Photo: City Hall Heilbronn | © Shutterstock
Table of Contents
recompression
One of the new cult words of the Heilbronn municipal council is "densification", which is basically a good thing to mitigate the urban sprawl of our landscapes. Of course, it would be better if, in a big city, the building height limit was also lifted. The bad thing about the whole thing, however, is that although things are being consolidated, the necessary infrastructure is not being adjusted accordingly or even with foresight. The really expensive things about these measures are the supply and waste water pipes, the collecting tanks and a necessary enlargement and modernization of the sewage treatment plants. In addition, there will be an increase in traffic areas and parking facilities - at least as long as the majority of Heilbronn's population still likes to drive their own cars. What's more - you can see this quite well in Ulm, among other places - that the tram system is being expanded or even functional bicycle lanes are being built; there will certainly not be a lack of ideas. In addition, one must not forget the other supply and telecommunications infrastructure, which is already working at the limit.
It is therefore incomprehensible that no longer necessary traffic axes are built or expanded, but on the contrary reduced or even reduced degraded to dead ends, just as some bike paths end suddenly and unexpectedly. And as soon as it rains a little harder, the basements themselves or especially those in new development areas flood. And since entire new-build areas are simply declared as traffic-calmed or car-free, thereby saving investors the expense of parking spaces, you get additional, superfluous and environmentally harmful traffic throughout the city center, as visitors are constantly circling the blocks of flats in search of free parking spaces , as well as the residents who, contrary to what the city assumes, have their own cars but no parking spaces.
We want everything, but doing it as cheaply as possible is not a solution for keeping a big city alive. And driving bans or speed limits do not solve the problem either.
Swimming
Although I still have to wait a good 6 weeks before I can swim again myself - if the Heilbronn incidence doesn't thwart my plans again - I am very happy that at least two of our Heilbronn pools are open. The swimming break of several months has had a very negative effect on my state of health, so I hope things will start to improve again soon.
And swimming is also a good thing for our children and young people, provided they don't just hang around at the edge of the pool, but at least try to learn to swim. Here it would be of great help, albeit the third Gesundbrunnen outdoor pool and our Soleo indoor pool could be opened - but I suspect that's not just because of the money, but rather because of the lack of skilled workers.
club work
For a long time I've been wondering how others can move around in countless clubs on their own in terms of time. I, at least, always had to limit myself in terms of quantity and was only able to actively participate in very few at the same time. And just being the chairman of a single club keeps me busy every day.
With increasing experience, I was able to drop some things, but there are always new things that need to be dealt with. And over the years there are always repetitions — no déjà vus — which are less and less fun to work through. And unfortunately, probably due to the voluntary association work, it is of little use if you create a best practice or FAQ collection and even less, a corresponding one textbook schreibt.
So you have no choice but to preach the same thing over and over again, which people who are active in sports or music clubs tend to be spared because at some point even the most resistant can swim, cycle or sing.
But it's really annoying when you keep asking "professional" club board members the basics of their “own” association must preach and realizes that the whole thing doesn't matter to them; The main thing is that they can adorn themselves with a post, better still, they don't have to do any work of their own.
In political associations in particular, it is the case that these people appear alone - if at all - for the compulsory events, look out for food and drink, are always ready and willing to bring trivial things to the attention of "the people" and quickly disappear when they do it is true that one should actually become productive one day.
With such role models, it is very understandable if the working level becomes more and more withdrawn and the gap between the “presidents” and the “association people” widens — which unfortunately is also reflected in the number of members.
