of entry for referenda. “This is a Trend in all the provinces,” observes management scientist Lars Holtkamp, a Professor at the University of Hagen, “and all of the governments that feel the need to be particularly modern and citizen-friendly show.”
Holt But Kamps point of view, can inflict citizenship harm: “Direct democracy location conflicts intensified,” he says. Especially when it comes to residential issues. If citizens have more say, means the most: more resistance. Residents of the building areas together, in order to prevent the projects. They fear a loss of quality of life or care of the apartment prices. “Often the property owners, because tenants have less to lose,” says Holtkamp, “and it is the Educated who know how you desire to initiate such citizens.” Of the 60 petitions, which the researchers over the years was one in Munich, took place neither in the poorer parts of the city. Civil protest is also a thing of the well-to-do.
