Flight blind

Featured photo: Blind flight | © Anemone123 from Pixabay

If you take a closer look at Heilbronn's urban development, you can't help but think of flying blind. Only and alone Dieter schwarz stands out positively with its commitment, although one must also note that this commitment without citizen support (the local council and town hall can safely be viewed as zero figures in this regard) will be very uneven for the city's development, because Dieter schwarz and Heilbronn play in two completely different leagues! And so you would have to have the commitment of Dieter schwarz, the city administration's permanent refusal to work, harmonizing civic needs and metropolitan development. It would certainly help if we had at least one mayor who was reasonably competent and willing to do this.

In the last few years I have dreamed of wonderful urban projects here on the blog, including a real university, a main train station that is not just on paper, a real bus station, an expansion of the light rail, a large event hall, a real sports field, an expansion of the Neckarhalde, a waste incineration plant (to protect the environment), a renovation of the port and the harbor railway, a development concept for the industrial area and one for the core city and, last but not least, a real swimming gym.

But then, upon closer inspection, I was sobered to realize that the city's infrastructure as a whole had been so run down by our mayors and the local council that there is now, and very conservatively estimated, an investment gap of at least over 500 million euros!

All schools urgently need to be brought up to date, expanded or even supplemented with additional schools. The bus depot and fire stations must be rebuilt and the municipal building yard must also be brought up to state of the art. The swimming pools and halls as well as the sports halls and fields must be completely renovated or newly built. Sewer pipes and supply and communication lines must be completely renovated, replaced or newly built. Bridges and the energy and water supply must at least be renovated and probably put on a completely new footing. Heilbronn's road network not only needs to be renovated, but above all it needs to be adapted to today's times; which also applies to the supply of goods to households, companies and businesses and ultimately also to waste disposal.

But the local councils and especially the mayors seem to continue to like to concentrate on projects in their own districts and on their own clubs - they don't care about anything else. Which led, among other things, to a wheelhouse, a cemetery staircase that no visitor can use and a broken bridge that looks nice but is useless for its purpose at the train station. Soon we will also have a bombastic Neckar staircase, a bicycle tunnel and other gadgets that our city officials can decorate themselves with - nothing against the tricks, but we should all slowly but surely become more sustainable and also set responsible priorities!

It's a good sign that people are taking care of the city library in the center and also want to hold on to the city theater. The expansion of harmony that has taken place is also pleasing.

But now the real priorities must finally be addressed and that is functioning schools for all people in Heilbronn, including those in the core city. This also includes sports halls and pitches, and preferably a swimming pool in the center of the city, as every important infrastructure belongs in the center of the city and not in the districts!

Then the bus depot and the fire departments. Construction yard, bus station and main train station must follow. And the whole thing is coordinated and planned in such a way that our next generation won't be faced with the same mess again in 30 years at the latest.

It is imperative that every urban infrastructure receives a price tag right at the entrance that lists the construction and maintenance costs as well as the date when it needs to be replaced.

If you think at least somewhat in a metropolitan way, you could even use Wollhaus, Kaufhof, Reim and other areas for urban development. Some cities are even building schools in old department stores!

And if our Department IV in the town hall continues to be completely overwhelmed with everything, the entire department could easily be eliminated without replacement and the corresponding tasks assigned to a specialist company every five years, which would then even be liable for any errors. I suspect that this would be the cheapest solution for us citizens and the best solution for Heilbronn.

Ok, already today many tasks and activities are outsourced by Department IV, which only further confirms that the department is no longer needed, because unnecessary middlemen only make the whole thing more expensive and complicated.

Addendum

And then I even found the right music video. This comes from Yello, a band around the musicians Dieter Meier and Boris Blank, which is named after a yelled Hello.

Yello has been around since 1978 and their biggest hits are probably “Desire” and “Oh Yeah” from (Stella) 1985 and “Rubberbandman” from (Baby) 1991.

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