Greifswald starts Future Council: Citizens shape the city of tomorrow!

Greifswald starts Future Council: Citizens shape the city of tomorrow!

In the heart of Greifswald, an exciting initiative is taking form: the newly decided future council of the city. At the end of March 2025, the citizens decided this temporary advice, which will be active by 2028. The aim of the Future Council is to bring the ideas and perspectives of the population into urban development. This not only creates a space for creative solutions, but also promotes active citizen participation. As katapult-mv.de, the Council will offer a total of 60 Greifswalder: Inside to discuss its wishes and visions for the future in a number of sessions.

What makes the Future Council so special? The participants: The aim is to use the lottery procedure, with a balanced relationship between sexes and age groups as well as a good representation of the different districts. 28 men and 32 women with the main residence are pulled in Greifswald. Almost half of the members will be between 30 and 65 years old. This procedure ensures that various voices are heard and reflects the city's social diversity, as greifswald.de emphasized.

Citizens' participation in a new way

The Future Council will meet in a total of 11 sessions in which the participants: not only bring their perspectives inside, but also set their own topics and develop concrete recommendations to the citizens. A special working group supports the participants organizationally, while the scientific support of the project is intended to ensure a sound analysis and evaluation of the results. This eliminates the future council of previous committees, since it is not occupied by party politics and thus offers an impartial basis of discussion - an important element for trust in democratic processes, such as the president of the citizens, Prof. Dr. Madeleine Tolani, emphasized.

Especially in a time when the design of the municipal space is more than ever in focus, citizen participation procedures take on a central role. Decisions about urban planning projects are in the competence area of local parliaments, and participatory instruments are legally standardized. But the future council goes one step further and offers a space for direct participation that goes beyond the legally required procedures, as [ifs.uni-Frankfurt.de] (https://www.ifs.uni-frankfurt.de/projektdetails/id-40- Spartzigentungs-in-stadtplanung-und-stadtwicklung.html)

a step in the right direction

The Future Council is financed through funding, including the federal program “Living Democracy!”. Despite the positive approaches, there was also resistance: the AfD and the Christian conservatives rejected the suggestions for citizens: internal participation. The vast majority of the Greifswald population, however, seems to be welcoming the initiative and sees the involvement of citizens: inside a chance of a living, democratic urban development.

The concept that citizens: inside are actively involved in urban design could serve as a model for other cities. If it shows that the Future Council develops sustainable and pragmatic solutions for local problems, this could not only strengthen the trust of the population in politics, but also pave the way for further participatory projects. The tension remains high of what the first results of the Future Council will bring.