Programs for returnees: How Brandenburg courts young families

In Brandenburg, the population is shrinking in many places because younger people are moving to the big cities. Some cities are courting young families with special programs.

In the past 30 years, after the fall of the Wall and the collapse of the GDR economy, most cities in Brandenburg have lost a whole generation of their mostly young residents. Now the cities are courting in different ways, especially for young families. Gransee and Forst are two of them.

“We have to dedicate ourselves more and more to social media, there is simply no other way to reach young people,” says Simone Taubenek, the mayor of Forst. “For example, we also did the job interview online with one of our employees. She was in Chile and we were here in the town hall.” Now the young woman works in the museum.

Such small successes are a ray of hope for the mayor. Together with twenty other municipalities, she advertises her city on the “Arrival in Brandenburg” platform on the internet and social media. Jobs are offered there, daycare places, affordable housing – and it is emphasized that there is also an indoor swimming pool. Cities like Cottbus and Berlin are easily accessible by train and car.

But the competition is fierce and Forst is comparatively far away: 150 kilometers away from Berlin in the extreme south-east of Brandenburg. That’s why not everyone has the city on their list. Forst has lost about a third of its inhabitants in the past 30 years, almost 18,000 people live here.

“More than 30 percent of the population is over 60 years old,” explains the mayor. “Now I not only miss the generation that left for work, but now also their children.” That is the reason why the city took part in the “Arrival in Brandenburg” project.

Forst relies on returnees

Taubenek’s advertising is primarily aimed at former foresters who have left the city for studies, training or jobs and should now return if possible. She relies on their ties to their homeland. With some with success – like Diana Zimmermann. In 2006 she followed her husband to Bavaria for work.

“At that time there were 120 high school graduates in our class,” says the young woman, three quarters of whom had moved away – right across Germany. “Only a small part stayed here. But you can tell that many people come back because forest is worth living in.” Zimmermann and her husband are among them. She now works for the city administration and organizes events there. Her husband can do his job from home thanks to home office.

Gransee prefers the locals

In Gransee, a good 200 kilometers north of Forst, the city planners want to ensure that young people don’t leave at all, or at most for a few years for studies or training. Older people are also in the majority in Gransee, but they can’t complain about the lack of people moving into the city. The city currently has almost 6,000 inhabitants, and their number has been growing again for some time.

Gransee is idyllically situated in the Märkische Seenlandschaft and is easy to reach. The train takes three quarters of an hour to get to Berlin Central Station. It makes sense to live here cheaply and to work in Berlin – or to look for something for the weekends and holidays.

The run on land has also caused prices to rise around Gransee – although by no means to the level around Berlin, where a square meter sometimes costs 500, 800 or even more than 1000 euros. “We are still in the double-digit range with our land prices,” says Christian Tutsch, the city planner in the Gransee office. “But we’re already noticing that they have doubled here in the last ten years. On the free market you can certainly achieve even more, even three-digit amounts.”

This development is a thorn in the side of the urban planner and his boss, Nico Zehmke, the head of the building department of Gransee. In Bavaria they came across the so-called “local model” and adapted it to the conditions in Gransee. As a result, young families from the area with children and middle income should be given preferential purchase of land if they are socially committed.

Whoever is in the fire brigade collects points

“So that means that certain volunteer activities, especially working in the voluntary fire brigade, were an important decision point here,” explains head of the building department Zehmke. It all works on a point system.

But what does that mean for foreigners from Berlin, for example – will the city gates of Gransee remain closed to them in the future? No, says city planner Tutsch. “It’s an advantage if you’ve lived in Gransee for a certain amount of time, because you get extra points, so to speak. But a Berliner with six children who works in the fire brigade may get more points than a Granseeer without children who doesn’t live in the fire brigade is.”

City officials have already used the model in a housing estate. Two years ago, the plots were sold at a standard price of 69 euros per square meter. Now Tutsch and Zehmke are standing between finished houses and construction sites on which cranes are turning. Twelve of the 16 houses belong to Granseern, the other four went to Berliners.

“Short way to study in Potsdam”

For the two men from the building authority, this is a success. And as if to prove it, a young woman with a pram is passing by. Julia Dierberg is a teacher, was born in Gransee and is currently building a house with her husband. It took a long time, but it’s almost finished now, she says.

“I was away for a short time to study in Potsdam, but returned quickly because I’m more of a home and family type,” says Dierberg. She thinks the idea of ​​the local model is great, she has already seen many familiar faces here, but also some unknown ones, since not all the properties have gone to people from here.

Zehmke and Tutsch already have one or two more municipal areas in mind in and around Gransee, where land could be sold again according to the local model.