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(These budget provisions contain the general reduction of expenditures of 10
mill. in 2003, 20 mill. in 2004 and 30 mill. in 2005)
Also on the national and regional level the new perspective of the financial status
is nothing but depressing:
- To prevent the so-called “blue letter” from Brussels which deals with the
Maastricht criteria problem of the 3 percent budget deficit limit in the year
2002 the German minister of finance agreed to launch a nearly balanced
budget until the year 2004. For achieving this very ambitious - and in terms
of economic growth extremely contra-productive - macroeconomic decision
(see Arbeitsgruppe Alternative Wirtschaftspolitik, 2002, 42-61) in the spring
of 2002 an agreement between the central government, the Lander and the
associations of the cities, local communities and counties was made, which is
called “stability pact between the federal, state and local governments”. This
“pact” limits expenditures and deficits of all three levels of the German
public administrations and governments. Because of the very low growth rate
of the GDP which is expected for 2002 (0.7%; 2001: 0,6%) and the next
years public assistance for a fast expansion of the new economy sector will be
reduced substantially.
- The costs of the flagship-projects like the Metrorapid (the name of the
Transrapid, a new high speed magnetic train system between Düsseldorf and
Dortmund, which is calculated with about 3.5 bill. Euro) - or 3-DO (a huge
shopping-mall above the Dortmund main station which costs about 600 mill.
Euro and needs about 135 mill. Euro grants from the state government) are
growing fast. As long as the state and local governments continue to promote
these projects there will be much less money for supporting the key areas of
the economic development strategy, like the new technology centres,
education and training and so on.
2. Does the city of Dortmund have a chance to move away from the negative trends
of the Ruhr area?
It seems to be clear that after the decline of the coal mining industry and the
concentration of the highly productive steel industry in the western part of the area
(Duisburg) the different parts of the former coal and steel region have become very
different in terms of economic structure. Figures 5 and 6 (appendix) present the so-
called “regional profile index” which describes the differences of the shares of seven
sectors of the economy between the average level of the land NRW and the cities and
counties of the Ruhr area (Nordhause-Janz, 2002, p. 5 and 7). Also a new study of
the RWI which deals with the commuter relations of the employees shows very
clearly that the Ruhr area has lost its homogeneity - if it ever existed - in terms of
the economic structure and strength (Schrumpf, 2001). But beneath the common
heritage of the spatial results of the mining and steel industry und the settlements
structure two very homogeneous factors exist which determine the economic strength
of each part of the whole region: at first the rates of de-industrialisation (see figure 6,
appendix) and unemployment are very high in all parts of this area, and secondly the
financial situation of all cities is serious. So the different parts in terms of branches
and structures have different perspectives - but all of them are negative in
comparison with other agglomerations and neighbourhood regions, as figure 5
(appendix) shows clearly.