Imagine a place where people, buses, trams and cars coexist in crowded squares, with cheap public transportation available for everyone to get to work. Where educational institutions work hand-in-hand with government and business to create outstanding outcomes for all, helping recent immigrants and longtime residents alike find their career paths and excel within them. Where brownfields are rapidly and efficiently turned into thriving neighborhoods. Where front-line union workers are actively engaged to chart the course of workforce training and investments. This magical place exists, and it's called Germany. In July, the four of us participated in the American Council on Germany's "Transatlantic Cities of Tomorrow," an exchange program sponsored by the German government in which economic development professionals from various cities — Youngstown, Pittsburgh and Cleveland on this...
Author’s note: As we all look ahead to the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Wall, I was asked to look at whether there is still a wall in the minds (“Mauer im Kopf”) of former West and East Germans. I was born in West Germany and grew up there after 1989, and I moved to East Germany after high school. Although I have lived on both sides of the former border, it is not my place to explain any differences and divisions that remain. In fact, I think this is one of the main reasons causing problems and frustration – people from West Germany trying to explain former East Germans. Therefore I will draw on recent facts and figures to shed light on...
At the end of June, a heat wave struck western and central Europe, setting new temperature records for June in Germany and the Czech Republic. While temperatures have since cooled somewhat, European and German politics show no signs of doing the same. After marathon negotiations, European leaders broke with the “Spitzenkandidat process” whereby European political parties appoint lead candidates for senior positions ahead of the European elections to choose a new slate of leaders. Meanwhile, Germany is experiencing tectonic shifts in its party landscape. Let me take these developments in turn: Following the European elections in late May and weeks of speculation about who would get Europe’s top jobs, last week European leaders nominated German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen as the next President of...
The German Greens are on the rise. The polls see the Greens high up, even up to 26 percent[1]. That would make them the largest caucus in the German Bundestag. By comparison: In the election for the German Bundestag in 2017, the result for the Greens was only 8.9 percent, the smallest caucus in the Parliament. These are just polls; much will happen before the next election. But the German Greens will be strong in the next Bundestag for sure. And there are simple reasons why: the climate crisis, the Greens’ growing competence in policy, and the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Climate Protection The Umweltbewusstseinsstudie 2018, a study developed by the German Environment Ministry and the Federal Environment Agency, shows that 64 percent of Germans...
Another effort fostering solutions is a panel discussion at Belmont University focusing on social disruption in the U.S. and Germany. By Patrick W. Ryan, President and Founder of the Tennessee World Affairs Council, Dr. Nina Smidt, Director of International Strategic Planning at ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius, and Dr. Steven E. Sokol, President of the American Council on Germany in New York. In a period of increased polarization in domestic politics, fragmentation of society and social inequity, efforts to adapt and grow to meet the complex 21st century challenges of globalization and technological change should begin at the local level. Germany and the United States face many of the same domestic challenges, and local communities in both countries can learn from each other’s innovative approaches...
