This morning, there's chatter over a city project to build an entire suburb out of thin air.....having housing and business interests. Size? Well....the city management folks hint that it's in the range of 10,000 people living there.
Location? If you drive south out of the city, on 455, you will pass entry/exit to the autobahn A66, and head up the hill (going toward Mainz-Kastel and the turn-off to the Army post runway area. Immediately across from Clay Kaserne (the Army post), on the other side of 455....will be this giant new suburb out of thin air.
There's a small area of houses on the plot right now (Fort Buehler).
The curious thing is that about 1 km away, to the west, is the plot of land used for at least three decades....which was the garbage 'dump' for the city. Toss in the fact that the new suburb is on the approach to the runway. If you had to go and pick an area which just has negative long-term issues attached to it.....'Ostfeld' isn't going to be a premier project.
Does the city need housing for another 10,000? Well, that is part of the story. If you go and look at demographics for the city since WW II, it's been on a upward trend. Around 1900, it had a population of 86,000. When the war ended in 1945, they were at the 172,000 range. In 1980, they were at 274,000. They believe the current population is at 280,000.
Part of this trend is the fact that a fair number of people work in Frankfurt, but prefer not to live in Frankfurt.....so some portion of the 280,000 are Frankfurt workers.
As for when this suburb will appear? Oh, with planning, complaints, delays.....you can figure that completion of the area and the 10,000 living there....won't occur for at least a decade.
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