Good wishes for Christmas and the New Year, the hope for continued fruitful cooperation – that and much more should be in each of the eight cards signed by the mayors of the Northern Alliance municipalities and these days on Anna’s table -Laura Liebenstund land. The 35-year-old is the managing director of the alliance of eight in the north of the state capital Munich, in which Garching, Ismaning, Oberschleißheim and Unterschleißheim, Unterföhring, Eching, Hallbergmoos and Neufahrn have joined forces.
Because in the early 1980s the north of Munich was in the unfortunate position of becoming a dumping ground for unwelcome facilities in the state capital, the mayors of the municipalities at the time decided to fight back – and to do so together. Eight voices are louder than just one. The Northern Alliance was launched to unite five towns and communities in the district of Munich and three communities from the neighboring district of Freising in the fight against negative facilities such as a military training area and – unforgotten – the Transrapid.
When the idea came up in 2007 to connect the airport in the Erdinger Moos with a magnetic levitation train to Munich Central Station, the Northern Alliance protested loudly against the construction in solidarity with the city of Munich under the then mayor Christian Ude (SPD). Even if the massive increase in costs finally put an end to the high-flying Transrapid plans and these were stopped by the federal government, the successors in the town halls still remember their quarrelsome predecessors.
The current projects of the Northern Alliance are no longer quite as argumentative and combative. The Union is currently focusing on presenting the region as a business location and climate-friendly mobility, in particular the expansion of the cycling infrastructure. Among other things, it is about the construction of a cycle path between Garching’s southern district of Dirnismaning and Munich-Freimann, the lighting of the cycle route between Neufahrn and Hallbergmoos and a cross-community rental system for pedelecs.
After almost three years as managing director and thus as coordinator of the Northern Alliance, Anna-Laura Liebenstund’s balance is positive. “I experience a productive cooperation between the eight town halls,” says the qualified sociologist of technology, the exchange is going “very, very well”. Above all, it is the “short line” that characterizes an alliance like the Northern Alliance – and that one municipality can learn something from the other.
In the series “My number” the SZ presents people every day until Christmas, in whose life a number has a special meaning – from 1 to 24 like in an advent calendar.