Dieter Reiter is sitting in a parking lot and feels comfortable. He starts chatting and gives out cuddles to citizens and political friends. In the town hall, in the old ticket hall that serves as a gallery, the mayor opens the annual exhibition of the planning department. In many colorful pictures on many wooden frames, Munich presents itself as a city of dreams. The sky is white and blue, the people are happy and committed, and it’s completely okay when a parking space becomes a seat. “Next door, right in the middle, at home” is the name of the city’s exhibition about “sustainable neighborhoods”.
They transported an original parklet from Landwehrstrasse to the town hall, a kind of private wooden bar the size of an SUV. “I’m known to be a car lover,” says Reiter, sitting on beer crates and chatting into a keynote speech on urban and transport planning.
Beforehand, exhibition organizer Kathrin Borrmann guides the mayor and city planning officer Elisabeth Merk between the walls. For the photo, Reiter and Merk try their hand at table tennis doubles with rackets labeled: “More culture, please.” “More play, please.” Small stickers with these and other wishes – more party, more green, more diversity – can be handed out to exhibition visitors on white plastic chairs, as an analogue interaction with the town hall. During the guided course through the dream city, riders and Merk are noticed by whispering. You can do that, you are the boss.
According to the exhibition, there are 475 districts in Munich. Each has “its very own character,” says Merk. The settlement “Am Durchblick” as well as the “Galgenberg” (near the main train station) can be found on a city map. Exhibition pilot Borrmann mentions that there is even a time capsule in the exhibition. With this keyword, Merk chimes in: “Let’s go there now because there’s a nice photo there.” Reiter comes into the old, yellow telephone booth, which has been digitized using a monitor.
City planning officer Elisabeth Merk and Mayor Dieter Reiter climb into the telephone booth that has been converted into a “time capsule”.
(Photo: Florian Peljak)
More culture, more green: The exhibition also features a ping-pong table of future wishes.
(Photo: Florian Peljak)
Merk and his boss soon find themselves in Neuperlach, or more precisely, in front of a model of a neighborhood there that was once used by an insurance company and now a project developer wants to transform. Not, as was usual in the past, with total demolition, but with preservation and conversion. The view of Neuperlach makes the mayor sing the praises of this district, which is often dismissed as a test piece by outsiders but loved by residents. Merk tells of a trip with Hans-Jochen Vogel through Neuperlach, about a year before his death. Vogel, mayor from 1960 to 1972, when Neuperlach began, said: “You have to get very old to see that urban development is worth it.” Reiter phrases his praise like this: “It didn’t go that badly.”
At some point, Merk and Reiter will find themselves in the future chapter of the exhibition: “Climate neutrality begins in the neighborhood.” Here, boards explain keywords such as open spaces and weather extremes, energy transition and concrete recycling – and joint neighborhood design. Reiter tells Merk that he hopes (attention, irony!) that his favorite place will soon become even more beautiful. Merk says that they are already there. It turns out that they are talking past each other: Reiter is referring to Willy-Brandt-Platz in the trade fair city, which to him looks as if a concrete mixer had fallen over there. Merk is referring to Max-Joseph-Platz, which will soon be temporarily greened. Reiter laughs: “I won’t be able to see the square in front of the opera again.” Well, at least not as OB. Space planning is a difficult business, the mayor would like to involve the population more. “Who,” he says into a TV camera, “could plan better than the population itself.”
The sit-in follows in the leafy parklet between daffodils and ivy. “We are sitting,” says Merk, very close to Reiter, “in a conflict zone.” Such an outdoor seat on the side of the road symbolizes the fight for public space, car versus person. Reiter says that he receives a lot of mail from citizens and that after ten years as mayor, nothing surprises him anymore; these days everything has the “potential for excitement.” Even an attempt to turn the inconspicuous Columbus Strait into a zone for people for a few months. Temporary parking spaces were made available, which didn’t work, says Reiter. But he doesn’t want to let outrage take away his freedom to try things out. And if something doesn’t reach the citizens, “then it has to go again.”
Transport policy could also be quite simple for Reiter. In ten years, his goal is to have only half as many cars driving around the old town as there are today. Hardly any other major European city has so much traffic in the city. For the cycle path network, the mobility department should simply mark routes with yellow stripes instead of expensive and time-consuming reconstruction of roads. Quick and easy. And the mayor says something else in the “conflict room”: “You can also become smarter.”
The exhibition can be seen in the town hall gallery until March 6th, daily from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. Admission is free.