Internship Kjeld Vosjan in Stuttgart, November 2010

Kjeld Vosjan from City Development , department of Economic Affairs went on a five day internship to Stuttgar in Novmber 2010. His research topic was the cooperation of city partners in the inner city of Stuttgart.

His internship left the following impression on him:

My main interest was to see how (economic) inner city partners are cooperating en organised in Stuttgart. Especially around the project Stuttgart 21 (very huge station area project) and the retail balance in the city. I think a good and strong economy and inner city is not a given thing, but needs attention and a role of direction of the government. I have spoken in Stuttgart with the director of City Initiative Stuttgart, a private cooperation between entrepreneurs and a large group of stakeholders (Mercedes, Deutsche Bahn, Porsche, Bosch). The City Initiative organizes events to get an attractive inner city and get more people to the inner city.

In Utrecht we are looking for the use of an legal law to get a Business Improvement District (BID). This means that each entrepreneur in the inner city is obligated to do a fee, so there are no more free riders. With all the fees, the entrepreneurs can pay their citymarketing things like Christmas lightning, hanging baskets, promotion, etc. In Stuttgart the politics decided not to obligate a fee, but make the fee voluntary. It works pretty good in Stuttgart.

Remarkable is that the director (herr Pfeifer) of the City Initiative is also a politician. That makes him stronger I think.

 

The role and position of the department of economic affairs (wirtschaft forderung) is different than in Utrecht, said frau Hugner and herr Armbruster in an conversation with them. They are immediately positioned under the "oberburgermeister", the mayor. That makes them powerful and proofs that economic and business is important in Stuttgart and higher on the political agenda than in Utrecht. I think big companies like Porsche, Mercedes and Bosch are very important for the city and because of that playing a big role in the politics and in the future development of the city.

The relation between the inner city and the project Stuttgart 21 is very weak. The project Stuttgart 21 and the development rights are given without a lot of notice of the balance in the inner city and the connection between the two areas. That's why it is possible that a developer (ECE) of shopping malls has the rights to develop a huge (40.000 square meters) shopping center at 800 meters from the inner city, without very much connection.      

Kjeld Vosjan