The Regions of Germany by Robert E. Dickinson

Author:Robert E. Dickinson [Dickinson, Robert E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General
ISBN: 9780415177030
Google: 3rtRzH_cGUMC
Publisher: Psychology Press
Published: 1998-01-15T00:55:15+00:00

II

Hamburg grew on the north bank of the Elbe. Its rise as a great port dates from the Renaissance period with the growth of transoceanic commerce and the decline of the Hanseatic League, with its capital in Lübeck, 45 miles away on the Baltic side of the peninsula. In 1567 the first German Exchange was opened here and soon after the Merchant Adventurers shifted their headquarters from Antwerp. Already by 1800 it had more than 100,000 inhabitants and reached 260,000 in 1866. In 1933 the city of Hamburg alone had over a million inhabitants. But this figure does not include the built-up areas contiguous with Hamburg but outside its administrative limits. Altona, on its west side, with fishing, engineering and food industries, had 242,000 inhabitants. Altona was, in origin, a Holstein foundation, peopled by Dutch colonists. Beyond it downstream extends an open and extensive residential district, Blankanese, on higher geest land overlooking the river To the north-east there is Wandsbek, with its confectionery industries, with 50,000 inhabitants. But even more significant is the extension of the great modern port, to the south side of the river. Here, on the sea-level marshes, the cutting of the new docks began in the ’sixties, the old harbour on the north side adjacent to the old town being far too congested and offering no space for expansion. Here has grown the vast modern harbour with its wharves, warehouses, shipbuilding yards and factories ; and there are plans for the further extension of the harbour downstream. Behind this great port is the industrial town of Harburg-Wilhelmsburg, with 113,000 inhabitants in 1933, processing the raw materials brought in through the port —rubber, vegetable oils, chemicals, etc. Harburg-Wilhelmsburg was established as a rival port to Hamburg by the rulers of Brunswick-Lüneburg, then passed to the kingdom of Hanover and finally to Prussia. Even with its excellent facilities for navigation, Hamburg has its outport at Cuxhaven at the southern tip of the Elbe estuary. In all this great urban complex there are over one and a half million inhabitants (1,682,000 in 1939), the great bulk of them living on the north side of the river, clustered around the old town and the modern business district between the Alster lake and the old harbour, while the main areas of work—port and factories—are situated on the south side. In consequence, there is a tremendous congestion of traffic and serious traffic difficulties. In 1925 some 37,000 workers lived in the central business district, but 125,000 found their occupations there. In the early ’thirties the port and its related industries occupied 155,000 persons, so that altogether about 225,000 persons (excluding their dependants) found employment in the city or port, but less than a fifth of them lived in these districts. This raised problems of housing, which have been made more difficult by the fact that the administrative area of Hamburg itself was too small to cope with the houses needed, and this partly explains the predominance of the flat in modern Hamburg.

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