I don't know if this is meant to be a charitable comparison. But I just saw it in the New York Times high-falutin' Sunday Magazine from last week. And it has to do with immigration and people dying and jobs and all that stuff. So I thought I'd share. It's a long, long article. So here's the part about our fair city:
The topic of marriage comes up often among Turks in places like Duisburg. It is not a side issue. Of the roughly 25,000 foreigners who immigrate to Germany every year to marry, about a thousand go to Duisburg, and the great majority of those are Turks. The city’s Marxloh neighborhood is the Continental capital of Turkish wedding caterers and bridal shops.
Duisburg, where the Rhine and the Ruhr meet, and where mining and industry link up to the biggest inland port in Europe, is a kind of European Pittsburgh. In decades past, tens of thousands of Turks came to work in the city’s three big steel plants, which together employed 64,000 people in the ’70s, and in its archipelago of coal mines. But today there are only 20,000 industrial jobs left in the whole city. Duisburg’s population, 608,000 in the 1970s, has fallen to under half a million. The older German-born natives (who had jobs) die, their children (who want jobs) move and the absolute number of Turks living there continues to grow. According to the mayor’s office, there are 41,900 Turks in Duisburg, and another 24,000 of Turkish background who have acquired German citizenship. Together they account for more than half of Duisburg’s minority population — and for much of the city’s dynamism as well.
Actually, it sounds like Duisburg is doing pretty well. From 608,000 people to just under half a million? Granted, that slide came in a shorter time span than ours did. But a half-million people ain't bad. I might also point out that the city has a dynamic immigrant population. As for Pittsburgh's immigrants, I'm one. And to be honest, I'm not all that dynamic.
Of course, a huge Turkish minority in the middle of a German city can pose certain tensions. Either way, give it a look.
Ya, a drop from 608K to under 500K does not seem that big of a deal compared to here. The thing is you would be amazed what a huge deal it is to move from one city to another in Germany is for a German.
I working in Munich for several months back in '94, a couple of years after the wall came down. Munich is considered the high tech capital of Germany. It is the location of German patent office, among other things. One guy I worked with was from the "former East Germany", Berlin in particular. His wife used to work for the patent office in East Germany. Naturally, she was offered a position in the combined patent office which was going to be in Munich. He was not working at that time.
The distance between Berlin and Munch is only about 300 miles. That is about the same as between Pittsburgh and Detroit. Yet it was a huge decision for them to move. In the US, it would pretty much be a slam dunk.
Anyway, while looking for population data on German cities I found this web site, http://www.shrinkingcities.com/. They even have the Shrinking Cities exhibition in CLE. It even had a film festival. Better hurry it ends soon, June 8th.
Clearly, I feel they slighted PIT by not hosting it here. Detroit, NYC, and CLE, but not PIT?!
Posted by: Amos the Poker Cat | June 03, 2007 at 06:25 AM