Once the harbor industry began to move out from Bremerhaven to Hamburg, economy of Bremerhaven rapidly declined. Many people lost their jobs, others moved out together with harbor. Today it is one of the shrinking cities in Germany and has to deal with all the consequences of this phenomenon.
Basically, problem of Bremerhaven is not an economy recession as such, but rather economy as an exchange and communication between people. In this case, huge car shipping industry collapsed, leaving many people unemployed, who were dependant on one type of trading. Solution for that would be not to provide the same type of "mono" employer, but encourage citizens to trade with each other, and refresh the essence of city.
It is not enough to ask people what they want to see in their neighborhood, they must be allowed to shape their own environment, to be a part of city life, and take responsibility for it. Responsibility is very important, otherwise there is high probability of superficial decisions.
Idea of this project was to make space open to any kind of activity, with no restriction, by using kind of "start up" from private investment. The goal is to create small economy nature, where different activities can pop-up easily and if it is not attractive - particular activity "dies" and is replaced by another. The only condition - person takes full responsibility for realization of his vision.
Unlike the countryside city is a place of exchange, where people are interdependent. Whenever you loose trust and communication among it's residents it always accompanied with economic decline, loss of population and other social problems. This is a major problem that has to be solved in Bremerhaven.
