Shannon McMullen
UC San Diego
Department of Sociology
From Steel Mills to Shopping Malls: Changing Social Relations in the Wake of Deindustrialization in Two Old Industrial Regions
In western Germany, Europe's largest mixed-use project is being built on the site of one of its largest economic collapses. In the process of revitalization, a space once dominated by industrial production has been transformed into a space of entertainment and leisure dominated by consumption. What are the resultant renegotiations of social and cultural relations within the city of Oberhausen and the region within which it is located? While debate continues about whether this shift can be attributed to deindustrialization, post-Fordism, globalization or even postmodernism—or some combination thereof--(see for example Kumar,1995; Rodwin and Sazanami, 1989), the changes in the Ruhrgebiet in general and Oberhausen in particular are dramatic in and of themselves. However, a comparative analysis of two regions enables us to get beyond the dramatic story to the sociological processes present in the interplay of culture and economy at multiple levels—from the local to the regional to the national to the global.
The following is a discussion of three regions under consideration for comparison with Oberhausen. While each place shares a basic similarity with Oberhausen—each has felt the effects of deindustrialization since the 1970s—there are varying levels of contrasts. Thus, each combination presents distinct possibilities, and liabilities; each shifts the analytical focus and outcome. Hopefully, the significance of these shifts will emerge in the discussion below. First, though, I will describe Oberhausen in more detail, since it is the springboard for the rest of the project.
OBERHAUSEN (Population: 222.870)
A Brief History of Steel and Coal
Oberhausen is a relatively small city located within western Germany’s Ruhrgebiet, (Ruhr region or area) a conurbation comprised of cities including Dortmund, Essen, Bochum, Herne, Castrop-Rauxel etc. According to Juergen Friedrichs (1996): "The history of the Ruhr area is, at the same time, the history of German industrialization, of its industrial heartland, of economic growth and decline, of the problems associated with economic dominance by a few industries, and of the working-class"(134). The major industries of mining, steel and iron developed during the period of industrialization in the 19th century. Since that time—even after WWII—the Ruhr region has formed the industrial heartland of Germany. During this recent industrial period (the city has existed since the Middle Ages), cities within the region have acquired common identity elements as one of the largest industrial regions in the world (134).
Coal mining existed in the region during the Middle Ages, but historical significance is usually dated to 1837, when "a deeper layer was accessed and bituminous coal was mined near Essen" (135). Throughout the industrial period, the coal-steel complex of the area was marked by cycles of boom and bust. Technological improvements, transportation improvements (railroads) and post-war reparations stimulated growth and labor migration. In contrast, depression periods (1875-1890 and 1930s), the rise of oil as a primary energy resource, increased competition with overseas production of steel (Japan in particular), reduction in price controls and decreased cost in imports all contributed to crises. Oil and international political relations following WWII had perhaps the most profound effects. (The latter conspired to stimulate the industry and rigidify its classic old industrial structure at a time when reorganization was beginning to occur in other old industrial areas.) Nevertheless, according to Friedrichs, by the end of the 1950s a steady trend of decline set in (139):
Between 1958 and 1968, the number of industrial workers increased in the FRG by 12.6% but decreased in the Ruhr Area by 23.5%. In the 1961-1970 period, half of the jobs in pit-coal mining were lost and iron and steel employment reduced by 17% and, as a consequence of economic decline accompanied by a decrease in purchasing power construction, industry lost 13% of its employment. The true service centers became Cologne and Duesseldorf, with the possible exception of one Ruhr city, Essen (p.139).
(It should be noted that Cologne and Duesseldorf are not part of the area designated as the Ruhrgebiet. Dusseldorf has become an important financial center.)
As a result of this historical trajectory established in the nineteenth century, nine characteristics typical of the Ruhrgebiet—prior to attempts at revitalization—have been identified (143):
Rapid deindustrialization began in the 1970s. According to Robert Hassink (1993), after 1973 unemployment rose sharply in the Ruhr region and represented one of the highest unemployment rates in West Germany throughout the 1980s, though these rates have recently been falling faster than in the rest of western Germany (p.1011). Hassink also claims that the economic restructuring process began relatively late in the Ruhrgebiet (1011). In the face of severe economic collapse, implementation of economic regeneration strategies became crucial.
A Strategy for Economic Revitalizaton: Consumption and Leisure
Common post-industrial economic strategies include shifts towards information and technology, "reindustrialization" and urban tourism, which emphasizes consumption (Hall, 1993 and Law, 1992). All of these elements can be found within the Ruhr region, if not all within Oberhausen. However, a visit to the Oberhausen homepage showcases the latter, obviously giving it primary importance. Thus, this section will focus on the emergence of urban tourism in the city.
While the industrial phase has been relegated to the past, largely encapsulated in a museum called the Gasometer (also its previous functional incarnation) and in damage to the environment, "CentrO", a new city center for Oberhausen signals an alternative direction for the future. The huge multi-national development currently juxtaposes a shopping mall, a restaurant-lined promenade, a Warner Bros. multi-screen movie complex, and an amusement park on 83 hectares in the geographic middle of the city. (Prior to the artificial centering of CentrO, three historical city centers existed in Oberhausen: Sterkrade and Osterfeld in the north, and Old Oberhausen in the south. Sterkrade and Osterfeld were annexed to the city of Oberhausen in 1929.) Future development, either planned or under construction includes, but is not limited to: a music theater, a multipurpose arena, a tennis training complex, an aquarium and a sport boat harbor. This concentration of offerings is surprising given that, with a population of 223,884, Oberhausen is not one of Germany's largest cities. However, Oberhausen is centrally located within Europe's largest conurbation. Thirty million people can reach CentrO within two hours and sixty million people live within a 250 km radius of the complex. This has become a major selling point for a city attempting to construct a new image for those inside and out of the Ruhrgebiet.
This postmodern project exists in stark contrast to the previous site configuration--a Thyssen metal production and pressing plant; one of many in the region. Historically, the Ruhrgebiet region has been the heartland of German coal and steel. The soot covered buildings in Dortmund, Bochum, Herne, Oberhausen, et al. stand in material testimony to a history of heavy industry; a history that weighs heavy not only on architecture, but takes its toll on the people as well. Closure of the Thyssen plant marks the steady downward spiral, which has left a wake of economic and social crisis. Big name companies such as Thyssen and Krupp, which once invited immigrant laborers from Turkey, Yugoslavia and Greece to alleviate postwar labor shortages, struggle with characteristic trends of globalization--downsizing and reorganization--in order to survive. As a result, in many Ruhrgebiet cities unemployment rates hover around 15%.
Replacement of the mill with the mall has been one response to this situation. The conspicuous emphasis on consumption and entertainment (as opposed to production and wages), the investment of 2 billion marks by British transnational sources (as opposed to national companies) and the participation of other foreign tenants and corporations, not least among them Warner Bros. and Coca-cola (as opposed to the participation of foreign laborers), signals Oberhausen's arrival in the global economy, with all of its promises and pitfalls. Globalization represents not only changes in economic and political practices, but impacts profoundly on social relations in urban space. How do shifting dynamics of race, class and gender affect interaction among the residents and consumers in Oberhausen?
Effects on Social Relations
The increased significance of the consumption-entertainment complex must have an effect on social relations. Most studies of deindustrialized areas do not focus on social relations in a comparative perspective, but center attention on changes in production and policy. When studies are comparative, they tend to focus at the national level. As the labor intensive coal and steel industries play a declining role in the local and regional economy, several questions relating to potentially changing social relations emerge. These questions fall into several categories: 1) potential challenges to power of unions; 2) changes in workforce composition; 3) effects on small businesses (including ethnic); 4) effects on transnational populations; and 5) class composition.
In the case of unions, multinational development and investment may challenge Germany’s social market economy, if part-time work conditions and wages are pushed more in line with those of multi-national businesses, like the GAP and Planet Hollywood. In terms of workforce composition, gender, age and race could be significantly effected. Primarily German and Gastarbeiter (Guestworker) men worked in the steel plants. How has this changed since the recent emphasis on consumption? In particular, have Turkish, Greek and Yugoslavian immigrants found work in the new economy; what about their second and third generation children? Has a feminization of the labor force occurred, given that more men than women tend to work in shopping malls? Werner Rous at the local Oberhausen employment office, one of several asked to choose among 11,000 applicants for 3,700 available positions, provides some interesting insight:
"Wenn eine 18 bis 25 Jahre alte Boutique-Verkaeuferin mit gutem Aussehen gefragt ist, koennen wir nicht jeden vermitteln." (Rhein-Zeitung, 8. April.1997)
(If a good looking 18 to 25 year old boutique saleswomen is being asked for, we can’t just send anyone").
This immediately prompts the question, who exactly is benefiting from the estimated 6,000 jobs made available through the new development? And who is not?
Small business owners located in the traditional city centers have expressed concern that they will not be able to compete with the chain stores found in the mall. Are there differences in the effects on German small businesses and ethnic businesses? Insofar as the latter also link with transnational communities, are transnationals less able to make return trips, bring family members to Germany or pay remittances to family members in the home country? Have ties with the homeland weakened or strengthened, thus discouraging or encouraging a transnational class? Regarding class, in general, will there be a trend away from a working class majority in the city?
These questions about the changing social relations in Oberhausen, form the backdrop for identifying a comparison. In the following section I will outline three possible regions for comparison with Oberhausen. Beginning with the most dissimilar case (the US), progressing to an intermediate match (England) and ending with the potentially most similar (Saxony), I will give a brief historico-economic overview of the area, identify both benefits and drawbacks as a comparative case and suggest theoretical implications.
THE AMERICAN MIDWEST
The corresponding region in the US is the American "heartland". According to Rodwin and Sazanami (1989), the US industrial core consists of five East North Central States: Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin (4). (When focusing more specifically on steel and coal, then certainly Pennsylvania must also be included in this list, while more agricultural areas should be left out.) Since the 1970s, this region has experienced the heaviest economic losses in the country (6). In the first half of the 1980s, while New England, the South and the West enjoyed more than 7 percent net new job growth, the industrial Midwest faced a net shrinkage of 4.5% (29). While this may not seem quatitatively as dramatic as the numbers for the Ruhrgebiet, many may recall the haunting images of steel towns all but abandoned after the closure of a mill, earning therewith the alias "rust—belt" (Bluestone and Harrison, 1982; Dandaneau, 1996).
Of the three potential comparisons to be discussed, the US and Germany share the fewest number of cultural, political and economic similarities. While the American Midwest and the German Ruhrgebiet may share structural similarities within their respective nations and economies, institutional differences abound between them. Even though both countries are Western industrial powers, Germany has a social market economy, while the US attempts to follow a more free market model. The significance of this difference is inherent in state-labor relations and public assistance programs throughout the period of deindustrialization (and the transformation to consumption). Additionally, many steel towns in the US were only recently forged into existence by steel barons. US towns dominated by steel production and comparable in size to Oberhausen, do not share medieval histories as towns. Juergen Friedrichs (1996) argues that as a result of deindustrialization, the cities in the Ruhr area are again developing distinct trajectories and identities as competition between cities in the areas for new resources and economic revitalization increases. Thus, the baselines for possible path dependency analysis are less compatible than a comparison in which there is more historical overlap.
Here a rich pre-industrial city history would be compared with a lack thereof. This might yield interesting resulting regarding path dependency. Will the latter be more innovative in formulating economic revitalization policies? Will the former be more likely to look to the past for inspiration, or will both find "successful" models independent of place to mimic? Given the high level of institutional dissimilarity, explanations are likely to reside at the national level. In particular, the effects of political institutions on transforming social relations can be studied. Thus, analysis would apply to old industrial cities in general only to the degree that the comparison cities could be considered ideal types.
Traditional industries in this region consist of coal mining, ship-building and steel production (Hassink, 1993: 1010). Newcastle, Sheffield and Middlesbrough (Oberhausen’s sister city) are located in this area. Initial decline in these industries in the 1930s resulted in inward investment measures, but decreasing governmental aid has been occurring since the 1970s resulting in a rapid decrease in ship-building and coal mining employment (1010). Again, by the 1980s, deep coal mining and steel production were in severe decline (Sadler 1992: 207). Thus, "deindustrialization" of these old industries was occurring almost simultaneously in the Ruhr region and North East England. But, in contrast to Germany, international politics did not conspire to artificially support production in the region. Perhaps it is for this reason that transnational investment shows up in North East England earlier. The arrival of Nissan in the early 1980s points to a strategy of a "new industrial society" (Sadler: 208). Additionally, as one of several regeneration strategies, an increased service sector—government administration and retailing—has also provided employment, albeit low-wage, part-time employment primarily of women (Amin and Tomaney in Hassink).
A comparison between this area in England and the Ruhr area in Germany shares some parallels with the US-Germany comparison, but a higher level of similarity between these two regions yields alternativel benefits. As in the previous scenario, England and Germany are distinct in their histories, cultures and institutions. However, unlike in the US case, cities in North East England do have histories that extend back into the middle-ages and therefore do have pre-industrial identities which might influence ‘post- industrial’ trajectories. Additionally, while these two countries do not share national institutions—economic, cultural or political—they do participate in a common set of supranational institutions embodied in the European Union. Thus, this comparison may allow us to understand the ways in which the EU shapes social relations in a period of deindustrialization (and greater European integration). In particular, the purported growing importance of regions asserted by some, may be tested in this scenario. Furthermore, possibilities for analyzing path dependence (relative to regional/city history and participation in the EU) become possible. Nevertheless, separating the impact and importance of nation-state level policies, institutions and cultural variables will be difficult to isolate from regional and supranational effects. As in the US-Germany comparison, significant differences begin at the national level, making it difficult to assess effects at a more local level.
Located in eastern Germany, the "Land" of Saxony has been industrialized at least as long as the Ruhr region. Dresden, Chemnitz, Zwickau and Zittau are all cities and towns within Saxony. Coal has been mined in the region around Zwickau (population 120,000), since the Middle Ages. Discovery of silver in the late fifteenth century attracted miners and fortune-seekers alike. Beginning in the nineteenth century coal mining intensified, a metallurgical industry grew and textile production developed in the surrounding region. While the production of iron and steel are not as prominent, the region has a strong relationship to the history of auto production both in unified Germany (before WWII) and during the period in which Saxony was part of East Germany. In the early twentieth century Audi automobiles were produced in the region, then beginning in the 1960s Trabants were produced. Both deindustrialization and the combined impact of the dissolution of communism and reunification have taken their toll on western Saxony. (I am still trying to locate sources which detail these conditions and outline economic revitalization strategies.)
Since reunification, Saxony and the Ruhrgebiet (in North Rhine Westphalia) again share the same institutional structures. Nevertheless, in the period after WWII until reunification (1992), these two regions have had separate regional and national trajectories. Thus, deindustrialization began in distinct economic and political formations, but continues under common institutions (this includes both national and supranational). Because of their long histories, Zwickau, Oberhausen and their surrounding regions afford the possibility of path dependence analysis, which could tease out the relative importance of culture in transitions from old industrialism to current formations rooted in consumption and/or a ‘new’ industrialism in different cities. Additionally, the impact of local level differences (i.e. policy, politics, identity, location) becomes visible—at least since 1992—since institutional similarities exist down to this level. What effect does the DDR era continue to have, if any, on the changing social relations in old industrial areas? For instance, given previous gender differences in employment rates and patterns, how are women differentially impacted in Oberhausen and Zwickau? Similar questions about class structure could also be raised.
Works Cited
Amin, A. and J. Tomaney (1990). "Creating an Enterprise Culture in the North East? The impact of urban and regional policies of the 1980s", in Regional Studies, 25, 479-487.
Bluestone, Barry and Bennet Harrison (1982). The Deindustrialization of America: Plant Closings, Community Abandonment, and the Dismantling of Basic Industry, Basic Books: New York.
Dandeneau, Steven (1996). A Town Abandoned, SUNY: Albany.
Kumar, Krishan (1995). From Post-Industrial to Post-Modern Society, Blackwell: Oxford.
Hall, Peter (1993). "Forces Shaping Europe", in Urban Studies, Vol.30, No.6, 883-898.
Hassink, Robert (1993). "Regional Innovation Policies Compared", in Urban Studies, Vol. 30, No. 6, 1009-1024.
Law, Christopher (1992). "Urban Tourism and its Contributions to Economic Regeneration" in Urban Studies, Vol. 29, No.3/4, 599-618.
O’Loughlin, John and Juergen Friedrichs (1996). Social Polarization in Post-Industrial Metropolises, de Gruyter: Berlin.
Rodwin, Lloyd and H. Sazanami (eds) (1989). Deindustrialization and Regional Economic Tranformation: The experience of the United States, Unwin Hyman: Boston.
Zukin, Sharon (1991). Landscapes of Power, University of California Press: Berkeley.