A tour of the Trevira fibre production plant
by Paul Köper
Many economically weak, peripheral regions seem stuck in a vicious circle: private investment withdraws and is followed by disinvestment in public infrastructure and services (or the other way round), causing demographic decline, which then starts the downwards circle all over again. An economic system that is moving further and further away from redistributive or anti-cyclical measures seems to perpetuate the problem. For some years now, our team at INPOLIS has been working on such an area in Germany, Niederlausitz (or Lower Lausitz), a region squeezed in the south-eastern border of the German state (Land) of Brandenburg, between Poland and the neighbouring German state of Saxony[1]. One of our latest projects, COBRA, is an attempt to think of new economic opportunities in and for that region[2]. After completing the first phase of the project…