FAKULTAT RAUMPLANUNG
M-project Duisburg – modernizing an industrial city
Klara Mahmić
Dortmund, 15.1.2015. academic year 2014./2015.
SYMBOLLIC DIMENSION
Collective memory and images
"Nations begin in the minds of men" (Stagner, 1967.). This phrase is indicating that conflicts have their origin in the mind of nationalities. Behavior towards someone is shaped based on stereotypes and prejudices. This also implies a historical dimension. Therefore, an analysis of conflicts of different interests has to start with an analysis of the historical and mental-cognitive dimension, with the ideological resources of conflicts, in order to understand what creates a misunderstanding.
Cities in Germany were severely hit by deindustrialization in the mid-60s, but as first, like in all highly old-industrialized regions they were interpreted as a temporary and not structural crisis, because it still wasn’t recognized as a change from secondary sector to terrier (services and information) as specific for old-industrialized regions and industries. Only in 1970s it was clearly recognized what kind of transition has just happened and is still going on. That was the time when cities in Ruhr area started forming their new policies, concentrated on revitalization programs, because they were hit by an enormous urban decline.
Duisburg and all eleven Ruhr cities, as the data in Table 1 indicates, had the most problems in coping with the decline of its economic base. Major Ruhr companies had branches in this area, the most important one being Haniel. With the decline of mining in the Ruhr area and in Duisburg (only one from initially nine mines in Duisburg still being