But if you ask Bremer about the miserable situation in her city, you get a suspicious look with narrowed eyes: Yes, finances are certainly a problem. There are many excuses in this city that has been ruled by social democratic mayors for 80 years. Few people here think that this could also be a problem. They are attached to their SPD, and even if they don’t vote for them and the CDU gets the most votes, in the end the government is red – supported by the Left and the Greens.

Bremen in a social and economic downward trend

So what is this Bremen biotope that asserts itself as a city-state against all odds, whose roads and bridges are crumbling, whose high school diploma is ridiculed throughout Germany and whose citizens have to wait months for passports?

“If you look at Bremen from the outside, then of course you only see the negative indicators. You see a lack of resources and institutional failure. You see a two-city state that has not been able to cope well with the conditions since the 1970s,” says sociologist Günter Warsewa from the Institute for Work and Economy at the University of Bremen.

The city is characterized by financial and shipyard crises

The conditions from the 1970s onwards were really tough. On the one hand, there was the financial reform of 1969, which, among other things, introduced the residence principle for income tax. Commuters who work in Bremen but live in the surrounding area of ​​Lower Saxony, have been paying their taxes there ever since. The former donor country became a recipient country, which received 925 million euros from the state financial equalization last year alone. The shipyard crisis first caused AG Weser and then the state finances to falter.

The shipyard collapsed and Bremen took on debt. The interest from the loans of those years still restricts every household today. The loss of jobs as a result of the shipyard crisis led to high unemployment – today Bremen still has the highest unemployment rate among the federal states at around 11.5 percent. The poverty rate is even higher, at over 25 percent: one in four people in Bremen is considered to be at risk of poverty. Anyone who is still in a good mood here must be crazy – right?

Sociologists see complex urban problems

“People are already noticing an ever-widening gap between what is necessary and what is possible,” says sociologist Warsewa. “You can see the poor education, the poor health, infrastructure and security problems.” However, according to the sociologist, this is only ever noticed by a small proportion of people. Anyone who tries to apply for a passport every ten years and starts doing so months before the planned trip only has this tiring experience – every ten years. Negative experiences: More like highlights in life in a big city.

“A big city like this is an incredibly complex cosmos,” says sociologist Warsewa. All studies showed that people’s personal satisfaction depends more on their own social environment. In most cases, people’s personal situations are better assessed than the general ones. “It’s always about the question: How do I feel about the lifestyle in my city?”

Citizen engagement strengthens Bremen’s attitude to life

And despite all the adversities, this attitude to life is still surprisingly good in Bremen – especially in the middle-class districts. Civic engagement is very important in this old Hanseatic city, where the impressive Chamber of Commerce is directly opposite the town hall and the Roland sculpture on the market square stands up to the cathedral. And the homeless sleep under the venerable town hall arcades.

In the neighborhoods close to the city center, the bicycle and not the BMW is part of everyday life; here people come together in cooperative geothermal energy clusters to create the energy transition together. There are citizens’ initiatives to save plane trees on the banks of the Weser, lawsuits against parking so that wheelchair users can also get through easily.

Social urban development in the outskirts of Bremen

In the not so middle-class periphery, neighborhood managers take care of the citizens’ concerns. They are part of the social urban development that Bremen is committed to and are intended to help make socially challenging neighborhoods more livable.

Sociologists speak of the inherent logic of a city, which develops through history, culture, routines and social structures. “Bremen experiences itself as somehow more left-wing and forward, as surrounded by forces that don’t like it,” wrote the city sociologist Carsten von Wissel in an article for the Bremen Greens in 2020. The city is a good place for those “who have been able to establish themselves in its institutions.” For others it has to be enough that everyone here wants the good – a social city, a progressive education system, a safe life – even if it often doesn’t happen.

High demands with limited performance

Günter Warsewa points out another point: “The demands on government action and institutional performance on issues such as education, security and health have increased – but the opportunities to meet the demands have become smaller.”

Joining Lower Saxony – despite all the major and minor shortcomings here, no one wants to do that. “The autonomy of the community is an incredibly valuable asset,” says Warsewa. “It would have to get much worse before most people in Bremen would be willing to give up their independence.”