Johannesplatz (Erfurt)

Johannesplatz State capital Erfurt Coordinates: 50 ° 59 ′ 42 " N , 11 ° 1 ′ 47" E
Height :	180 m above sea level NN
Area :	43 hectares
Residents :	5311 (December 31, 2016)
Population density :	12,351 inhabitants / km²
Postal code :	99086
Area code :	0361
	Location of Johannesplatz in Erfurt

View through Friedrich-Engels-Strasse

Prefabricated buildings on Johannesplatz in 1970

Socialist art in Johannesplatz

The Johannesplatz is a district of Thuringia state capital of Erfurt . It is a prefabricated building area with 5,143 inhabitants on an area of 0.43 km².

Geography and traffic

It is located between Johannesvorstadt in the south and Ilversgehofen in the north and was the first residential area in Erfurt to be built using prefabricated panels. The quarter was built between 1966 and 1972. Johannesplatz has existed since the Napoleonic era and served as a camp and parade ground. After Prussian and French troops, prisoners of war lived there during the First World War. The barracks were later converted into emergency housing and finally demolished in 1951. The name Johannesplatz is derived from the location in the Johannesflur, which got its name from the inner-city Johanneskirche and thus from Saint Johannes.

The terrain is level and lies in the Gera floodplain at a height of around 180 meters. Around 3,500 new apartments were built in Johannesplatz to alleviate the shortage of living space in Erfurt in the 1960s. Five point high-rise buildings serve as urban planning dominants, two of which are on Eislebener Strasse in the south and three on Friedrich-Engels-Strasse in the north. In between there are three eleven-story large blocks in a north-south direction and 17 individual five-story apartment blocks. A district center was built south of Wendenstrasse, a method that was later also used in other Erfurt prefabricated building areas. It includes various shops for the basic needs of the residents in a small pedestrian zone, but is now quite orphaned. Next to it are the schools, gyms and sports fields of the district. Other large sports facilities are also located on the eastern edge of Johannesplatz, where the Johannesplatz swimming pool and the home stadium of the Erfurt women's football club are located. The relaxed construction of the prefabricated buildings made it possible to create numerous green spaces between the blocks. Open spaces were also decorated with sculptures in the socialist style, so that at the time of its construction the district was modern and well thought out, while in later prefabricated housing estates, the financial situation did not allow for much upgrading.

The district is connected to public transport via lines 1 and 5 of the Erfurt tram on Magdeburger Allee , while city bus line 9 runs on Friedrich-Engels-Straße, the district's main street. In addition, the Nordhausen – Erfurt railway line is located on the eastern edge of the district .

In 2009 there were 202 buildings with 3,466 apartments in Johannesplatz. Of these, only 149 were vacant, making the vacancy rate of 4.3% one of the lowest in Erfurt. Johannesplatz is the only panel building area in Erfurt in which no apartments were demolished after 1990 and no demolition is planned. This is favored by several factors: On the one hand, Johannesplatz is much more central than the other prefabricated building areas in an area surrounded by urban quarters. Unlike in Erfurt-Nord and Erfurt-Südost, this does not give the impression of a peripheral satellite town on the green field. On the other hand, it is the oldest and one of the smallest panel building areas in Erfurt, which is why it was the first to be renovated and completely modernized after reunification.

Population development

During the GDR era, around 7500 people lived in the 3500 apartments in the district, i.e. 2.1 people per apartment. After reunification, the standard of living increased and with it the living space used per person, and children who had grown up moved out, so that the number of inhabitants on Johannesplatz decreased. Increasing aging also leads to an increase in the number of people living alone or widowed, so that today only about 5200 people live in around 3300 inhabited apartments, i.e. 1.6 people per apartment. From this aging, Johannesplatz is the most severely affected district in Erfurt, so that now the 70 to 75 year olds make up the largest population group and the average age is 50.4 years. Middle age cohorts between 30 and 65 years are extremely underrepresented, while the influx of young adults has started in recent years. The negative birth balance, with around 30 births compared to around 60 deaths per year, can be offset by migration gains so that the population remains stable. 101 foreigners live in Johannesplatz, which corresponds to a share of only 1.9% compared to the Erfurt average of 3.3%.

On the one hand, obsolescence is a problem, especially if numerous new apartments have to be moved into in the next few years, but on the other hand, the population structure also prevents the district from slipping into a social hotspot, as can sometimes be observed in other large urban prefabricated building areas.

Data from the city administration of Erfurt as of December 31st.

year	population	Development (1990 = 100%)	Development in Erfurt (1990 = 100%)
1990	7,499	100.0	100.0
1995	6,076	81.0	93.4
1996	6.157	82.1	91.9
1997	5,964	79.5	90.6
1998	5,753	76.7	89.3
1999	5,552	74.0	88.0
2000	5,424	72.3	87.6
2001	5,280	70.4	87.4
2002	5,406	72.1	87.2
2003	5,306	70.8	88.0
2004	5,274	70.3	88.4
2005	5,172	69.0	88.5
2006	5,135	68.5	88.4
2007	5,171	69.0	88.5
2008	5,223	69.6	88.5
2009	5,261	70.2	88.8
2010	5,252	70.0	89.2
2011	5,177	69.0	89.8
2012	5,172	69.0	90.4
2013	5,162	68.8	91.1
2014	5,143	68.6	91.7
2015	5,290	70.5	93.3
2016	5,311	70.8	93.9

elections

In the local elections in Thuringia in 2009 , a district mayor and a district council were elected for the first time in Johannesplatz. Before that, the district did not have its own political representative body.

Political party	City Council 2009	State Parliament 2009	Bundestag 2013	Europe 2009
voter turnout	35.4	41.8	49.9	35.3
CDU	18.7	20.5	27.8	19.8
The left	30.5	41.5	33.5	36.8
SPD	33.2	19.9	18.9	20.0
Green	4.2	5.6	4.1	5.0
FDP	3.6	4.4	1.7	5.2

Web links

Commons : Johannesplatz - Collection of images, videos and audio files