Results of the Morgenstadt "City Lab" analysis presented

"The discrepancy between how the city is perceived by others and how it is perceived by itself is very large. Although the people of Chemnitz take a critical view of many things, the quality of life in the city is perceived much better than we had expected. And it is precisely the historical characteristics of Chemnitz that could provide the basis for future-oriented urban development," says Bernd Bienzeisler from the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering in Stuttgart, summarising the findings of City Lab Chemnitz. Bienzeisler, project manager of the Morgenstadt Initiative's City Lab Chemnitz, subjected Chemnitz to a comprehensive urban analysis last year. The results and recommendations for the sustainable development of the city of Chemnitz were publicly presented and discussed on Tuesday at the State Museum of Archaeology Chemnitz (smac).

A sustainability profile for Chemnitz was created as part of the City Lab Chemnitz. It is based on data from over 80 fields of action of the Morgenstadt model, including in the areas of strategy and planning, economy, transport and mobility as well as energy, and shows where the city stands in its sustainable development. Chemnitz's strengths were identified as including municipal climate management, good cooperation between city stakeholders and industry and science as well as good existing structures for citizen participation. Chemnitz also has an extremely broad and high-quality cultural offering. The lack of innovative transport and logistics solutions and the few strategic management instruments were identified as weaknesses of the city of Chemnitz.

However, the sustainability profile is only one component of the comprehensive city analysis. The researchers from the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft also spent several weeks in Chemnitz to gain an impression of the city. During their stay, they conducted numerous interviews and organised workshops with representatives of the administration and institutions from the fields of science, business, society, art and culture as well as associations and clubs. This enabled them to filter out further challenges, potential and needs of the city of Chemnitz. Chemnitz impressed them with its strong and innovative business landscape and the areas available in the city that can be used in the future to attractively combine work, leisure and life.

Against the background of the sustainability profile and their stay, the researchers ultimately derived a series of recommendations for action. For example, Chemnitz is recommended to take an even more strategic approach to urban development. To this end, an office should be set up to develop a mission statement for the city of Chemnitz and a 2040 masterplan, among other things. Chemnitz's existing strengths and resources should also be better utilised in the future. For example, the university and research institutions should be more visible in the cityscape and more young people should be attracted to Chemnitz through support programmes. The Fraunhofer researchers also advise the city to focus on its own strengths and not to compare itself so often with Leipzig and Dresden, but rather to look towards Prague. In order to achieve greater attention for the city and its qualities in the future, the researchers recommend setting bold accents and thus standing out from other cities, for example through innovative, new concepts for open spaces or researching and trialling new forms of mobility in Chemnitz.

In 2014, Chemnitz won the global "Morgenstadt City Challenge" competition organised by the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft's Morgenstadt innovation network alongside Prague and Lisbon, among others. As a Morgenstadt, Chemnitz gained access to a network of science, industry and politics and received comprehensive research and consultancy services.