Stuttgart

Guest journalist Sukhada Tatke from "The Times of India" met Stuttgart's mayor Wolfgang Schuster. An interview about trees, the image of the city, the quality of life and of course: Stuttgart 21.

Sukhada Tatke: Considering Mumbai and Stuttgart are sister cities, why is there no direct flight connectivity between the two? I had to stop over at Paris and run to get to my connecting flight as there wasn’t enough time. Is there no way to connect the two cities directly?

Wolfgang Schuster: We are trying very hard. You have Jet Airways in Mumbai, which flies through Brussells. I spoke to the CEO twice to either have a stopover at Stuttgart because it’s the same way or to have a flight which has Stuttgart as its destination. Certainly next January when I am in India, I will meet him again and ask him to fly directly because it will be a big advantage for Mumbai and for us and will especially help in the economic aspects. Mumbai is the economic hub of India and we are the strongest export region in Germany and even one of the strongest in Europe so it will fit very well.

But is it a problem to achieve that with a German carrier?

Schuster: We don’t speak about problems here, we only speak about challenges. We have Lufthansa here but the hub of the airlines is Frankfurt and Munich. Therefore, no long distance flights of Lufthansa start from Sttuttgart. They either fly from Munich or Frankfurt. We understand that this does not work to our advantage. We have had a lot of discussions with Lufthansa and we are working at it.

On my way from the airport, I was really impressed with the number of trees lining the streets. Is it a conscious effort or is there a law specifying the number of trees to plant?

Schuster: First of all, we have a long tradition to be a green city. For me it was important—now I have got old in my office, I have been mayor over 14 years—to systematicallyy take land under special natural protection. We decided step by step to have round about 40 per cent of our surface with natural protection. We now have about 100,000 trees in the inter streets. We also have many parks. So we have almost no apartment where you have to walk longer than 300 metres to reach a park. This is important for the quality of life for everyone. We make a very conscious effort and it is really part of our culture.

So are there any norms governing felling of trees or is there a required ratio of trees per person?

Schuster: We have a rule forbidding the cutting of trees. You need permission to cut a tree. And if trees are cut without permission, stringent action is taken. The defaulter is either penalized or has to plant trees. Or the city plants the trees and sends him a bill. That’s a requirement and it works. In fact, the public awareness is very high here, because of which public pressure is high as well. People get very upset if we cut trees.

I was also very impressed by the availability of open space in this city. The pedestrian street, for instance, is lovely. What is the idea behind it?

Schuster: The idea is to reclaim public space for the people but it has been a long way to achieve this. Initially, it was believed that if a person cannot take a car for shopping, he would not shop anymore because logically, it seems more convenient to have your car in front of the shop. Today, even the business community understands the importance of having public spaces and good quality, safe and clean atmosphere so that people can walk around, drink coffee, and just enjoy this open environment.

I saw a lot of cars parked on the streets. More parked than actually being used. How come?

Schuster: In Stuttgart, we have 600 cars per 1000 inhabitants. That means everybody has a car available. So you have to have a very attractive offer so that people buy a car. Hopefully a Mercedes or Porsche because they are produced here. And then we encourage them to leave the car in the garage and use public transport. That is the strategy.

Then why would people be motivated to have a car?

Schuster: Because it is nice to have a car.

Then why would people use public transport? How are you promoting it?

Schuster: Not only are we promoting public transport but we pay for it, subsidise it. And if you go with our public transport, and compare it with the quality of other cities, you will see that it is of a very high standard. We also promote car sharing systems and rent-a-bike system. And while using this type of transport, you just need, what is most convenient to you. So if there is a traffic jam, you can see it on the internet. You can also check the status of the train online. The idea is to make everything simple. Our public transport offers a Mercedes quality. So you can leave your Mercedes in the garage and use the public Mercedes. That is the idea behind the philosophy.

And what about public transport for tourists? I am here for four weeks, what can I do?

Schuster: Tourists can buy a ticket for the duration of their stay. There are also tourist buses for a day to go around. We have different types of offers. Even at night, if you go by bus, you can stop where you stay because there is no point going ahead to the next bus stop and walk behind to your place. In reality, you have a mixture of mobility behaviours. One day you walk, another day use public transport. We are trying to tap that.

Before coming here, when I thought of Stuttgart, the only images that came to mind were Mercedes and Porsche. Is that a good image?

Schuster: It is a good image because Mercedes and Porsche are high sophisticated products. It means we are really a city of high technology. At least you could link Stuttgart with something positive. But the surprising thing is that you don’t see an industrialised city. You see a very green city. It is not destroyed. Some people feel there must be lot of smoke, noise by the production but there’s nothing like that. And this will continue because the production lines will be more and more sophisticated. We have many engineers and people inventing new things. Although most flights are to Frankfurt and Munich signifying that they are the most preferred destinations, the most number of inventions are here.

I saw an open vegetable market on the street and was impressed. My impression of a western country is that everything is available in malls and super markets. Are you promoting such markets?

Schuster: We are very proud that there are farmers here. Although they are small ones, they can sell their products. They cannot produce too much because they are not mass producers. So they need a direct link to the market. We have these types of markets in every district of the city. There is a direct link between the producer and the consumer. It might be more expensive but at least it is local, organic, fresh and if it is not good, you can go back and tell the farmer that it is not good. It is important to have a mixture between urbanization on one hand, and nature and agriculture on the other. In shopping malls, there are standardized foods, vegetables and fruits. It is therefore important to support this kind of local production.

Is there any space constraint in Stuttgart? Is construction booming?

Schuster: Stuttgart is attractive so we attract people from all over Germany and the world. They are welcome. The problem is that we have very strong construction regulations. So you cannot cut trees and take a piece of land. It is very strongly regulated. 40% of our surface is under special natural protection. We have to reuse land which is more complicated than using new land. For instance, if there is an old factory, we buy it and then plan it and then we sell it again to private investors. That’s a continuing process of recycling used land. Free green space is easy to build but it is lost forever. If you have a very strong growth of population, as in Mumbai, you have to use new lands. We had this movement in 50s and 60s. Now we have 600,000 inhabitants. We would like to have more if you like. But we need to change our attitude.

But how do you plan to accommodate more people?

Schuster: Politically seen in the long run, we feel it is better to have more density, more people together, and keep the green land for everybody. At the moment, there are no plans to construct more. But there is a debate on where to build now. Our demographic situation combined with economic situation, an average Stuttgart inhabitant, has an average of 300 sq ft for housing. In comparison to India and China, we have a luxury situation. We have to stop it because I am not sure if we can afford it in the long run that everyone has such huge apartments. If available open, green land is used, the quality is gone, the land is gone. We have to compete by quality. At the end of the day, it is the quality of living, education, services and products.

What is happening with the railway station? Why is everyone protesting?

Schuster: Everyone is not protesting. It is only a minority. The project was decided by different levels of parliament. Then by law. It also went to court. There have been several years of discussion and planning. Last year, we started to build. Locally seen, people do not want change. If you have a house, you don’t want a house. But if you think about the next generation, your mind might change. It is a strange mix of interests, party interests. The media also plays a role, only some media, not all. There are huge trains coming in, the tracks are in a very bad condition. Repairing everything is very costly. And if we start repairing it, we can’t use the train station for at least 10 years. So the railway company decided not to repair it but change the station.

What are the advantages of this project? How will the city benefit?

Schuster: The big advantage is that you can build it and the station will still be operating. Another advantage is that all the parks that were destroyed years ago by the railways can be used for construction and development of the city. We can develop our city towards the Neckar river. The problem is that people are not thinking of the next generation. If you say my children and grandchildren will have an advantage, it will work. That is why we have a complicated discussion on this issue. But in a democracy, there is opposition and different opinions. It is normal.

What are you doing to strengthen relations between Mumbai and Stuttgart, the sister cities?

Schuster: We use wine as a platform for communication and it works very well. We have an annual wine festival in Mumbai. People really enjoy and come. Wine makes people very communicative. They speak to each other, it’s really nice. But naturally we try to link business communities, media communities, tourism communities. Then we have projects on the political side. So it’s always a good, interesting mixture. There have been a lot of cultural exchanges. Six years ago, we started the Indian film festival—Bollywood and Beyond—which we think is the biggest film festival in the world outside India.