Richard Wolff (geographer)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Richard Wolff (2013)

Richard Wolff (born August 6, 1957 in Erlenbach ZH ; entitled to live in Wettswil am Albis and Basel ) is a Swiss geographer , urban sociologist and politician . He was a co-founder of the urban research network INURA , within the framework of which he worked as an urban development researcher. He was also a lecturer in urban development at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) in Winterthur . He sat for AL in the Zurich municipal council and was also active in the tenants' association and in the VCS . Since June 1, 2013, he has been a Zurich City Councilor (executive). He is head of the civil engineering and waste management department of the city of Zurich.

Life

origin

Richard Wolff was born in 1957 as the son of Swiss parents in Erlenbach in the canton of Zurich . The father Günter Wolff came from a family of manufacturers of Jewish origin in Stadtoldendorf, Germany, and from 1936 attended the institute on the Rosenberg St. Gallen. His father Richard Wolff was arrested, expropriated and murdered by the National Socialists . A restitution of the factory after the war failed, Günter Wolff graduated in Germany studies in business administration from, met his future wife, from a Christian family of civil servants coming to know and put this in Switzerland.

Childhood and youth

Richard Wolff, whose father worked for various large companies, spent his childhood in various communities in the Zurich area and for two and a half years in Venezuela. There he saw himself confronted for the first time as a teenager with great poverty and social inequalities. In addition to the experiences from Venezuela and the media reports on the 1968 riots and the Vietnam War, Wolff experienced his politicization as a youth in Zurich after 1968: He “ noticed that there is also another world than the one you perceive, including that not everything has to be as organized and boring as it was with our parents. Everyday life, material goods - everything was put into perspective. If I had stayed in Venezuela, I would probably not have experienced this departure despite the salsa and fiesta. I might have studied in the USA and then worked for a company like IBM. "

Studies

After graduating from high school, Wolff studied geography and ethnology in Zurich. When the “ Opera House Riots ” broke out in Zurich on May 30, 1980 , Wolff was at a Bob Marley concert. From the following day, however, he took part in the other demonstrations. This was sparked by the decision to expand the opera house worth millions, while the long-standing demands for a youth culture center were never met. The clashes between young people and the authority lasted until 1982 and culminated in the foundation of the Red Factory , which was subsidized by the city , where Wolff was a member of the board for years.

Meanwhile, Wolff and other geography students founded the group “SAU - Senter for Applied Urbanism” at the university, which dealt with all aspects of urban research and urban development in Zurich. This also served as the basis for the foundation of the international network of geographers and urban researchers, INURA (International Network for Urban Research and Action), in 1991. As a result of the seventh annual INURA conference, the book Possible urban worlds: urban strategies at was published in 1998 the end of the 20th century.

job

In 1999 Wolff received his doctorate from the ETH Zurich with the dissertation “Popular Planning in King's Cross, London : Communicative Reason in the Urban Development Process”. He then spent a year as a visiting professor for Urban Sociology and Urban Planning at the University of Wisconsin in Green Bay . From 2000, Wolff was a lecturer for urban planning and urban development in the architecture department of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW). Wolff and Philipp Klaus headed the Inura Zurich Institute, which creates concepts and expertise on urban development issues for the public sector and non-profit organizations, accompanies municipal committees in urban development processes and organizes, leads and moderates congresses, seminars, meetings and study trips. For example, Wolff has headed the “non-partisan working group Zurich North” since 1998, and between 2002 and 2005 was involved in the Idaplatz and Lindenplatz neighborhood upgrading processes. In 2006/2007 he was also in charge of the organization and implementation of the “100 Years of Non-Profit Housing” congress for the Swiss Housing Association, the City of Zurich and the Federal Housing Office.

politics

In 2010, Wolff was elected to the Zurich municipal council (legislature) as a candidate for the Alternative List (AL). For the city council replacement elections on March 7, 2012, Wolff was nominated as a candidate by his party and ran against two bourgeois politicians. His goals were more affordable housing, an expansion of childcare for everyone, a reduction in car traffic and the implementation of the 2000 Watt Society in Zurich, which has already been adopted by initiative. He wasn't elected.

In the city council replacement election on March 3, 2013, Wolff ran again, but like all other candidates did not achieve the absolute majority. In the second ballot on April 21, 2013 Wolff narrowly distanced the favored candidate of the FDP and was elected as the successor to the resigned Martin Vollenwyder ( FDP) in the executive branch of the city of Zurich. He was able to clearly confirm this choice in the general election of 2014. From 2013 to 2018 Richard Wolff was head of the security department of the city of Zurich, since June 1, 2018 he has been head of the civil engineering and waste disposal department.

Private

Wolff now lives in Zurich in an apartment in a housing cooperative he co-founded with his partner and is the father of three sons.

Fonts

  • Richard Wolff (Ed.): Possible urban worlds: urban strategies at the end of the 20th century. Birkhäuser, Basel / Boston / Berlin 1998.
  • Richard Wolff: Popular Planning in King's Cross, London : Communicative Reason in the Urban Development Process. Dissertation, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, 1999, doi: 10.3929 / ethz-a-003824951 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Heinz Nigg : Zurich became part of the rest of the world. Portrait of Richard Wolff, WoZ - Die Wochenzeitung , September 27, 2000, available online: [1]
  2. ↑ The grandchildren of the Nazi victims visit the city of their ancestors. Daily Anzeiger, Holzminden district , November 21, 2009, p. 22.
  3. ↑ a b Portrait: Richard Wolff , Zurich University of Applied Sciences, accessed on April 19, 2010.
  4. ↑ Election flyer for the election of Wolff to the Zurich city council
  5. ↑ http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/zuerich/stadt/Stadtratswahlen-Wolff-gewinnt-Mauch-gratetzt/story/16420282
  6. ↑ Richard Wolff: About me . In: richard-wolff.ch . Retrieved July 8, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Wolff, Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss geographer and urban sociologist, Zurich city councilor
DATE OF BIRTH August 6, 1957
PLACE OF BIRTH Erlenbach ZH