Bestürzende Neubauten 5.6.06 [DE]

Ich gehöre nicht zu den Leuten die sich automatisch sträuben gegen jede Grossbau, jedes monumentales städtisches Projekt. Maßstabsgerechte Vergrößerung ist unumgänglich, wenn Städte wachsen, wenn die Technologie effizientere Konzentrationen ermöglicht.

IKEA muss sein. Kleine Möbelverkäufer sollen, wenn sie klein und in der Nachbarschaft bleiben wollen, auf anderen Produkten umschalten müssen. Wenn man so etwas der Markt überlässt, entstehen öde und unterkommenen Kleinhandelscentren in der Stadt. Weil die Markt verlangt dass die Menschen mobiler sind als sie öfters können.

Gewandte Quartiersprojektmanager wissen, wie man so etwas unterfangen kann, und, mit Unterstützung von staatlichen und privaten Partnern, machen sie aus dergleichen Umwandlungsprozessen "win-win" Ergebnissen. Wenn man ihnen die Zeit und die Mittel dazu bereitstellt, natürlich.

Urbanistische Grossinitiative können, oder besser: sollen, immer im Zusammenhang mit der urbanen Umgebung gesehen werden. Und, umgekehrt, Nachbarschaftserhaltung, Emanzipationsprozessen in ökonomisch und sozial schwächere Gemeinschaften, sollen die Chancen benützen, die räumlichen Umwandlungen, neue Arbeitsplätze in der Nähe, Gebietserweiterung durch Aufhebung alter Industrien, usw., schaffen.

 

 Die europäischen Kohesionsfonds werden verteilt auf grund der Arbeitslosigkeitsziffer, der benötigte Investitionsimpulsen und der Investitionsmöglichkeiten die regional und lokal bestehen. Oft geht das gut. Irland ist das Beweis. Aber manchmal auch haben die massive Impulse verkehrte Effekte. So etwa wie sich das oft ereignet in der Entwicklungshilfe in Afrika. Eisenbahnen von Nichts nach Nirgendwo. Staudämme die ganze Landstriche veröden.

Es geht nur gut, wenn man BEIDES macht, gleichzeitig. Die Menschen für wen diese Investitionen gemacht werden, sollen nicht deswegen aus ihren Häusern und aus ihren Arbeitsplätzen vertrieben werden, sondern davon profitieren.

So hätte das millionenschwere bremer Space Center im Einklang mit dem benachbarten Gröpelingen entwickelt werden sollen. Jetzt, als man anerkennen musste, dass die megalomane Ideen betreffs eines europäischen Menschenparks nicht wirkten, und das Center nach sechs Monaten seine Türe geschlossen hat, wird es umgestaltet zu einen Riesenkasino, wovon die Gröpelinger die Nebenwirkungen wie erhöhte Kriminalität geschenkt bekommen. Oder, das schon geschwächte kommerzielle Bestand der Nachbarschaften, wird weiter marginalisiert durch die Grossdetaillisten die auch in dem Center hereingeholt werden.

Wir waren 1. und 2. Juni in Barcelona für die Strukturfondskonferenz der Regionen und Städten. Das CCIB, das barcelonaer Kongress- und Ausstellungszentrum, liess mich die ganze Zeit das bremer Ungeheuer nicht aus den Gedanken. Allerdings ist das CCIB, urbanistisch gesehen, viel besser plaziert als das Space Center: Am Meer, bedient von der Bahn, am Ende einer langen und breiten Stadtavenue, U-bahn-Station, Hotel- und Parking-Anlagen. Aber auch hier ist jede organische Verbindung mit den angrenzenden Stadtteilen vernachlässigt. Trotz seines titanischen Umfangs, ist es unsichtbar, wirkt öde. Von Innen könnte es ebensogut ein Krankenhaus, ein Ministerium oder eine Gefängnis sein (Siehe Bild).

Verlangt das moderne fliegen mit Billigfirmen eine fast untermenschlichen Kurzbeinigkeit - die Riesenflächen des CCIB verlangen das Gegenteil: Die weite Felder der unübersichtlichen Aussen- und Innenräumen unterstellen eine übermenschlichen Langbeinigkeit. Sonst erreicht man die Sitzungen der Konferenz nur am Ende des Ereignisses.

Das bestürzendste ist wohl, dass es eine scharfe Grenze gibt zwischen den lebendigen, funktionsgemischten Stadtquartieren in der Nähe, und die eisige leere und monofunktionellen Ballung von blinden Neubauten. Diese Grenze macht das eine und das Andere unertragbar, unsustainable.

Was die Städte nicht brauchen, das sind objektive Verschwendungen, halbe und völlige Fehlinvestitionen. Es untergrabt die so kräftige Argumentierungen, dass es eben die Stadt, und niemand anderes ist, die die schwierige Verbindung zwischen Investitionsimpulse und sustainable communities machen kann.

Glücklicherweise, hat fast niemand von den europäischen Gästen die 100 M. zurückgelegt die zwischen der Betonidylle und das benachbarte Quartiersleben liegen. So bleibt die allgemeine und wahre Idee bestehen, dass es nur die Städte sind, die es können. Aber können ist nicht immer dasselbe als tun.

Auf der e-urban Webseite gibt es eine Bildergalerie ("IMAGES" Sektion > Rencontres Folder > Rencontres 2006Images 2006 [klicken!] > Barcelona, 1-2 June 2006: Which Growth?) mit mehr (29) Bilder vom Besuch und englischem Text. 

Caged in the Virgin Express 31.5.06

This blog is in the margin of e-urban. And it deals with marginal events. Europe-wide urban professionalisation entails so many marginal events that it seems hopeless to summarise them all. I am concentrating on travelling, the endless travelling, that we do. Travelling makes us meet ourselves. At conferences, workshops, meetings, excursions. But also in lonely and tired hotel rooms, at gas stations and on airports.

Within a few hours, I will board a Virgin Express plane from Brussels to Barcelona. For a net return-price of € 99,- (all included, some 200,-) we are invited to squeeze our material body between our own seat and the one before us. Like the Eurolines Bus that I took to Budapest, it supposes passengers with exceptionally short legs. For an extra € 18,-, one can buy some more room. No food or drinks are served on board. Plenty time to meet oneself in a caged position.

I think, I will not be able to forget the Caged Virgin, book by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, caged as I will be in the Virgin Express.

Update on 02-06-2006 by Huib

To be honest to Virgin Express: No, there were drinks, served with a gentle smile, no too expensive either (the coffee). And, as I had no people seated next to me, there was even space for the legs. This mall progress of civilisation is perhaps due to the fact that Virgin Express is now a company owned by SN Brussels Airlines: A.k.a: the former Belgian flag carrier Sabena, which was so shamefully parasited upon by SwissAir. Which, in its turn, fell under mismanagement charges afterwards.

More read about the Caged Virgin: My At Home in Europe and A Legal Alien in New York blogs.

If you read Dutch, even more on: De Lage Landen

Hitchens has been (too) well served by the Dutch Right

Yesterday, I wrote in my blog At Home in Europe: Hitchens has been (too) well served by the Dutch Right.

Here are some quotes:

My point of view was, and is, that Hitchens was preparing a new use for the 'Moor' Hirsi Ali ('The Moor has done his job, the Moor may dispose!' - Fr. Schiller, famous German author, friend of Goethe), after her uses had been exhausted by the Dutch VVD conservative party.

And I also foresaw a new element in the Hirsi-Ali exploitation, to be expected from the American neoconservatives: putting her forward as a witness for the European softness and dangerous appeasement leanings, concerning the Great Muslim Conspiracy, that is a mortal danger to this world.

Now, in his latest Slate column, 'Holland's latest insult to Ayaan Hirsi Ali', Hitchens cashes in his gains like a card player who won too early, too much:
The Dutch have served him all he hoped for, on a silver plate. He correctly feels, that, like in 'religious sects', or in prison (or, for that matter the Trotskyist sects, which he knows better), the leadership doesn't accept a voluntary good-bye: the dissenting and onerous member has to be evicted before he or she leaves freely. That is, what former prison warden immigration minister Rita Verdonk, cerberus hound against refugees and immigration, last Monday tried to do.
[...]
His only problem is, that he did not win where he intended to, i.e.: at the cost of the Dutch and European left. He won from another card-player, the Dutch (and European) populist and pro-Bush RIGHT.

Actually, those whom he (and Hirsi Ali for that matter) nails to the pillory as the willing collaborators of the Islam Conspiracy against the West, were the only ones, who timely and worthy protested against the methods and ways, the Dutch populist Right wanted to dispose of Hirsi Magan.
Look here:

"Opnieuw gedwongen te vluchten" (Forced anew to fly) - manifesto of Dutch personalities*) against the right's handling of Hirsi Ali, NRC-Handelsblad, May 16, 2006. Click on the image to see a less unreadable version.

On May 16, 2006, a group of Dutch LEFT-leaning intellectuals, writers, retired politicians, were the ONLY ones to come forward in an open letter in the most prestigious Dutch daily, NRC-Handelsblad, AGAINST driving out Ajaan Hirsi! This was published, BEFORE Parliament called minister Verdonk to order. At the same time, most of the political right was showing satisfaction at the disappearance of Hirsi Ali from the Dutch scene.How does Hitchens handle this embarrassing anomaly?He takes on the famous co-author Ian Buruma (professor in the US, of Dutch origin) of "Occidentalism", who wrote an Op-Ed in The New York Times about Holland and Hirsi Ali. Rather timidly, Buruma made some critical observations on the ways in which the Dutch right has manipulated Hirsi Ali during her participation in Dutch politics.

[...]

You're welcome at my European blog, to see all of my article.

White Backlash in Holland

Co-Blogger Formosa (22 year old Taiwanese man, living in The Hague, studied in London) translates into English some interesting Dutch comments on the Hirsi Ali events of the past week.

In former posts, I have said enough about the shallowness of Hirsi Magan's convictions and about the misuse that has been made (with her collaboration) of the publicity they generated.

The Dutch consservative (Government-) party "VVD" states in its' party-programme (1947) that it derives its moral values from a "vrijzinnig christendom" (a liberal christianity), a statement that was repeated in 1993 by its main ideologue, Frits Bolkestein, the former European Commissioner, when, at the end of his book about Liberalism, he arrived at the conclusion, that Enlightenment values are no firm basis for a liberal moral attitude in politics.

That was no hindrance for hiring the "Caged Virgin" for a deputy post in 2002, knowing that she rejects ALL religion and knowing, that she deems it the real basis for all wrongdoing: for terrorism, for suppression of women, etc. What the VVD was looking for, was getting a part of the populist anti-immigration vote that came up with the Fortuyn hype in 2001/2002. And doing so, without risking themselves to be contaminated with racism and xenophobia.

The first major problems to the VVD party arose, when Hirsi Ali started to discuss the constitutional right of religious parents, to send their children to schools of their denomination. This typical Dutch historical compromise, embedded in the country's constitution (Art. 26) in 1922, was traded in those years, by the social-democrat- and liberal parties, against the christian-democrats' acceptance of the general right to vote for men and women. Now, that muslim parents were using this constitutional right, to create schools on an Islamic basis, populist politicians were looking for ways, to make that impossible. The major Government party, the Christian Democrats, were not amused at all, for the Christian Education constitues one of their main power bases.
This was the first instance, I remember, that Hirsi Ali had to make a compromise and promise to attack only muslim schools in the future.
Another, less publicised instance, was, when Hirsi Ali made a prposal to forbid, not only circumcision of women, but also of boys, thus endangering the jewish vote for the VVD party.
And the last, and least understood, moment was, when she declared that the condemnation of a Dutch muslim boy who had only taken part in meetings of the so-called "Hofstad Group", but who had not participated in terrorist actions, was unjustly condemned to many years of imprisonment, only for his "opinions".

The only explanation I am able to present for it, is this:

Hirsi Ali has the illusion, that her actions would lead to a general and irrevocable condemnation of Islam as a religion by the Dutch state. This religion is so devilish, that you cannot held reponsible common muslims for their opinions. They have been "indoctrinated", and, as she repeatedly stated, the only way to feel secure with their presence in the country, is to make them "non-muslims". Another indication of that state of mind are her remarkable comments on young muslim girls, who are completely integrated, who wear "naveltruitjes" (belly button pullovers), but who are the most dangerous infiltrators of all muslims, because of the fact that they still are from muslim families and "will" later on become -inevitably- fundamentalist headscarf-bearers who indoctrinate their sons.

The fact, that Hirsi Ali's slightly opportunist selection of subjects and methods she choose to discuss her ideas, has undoubtedly led to an unwelcome laying bare of the conformist and provincialist Dutch tendencies, should not obscure another fact, which is, that she, basically, was consistent, in her idea-fixe about Islam and religion in general.

It has to be feared, that in her new country, where "faith-based" social actions are being favoured above neutral ones, Hirsi Ali will have to make a still narrower selection among her priorities, in order to be accepted there.

But that is a subject we will take up when we continue our comments on the Weekly Standard.

For the moment, let us stay with Holland, and agree with most of the intellectually more enlihghtened commenters there: The Moor hath done her Work, The Moor is excused (Der Mohr hat seine Schuldigkeit getan; der Mohr kann gehn, [German, F.v.Schiller]).

Or, like a French urban planner (for the Dutch share their provincial culture with many other nations) once said about a muslim neighbourhood gang leader whom he had helped to gain and hold control over his group of friends, at the moment the featured boy started to issue opinions in a civic participation procedure about the projects in his neighbourhood: "He did his job, I paid him for it. Now he should not think he can exert his civil rights like any other!"

Who is sabotaging who's integration here?