Munich 2040: Future visions of young Munich residents – Munich

A regular “Ugly Friday” wouldn’t be bad: The inhibition threshold drops, no one has to worry about the wardrobe, and can simply stroll to the State Opera or the theater in jogging pants to see Wagner. And otherwise, life in Munich could look different in just under 20 years: students who don’t have a bag of money would no longer have to wait years to get an affordable cooperative apartment. In the city libraries, instead of long rows of shelves full of dictionaries, there are airy islands with digital media, current international reading matter and taps for water bottles. A participation office would be created in the town hall that would focus on youth participation in all areas of life and take it seriously.

“Munich 2040” was the name of the future conference at which around 300 young people between the ages of 14 and 27 designed visions and innovations for the city in which they want to live and raise their children in the summer of 2021. On the initiative of the Bund der Deutschen Katholische Jugend (BDKJ) in the Munich region, an organizational team was formed from many areas of youth work, including the district youth council and city student representation. All in all, 80 people in 43,000 volunteer hours brought representatives from politics, business, science and society on board to stimulate a social debate and implement as many things as possible from the long list of wishes. On Tuesday afternoon, a delegation handed over the demands to Mayor Verena Dietl (SPD) in the town hall.

It was out of the question to call off the long-planned conference in the middle of the pandemic summer of 2021, says Benedikt Breil from the BDKJ, 23 years old and initiator of the large-scale project. “Many young people had the feeling that they had been forgotten.” And that’s exactly what it should be about: concrete co-determination of one’s own future, bundled into five subject areas, including education and work, environment and technology, culture and society. From this they distilled their demands at the event.

A participation office is to be decided soon

It is important that teachers are well trained on the topics of anti-racism, anti-discrimination and media skills, said Fabian Rieth, 23, student representative of the Munich University of Applied Sciences at the handover in the town hall. The heart’s desire of philosophy student Franziska Rhein, 25, is “to create more space for young people to spend time in public spaces”. Sharing offers throughout the MVV area are also on the list. “The cross-cutting issue,” says Benedikt Breil, “is expanding the Democracy Center into a Munich center for political education. We simply know too little about our local politics.”

“So bundled from so many different areas” no youth package has ever been brought to the city, Mayor Dietl pays tribute to the committed. Some things are already on the way, and the young activists have been involved as contact persons. This is the case with the participation center as a contact point for young people, which will be decided on in the next child and youth welfare committee.

Especially on their Instagram channel, the visionaries have made concrete demands on city, state and federal politicians, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who all respond with a short film. Some use the platform as a presentation space for their own party program, others are more specific. It’s not often that you get the attention of young voters that focused.

“If you talk about future projects, you quickly come up with flying taxis.” Benedikt Breil laughs. “Then you come back and get very specific and start small, where we can make improvements in everyday life.” That has worked quite well. Beyond the borders of Bavaria, the method of your future project will probably be in great demand.

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