[[{“value”:”I am here only briefly, and earlier I had visited the city perhaps seven or eight times, typically when passing through. But not within the last twenty years. My main impressions are thus: 1. The city itself has not radically changed in quite a while. Everything seemed familiar, and the types of stores were pretty
The post Walking around Frankfurt appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.”}]]
I am here only briefly, and earlier I had visited the city perhaps seven or eight times, typically when passing through. But not within the last twenty years. My main impressions are thus:
1. The city itself has not radically changed in quite a while. Everything seemed familiar, and the types of stores were pretty familiar too.
2. The people walking around Frankfurt are very different. During an early evening walk, it seemed that perhaps 30-40% of the people I saw would classify as “potentially objectionable immigrants,” at least by the standards of anti-immigrant Germans. In earlier times perhaps this would have been five percent?
Do keep in mind my time and location may have embodied selection biases in favor of seeing more immigrants.
The evidence I can find does show that Frankfurt has the highest crime rate in Germany, although perhaps much of that standing comes from the presence of the financial district and the city being such a transport and convention hub, rather than from the immigrants per se.
In any case, if you wish to understand the popularity of AfD — which now seems to be Germany’s #2 political party — I suggest you take a walk around Frankfurt. I didn’t even go near the train station.
3. It is also striking to me, in a limited number of service sector encounters, that the immigrants with jobs have a “hessisch” accent and Germanic mannerisms. Of course there is selection going on here too, but this does show some degree of assimilation. I do not know what percentage of them are assimilating in this fashion, but it seems to be rising. Earlier, immigrants in German service sector jobs more likely seemed “right off the boat.”
4. Frankfurt in 1984 seemed to be on a rough wealth parity with the United States. But now it seems decidedly poorer, and I am not referring to the immigrants, rather the rate of progress on the upside seems pretty low. It just doesn’t feel like a “Luxus-Stadt.”
5. Lots of merchants still encourage you to pay with cash.
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Travel, Travels, Uncategorized
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