Test City

Since 2019, it has been pos­si­ble to test live in the city of Görlitz—100 kilo­me­ters east of Dres­den and direct­ly on the Pol­ish bor­der. Near­ly 150 peo­ple respond­ed to the call to get to know the city for more than four weeks through tem­po­rary set­tle­ment. By the end of March 2020, 55 adults and sev­en chil­dren had test­ed liv­ing and work­ing in Gör­litz. One of them is the pho­tog­ra­ph­er Niko­las Fabi­an Kam­mer­er, who pro­duced the fol­low­ing pic­tures dur­ing his test liv­ing in Gör­litz. Here you can see the view from the Nico­laiturm towards Land­skro­ne. © Niko­las Fabi­an Kammerer

Due to out-migra­tion, the city of Gör­litz has shrunk by a quar­ter of its pop­u­la­tion since the 1990s. In 2008, a research group of the TU Dres­den and the Gör­litz city admin­is­tra­tion dared an exper­i­ment to attract new peo­ple to the city. Tem­po­rary liv­ing in Gör­litz should reveal the qual­i­ties and poten­tial of this place. Probe­wohnen, Stadt Erleben, and Stadt auf Probe, and now the fourth edi­tion of the project is under­way. Those inter­est­ed can try out liv­ing in the city and get to know the net­works in the cul­tur­al and youth sec­tors. They can use shared work­spaces as well as work­shops and thus direct­ly explore new social and pro­fes­sion­al perspectives.

Link to Audio guide

Acti­va­tionRe-useDiver­si­tyChange

Project

Stadt auf Probe—Wohnen und Arbeit­en in Görlitz

Actors

Leib­niz-Insti­tute of Eco­log­i­cal Urban and Region­al Devel­op­ment (I.R) rep­re­sent­ed through the Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary Cen­tre for Eco­log­i­cal and Revi­tal­is­ing Urban Trans­for­ma­tion (ISZ); OfWice for Urban Devel­op­ment of the City of Gör­litz; Komm­Wohnen Ser­vice GmbH, munic­i­pal hous­ing com­pa­ny; KoLAB­O­Rac­ja e.V., Kühlhaus e.V., Wild­wuchs e.V., Fed­er­al Min­istry of the Inte­ri­or, Build­ing and Com­mu­ni­ty, co-funding

Year

2018—2020

Loca­tion

Gör­litz, Germany

View from the Pol­ish side of the riv­er Neisse in direc­tion of St. Peter’s Church. © Niko­las Fabi­an Kammerer
Fish­er­men on the Neisse Riv­er on the Pol­ish shore. © Niko­las Fabi­an Kammerer