|
|
|
| Home Page > Travelogues > Germany > Baden-Württemberg > Heidelberg > Southern Suburbs Other Chapters in the Heidelberg
section: Also available: Segment on the Heidelberg Christmas Market
The purpose of this chapter, like that of the Northern
Suburbs, is to help paint a portrait of life in Heidelberg,
the city I have called home since 1999. As the region from Heidelberg to Frankfurt
am Main has a significant American population, Heidelberg's southern suburbs are a definite mixed bag, which each suburb being completely different in character. Taken together, they can almost be considered a "planned city" unto themselves -- one is a major industrial and commercial center, one a cultural and business center, one a classy higher-income suburb, and other two dominated by low-to-middle income high-rise apartments. There is little overlap of function or purpose, unlike self-incorporated and self-contained towns like Leimen that borders Heidelberg to the south. I will cover these suburbs north to south, west to east. The "classy higher-income suburb" is called Kirchheim,
located to the west, below Wieblingen and Pfaffengrund. Physically
separated from Heidelberg by a series of sports parks and farmland, Kirchheim is
the most self-contained of the suburbs on this page. It has its own market
square and series of restaurants. In fact, my experience at Kirchheim's
restaurants is The sportsplatz toward Kirchheim is huge, and is similar to the types of sports centers available throughout Germany. This one has multiple soccer fields, a field hockey pitch, running tracks, gymnasium, and other facilities. I have become amazed to the extent that Germans are involved in organized sports activities and sports leagues. Each town not only has a sports club, but that club puts teams on the field in several dozen different sports, and the leagues are managed nationwide -- in soccer, for example, there are two professional divisions (the 1st and 2nd Bundesligas), then two 3rd Division leagues (north and south), then provincial leagues, all the way down to towns and boroughs. The system of promotion and relegation runs throughout the entire hierarchy, not just the professional ranks. For me, it harkened back to the days when perhaps every town in the states had its own baseball team, organized from AAA down to the D division. The next suburb is Rohrbach, which is the southward
extension of Heidelberg's downtown, running along the Rohrbach follows a deep cut in a valley heading due south toward Leimen, and the adjacent ridge line contains a number of nice houses tucked away among the trees. As I would find in a number of cities, the Germans like to build streets on the hills directly parallel to the ground, connected together either by zigzagged roads or, in Rohrbach's case, by building avenues that go straight uphill at more than ten degrees. Although Rohrbach looked like both a picturesque and convenient location to live in, I didn't relish the thought of subjecting my car to that level of torture! Technically, Rohrbach Süd is not a separate suburb from
Rohrbach, but I treat is as such here because it is physically separate from the
rest of Rohrbach and shares nothing i Along with Pfaffengrund, much of houseware shopping was done in the Familia Center and adjacent malls in Rohrbach Süd. These shopping centers are not unlike American shopping malls, but the Germans do not use malls exlusively the way we Americans do -- they still rely on the neighborhood stores for daily wares, particularly if it means they don't have to drive. The other two suburbs sit high on the hills east of Rohrbach Süd, called Boxberg and Emmertsgrund. These two are mainly residential neighborhoods, dominated by high-rise apartment complexes, built on the hillside beyond some vineyards. Emmertsgrund is almost exclusively high-rises and is clearly visible from the main road, as the fifth photo suggests. Boxberg, to the left, is much larger but better dispersed and more tucked into the trees.
I did check into some of the available apartments there and found them inexpensive and clean, but frankly could not get over the idea against living in high rises when there were plenty of other options available. Also, neither had much in the way of markets or other businesses nearby, which meant I would have spent a lot more time going back and forth down to Rohrbach Süd for grocery shopping and other basics... something I can do in Nussloch by walking out my front door. Several of the other large cities I've visited seem to have single-function districts like this, Kassel coming to mind. I found it an interesting and sharp contrast to the make-up of the smaller towns, with its commercial avenues and residential areas heavily concentrated in the center and the town industries not far away. Other Chapters in the Heidelberg
section: Also available: Segment on the Heidelberg Christmas Market Page last updated 08 April 2006 -- (C) 2001, 2003 Tom Galvin Useful Links:
|
|
Heidelberg serves as a
reasonable case study for the types of living and working environments one may
encountered were one to move to Germany full-time. I concentrate my story
on this with the southern suburbs, the part of Heidelberg with which I am most
familiar. Unlike the other towns and boroughs in the 
that they rival the best that the 
streetcar tracks from
Bismarckplatz in the north down to Ortenauerstrasse in the south. I
labelled this one as the cultural center, as it contains a theater, several
churches, numerous hotels and restaurants (particular closer to the downtown),
and a host of churches. It also houses the city cemetary and
hospital. Rohrbacherstrasse is the main drag, and it resembles a strip
mall, though the shops and restaurants are moderate in quality (with
exceptions). The neighborhoods there are quiet, mostly two-family houses
with a few four-flat apartment buildings.
n common. Rohrbach Süd is the
industrial and commercial center, dominated by large warehouses and shopping
malls. Blocks upon blocks of these buildings reside there, near the train
tracks on the north-south route from Heidelberg to Stuttgart. Rohrbach
Süd is also expanding, with new office buildings recently completed and more
construction projects underway.
