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Shops dying during Corona: How German cities want to save their shopping streets

2021-09-23T15:03:11.213Z


The corona pandemic hit many inner cities hard. With new concepts, mayors and city councilors want to breathe new life into the ailing cities.


The corona pandemic hit many inner cities hard.

With new concepts, mayors and city councilors want to breathe new life into the ailing cities.

Berlin - Long fronts with panes glued on with foil - The Boulevard shopping center on Berlin's Schoßstraße shopping mile is sometimes a dreary sight.

The visitors walk past many empty rooms.

The retreat of retail from downtown areas is evident here.

It looks even darker in smaller and medium-sized cities.

Nobody likes to go where no shop is open.

The case more and more often.

"Studies assume that between 80,000 and 120,000 stores will have to give up in the next three years," says Michael Reink, location expert for the trade association (HDE).

Almost 40,000 owners have closed their shops in the last decade.

Small specialty shops in particular can no longer keep up.

German cities after Corona: "Radiance of city centers" is to be strengthened

The pandemic has also triggered a boom in online trading. The customers avoided the city centers. The situation is precarious. According to Reink, many businesses are still pushing back rent arrears from last year. There is not enough money to invest in an attractive consumer environment. Experts no longer believe that retail can save city centers from wasteland. Other solutions have to be found, says the head of the German Association of Cities, Helmut Dedy. “By rethinking inner cities, we can strengthen the radiance of city centers,” he hopes.

Dedy sees an opportunity in the redevelopment of the inner cities.

"We have to recombine trade, for example with workshops for craftsmen or regional dealers for sustainable goods," he says, "schools, daycare centers, libraries and universities can also revitalize the city centers." Pandemic to watch:

But this change cannot be achieved overnight.

Because urban planning with extensive citizen participation takes time.

The bizarre real estate prices in some places are also standing in the way of the recovery.

The rent level should not only be geared towards people with a really big budget, ”demands Dedy.

Corona changes cityscapes - Bremerhaven shows how it can work

There are already practical examples of successful resuscitation. Bremerhaven, for example, bought a former Karstad house. Now the “lazy tooth” of the city center, as Mayor Melf Grantz calls it, is to be pulled and replaced by an attractive public facility with mixed use. The Association of Cities has set up an Internet portal at www.unsere-stadtimpulse.de that presents many of the projects that have already started in Germany.

“The medium-sized cities are hardest hit,” explains Reink, “there new ideas have to be developed for the inner cities.” The catchment area for retail is usually the surrounding area.

But the offer is limited due to the small number of consumers.

However, customers do not accept these restrictions.

More and more stay away.

A vicious circle The consequences are grave.

“You have to shorten a lot of pedestrian zones,” Reink believes.


The municipalities will not be able to cope with this task on their own.

The federal government has launched a funding program of 250 million euros for model projects to revitalize inner cities.

But according to the city council, that is not enough.

“We need 500 million euros annually over a period of five years,” demands Dedy.

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2021-09-23

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