The name is absent

Table 1 Population and unemployment in the Ruhr area and in West-Germany 1970-
2000

Source: Kommunalverband Ruhrgebiet (Hg.) Stadte- und Kreisstatistik Ruhrgebiet,
different years; Bomer, 2000 b, 41

2.Policies in the last three decades: defensive and offensive regional strategies

Defensive strategy: socially controlled decline and modernisation of both basic
industries (Bomer, 2000b, chapter 2 and 4; Bomer, 2001, chapter 2).

Offensive policies: five new universities, new infrastructure in the field of
education, transport and housing (ibidem), intensive inward investment activities.
Since the 80^s the phase of launching new clusters, like the software complex in the
city of Dortmund or the logistics complex in Duisburg, has begun. This approach has
been intensified since the mid 1990^s when it became clear that the decline of the coal
mining industry was accelerating and the concentration of the steel industry was
generating a new wave of rationalisation . Without reducing the steel production in
the Ruhr area the Thyssen-Krupp company closed the steelworks in Dortmund in the
year 2001, whereas in 1979 about 25,000 steelworkers earned their money in these
works.

Today the Ruhr area is a semi-de-industrialised region, and the different parts of this
area have very different economic and structural profiles (see figures 5 and 6,
appendix). The city of Dortmund was very successful in generating a strong high
tech complex , especially a 12,000 job software cluster. After the 1997 decision to
close the steelworks in Dortmund a public private partnership of the city of
Dortmund, the Thyssen Krupp company, the state government of Northrhine
Westfalia, the chamber of industry and commerce and the trade unions launched the
so-called Dortmund-project as a specific local, economic development approach to
push the economy of the city forward and to decouple the development in Dortmund
away from the ongoing general decline of the region (see chapter II). McKinsey
designed the project, although years ago some similar proposals had been made by
the trade unions and some consulting firms which designed these basic lines for the
economic development department of the city of Dortmund (Arbeitnehmerfraktion,
1997).

Figure 5 (see appendix) indicates that the former industrial heart of Germany, the
Ruhr area, nowadays is a very low-industrialised region in NRW. Figure 6 (see
appendix) demonstrates the different economic structures of the different parts and
cities of the Ruhr area.

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