Regional city of Frankfurt

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a large commune to be founded from Frankfurt am Main and its suburbs was discussed under the term regional city of Frankfurt (in connection with the upcoming regional reform in Hesse ) .

The project was given a concrete form with the concept "Regional City Frankfurt - A Contribution to Discussion" by the then Mayor of Frankfurt Walter Möller , which was published on January 21, 1971.

Demarcation

Delimitation and districts of the regional city of Frankfurt

The Möller Plan proposed a regional city with around 1.5 million inhabitants ( regional setting B.3, in variant B.2 without Hanau 1.3 million), delimited according to scientific integration criteria . The area of the regional city would be around 1210 square kilometers in variant B.3 and 1030 square kilometers in variant B.2, which would make it the largest city in Germany in both cases. Following the example of existing regional cities (especially Berlin), this should be divided into six (variant B.2: five) city districts:

Middle (513,000 inhabitants): the previously heavily reduced urban area of Frankfurt, particularly in the west and east;
West (245,000 inhabitants): the western Vordertaunus , including Hofheim , Kelkheim , Königstein , Kronberg and Bad Soden , as well as Höchst as the “main town” of the district;
North (157,000 inhabitants): the eastern Vordertaunus around the "main town" Bad Homburg , Oberursel and Friedrichsdorf as well as the part of the southern Wetterau near the city with Bad Vilbel and Frankfurt-Nieder-Eschbach ;
Offenbach (259,000 inhabitants): in addition to Offenbach am Main as the center, large parts of the eastern urban region from Bergen-Enkheim via Fechenheim and Dietzenbach to the Rodgau ;
South : (169,000 inhabitants): among others Kelsterbach , Neu-Isenburg and Langen (without a specified “main town”);
One district of Hanau (with cities such as Hanau, Bruchköbel , Mühlheim ) only contained area variant B.3.

Distribution of competencies

Möller deliberately designed the concept to be open and left room for discussion. This also affected the distribution of tasks between the region and districts. Möller, however, named three areas that should definitely lie at the regional level and described this as Frankfurt's condition for his "self-abandonment": financial sovereignty , land use planning and the basics of administrative organization . All other areas would be negotiable and could also be assigned to the districts.

Results of the administrative reform in the Rhine-Main area

The regional city concept met with massive resistance from the rural subdistricts of the then politically decisive district of Hessen-Süd of the SPD from the start.

Already at the district party convention of the SPD Hessen- Süd in March 1970 in Wiesbaden , the city-oriented board members Olaf Radke , Georg Buch , Walter Möller , Willi Brundert and Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul had been ousted from the district board; Their posts were held by authoritative representatives of the so-called “District Councilor faction” (including Heiner Dudene , Heribert Reitz , Martin Woythal , Herbert Günther and Jochen Zwecker ).

In October 1971, an extraordinary state delegate conference of the Hessian SPD in Grünberg (Hesse) - despite massive opposition from some of the southern Hessian delegates - spoke out in favor of the establishment of a regional association for Frankfurt am Main , whose competencies were to lag far behind those of the planned regional city. The regional city concept had thus finally failed.

Other models of territorial reform in the Rhine-Main area were discussed under the term Stadtkreis Frankfurt .

Between 1972 and 1977 the number of municipalities in Hesse was reduced from 2,682 to 421, that of rural districts from 39 to 21 and that of independent cities from ten to five. While other larger cities such as Wiesbaden emerged greatly enlarged from the regional reform, only four smaller municipalities were added to the urban area of Frankfurt ( Harheim , Kalbach , Nieder-Erlenbach and Nieder-Eschbach in 1972 in the course of the formation of the Wetterau district and Bergen-Enkheim in 1976 in the course the formation of the Main-Kinzig-Kreis ). In the rest of the surrounding area, the communities and districts were reorganized; As a result, their number fell from around 200 to around 40. With this specific form of reorganization, “getting close to the Frankfurt city limits”, there were also plans to rearrange the Rhine-Main area at least through generous incorporations into Frankfurt am Main failed due to resistance from the surrounding districts and part of the affected communities.

literature

Michael König: Regional City Frankfurt - A concept after 100 years of city-surrounding discourse in Berlin, Hanover and Frankfurt am Main . Workbooks of the Institute for Urban and Regional Planning of the TU Berlin , Issue 75, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-7983-2114-4 .
Walter Möller: What is the territorial reform about? In: Regionalstadt Frankfurt am Main, Press and Information Office of the City of Frankfurt am Main Sept. 1971.

Individual evidence

^ Gerhard Beier: SPD Hessen: Chronicle 1945 to 1988 , Dietz Verlag JHW Nachf, Bonn, 1992 p. 328 ISBN 978-3-8012-0146-3
↑ Gerhard Beier: SPD Hessen: Chronicle 1945 to 1988 , Dietz Verlag JHW Nachf, Bonn, 1992 p. 336 ISBN 978-3-8012-0146-3

[1] Gerhard Beier: SPD Hessen: Chronicle 1945 to 1988 , Dietz Verlag JHW Nachf, Bonn, 1992 p. 328 ISBN 978-3-8012-0146-3

[2] Gerhard Beier: SPD Hessen: Chronicle 1945 to 1988 , Dietz Verlag JHW Nachf, Bonn, 1992 p. 336 ISBN 978-3-8012-0146-3