From kms / dpa
So far, the population in Stuttgart has continued to grow – then came the pandemic.
Photo: imago / Arnulf Hettrich
The population in Stuttgart has been growing for years – then the corona pandemic came and reversed the trend. The population decline is particularly noticeable in the state capital.
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From kms / dpa
07/06/2021 – 11:00 a.m.
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Leipzig – The corona pandemic has slowed the growth of large cities in Germany. This is the opinion of researchers at the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ) after evaluating the population registration data of the 15 largest German cities.
In Stuttgart, the shrinking numbers have recently been particularly noticeable. Several factors are important for this development, such as lower immigration, fewer births and more deaths in the first Corona year 2020. The scientists around Dieter Rink also see rather negative omens for 2021, according to a discussion paper.
The scientists looked at the population development in Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Cologne, Munich, Leipzig, Dresden, Hanover, Düsseldorf, Essen, Bremen, Stuttgart, Nuremberg, Dortmund and Duisburg. At the end of the 2010s, these cities grew almost without exception. In 2017 and 2018 by an average of half a percent, in 2019 by 0.36 percent. In 2020, the numbers then fell by an average of minus 0.18 percent. With Leipzig, Hamburg and Munich, only three of the cities could have recorded small or moderate growth at that time.
Fewer and fewer babies are born
The scientists continue to write that immigration from abroad and from rural areas was decisive for the population figures in large cities. In 2020 there were burglaries. The number of immigrants in Munich, Nuremberg, Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Bremen has fallen by around 20 percent.
The ratio of births to deaths was also unfavorable last year: while the number of births fell by 2.5 percent, deaths rose by almost five percent. The number of births has fallen particularly significantly in Frankfurt, Bremen, Cologne, Stuttgart (around minus 3.5 percent) and in particular Duisburg (around minus eight percent) – only in Munich and Leipzig has the number increased slightly (plus 0.5 percent ).
“It looks like long-term trends in population development in Germany’s 15 largest cities were slowed down or interrupted in the first Corona year 2020,” write the UFZ researchers. They expect the population to continue to decline in 2021 as well. It can be assumed that “only low growth rates, stagnation and increased contraction can be observed”.
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