Gelsenkirchen (dpa/lnw) – The structurally weak industrial city of Gelsenkirchen wants to fundamentally modernize its building fabric with the support of the state and federal government in a pilot project. The city announced that around 3,000 residential units that were no longer marketable were to be bought up, demolished and rebuilt or renovated in a climate-friendly manner. NRW Building Minister Ina Scharrenbach (CDU) gave the starting signal for two multi-million dollar funding programs on Thursday (10 a.m.). Federal Building Minister Klara Geywitz (SPD) is also expected, as the federal government is also promoting modernization.
Gelsenkirchen has had significant problems for many years due to structural change. In terms of available per capita income, the city is at the bottom of the 396 NRW cities and municipalities (as of 2020), the unemployment rate in 2021 was 14.8 percent nationwide at the top among all cities and districts. According to the city, around 6,000 residential units are considered problematic. In about half of these, the city sees little chance of the owners being able to solve the problems on their own.
