Survey and Germany Reflection

I started my surveys with a close family friend who explained to me that the policies and politics around green spaces began well before WWII. He told me that Berlin was once many small villages, all connected by land used for recreation and farming. When they decided to form a city, Berlin, they people wanted to keep these large areas of green like the Tiergarten. This history of a need and want for green spaces made me decide to pivot my idea to the history of green spaces and how both WWI and WWII may have affected the organization of green spaces in Berlin. Another contributing factor was land in Berlin being used as bunkers during the war. These areas were left clear on top and sometimes bombed. The destruction that was left behind allowed city architects to keep the area as a green space. After both WWI and WWII, Berlin was left with many of these cleared areas that they used for green areas. I found it interesting that the survey answers were slightly different depending on the age of the participant. The old population tended to know more about the historical side of green spaces while the younger generation did not know about the background but worried for the future of green spaces.

Many survey participants also mentioned that wood was being used as fuel post World War II and therefore many forest were cut down. They have expressed that too many forests were destroyed after the war and the country has not done enough to bring back this forestry. This was one of the main concerns when thinking about green spaces in Berlin especially because there has been talk to expanding roadways that could effect forest life.

During our trip, we got to meet a lot of people who are involved in renewable energy companies or research. One person that we met was Dr. Tim Moss. We watching his 360 degree energy infrastructure tour in our other class so it was interesting to meet him in person. He gave me some very helpful information about my topic as well. Dr. Moss studies the infrastructure of Berlin so he has done a lot of research post-wars. He gave me the advice to look into urban ecology and urban wastelands. Urban wastelands are lands that were bombed or deemed unusable for residential or industrial construction after either WWI or WWII. This land could’ve been made into parks or nature preserves.

We were also able to visit some other very interesting places to learn more about the culture around sustainability in Germany. In Dresden, we got to visit a Volkswagen electric vehicle manufacturing factory and then went for a hike in Saxony Switzerland. I found the factory visit really interesting because my family owns a VW and I thought it was cool to see how the construct their EV’s. Another really fun day was visiting WPD in Bremen. WPD is a company that supports windmill farms but selling farms, monitoring and maintaining them, as well as visiting countries like Chile to help them develop renewable energy sources. The reason why this was so interesting to me was because I am a business major at Dickinson but I am really interested in working for an energy company. Being able to meet with people who also have a background in business allowed me to ask a lot of questions to understand how the energy transition is for business and the economy in Germany. I was also able to do that when we met a senate representative in Berlin. She was discussing policies that the Germany government has in place to increase solar panel usage in the city of Berlin as well as the transition to using more public transportation and its’ electrification. I was interested to learn more about how they are promoting the public transportation because German is has a large auto industry that could affect the economy. She assured me that they are not too worried about it in the city because most manufacturers are outside of Berlin and have a large international market.

I found it very interesting seeing the difference between American and German culture when it comes to sustainability. For one, there isn’t the same negative stigma around public transportation. In the U.S it is not clean, generally unsafe, and unused. In Germany, everyone of all ages used the public transportation. There are also a lot more small markets and locally sources food options.

Overall, I enjoyed the trip and learned a lot about a country that I grew up traveling to. The image I chose to accompany this is from a hydropower plant in Dresden! It was really interesting to learn how they work and see it in person.