European monument protection campaign Renaissance of the cities - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1981 - 60 Pfennig

The occasion for the event is the European Urban Renewal Campaign under the motto »Cities to Live«. The city as a habitat threatens to become a problem, throughout Europe and other parts of the world. Many modern urban areas are characterized by high monotonous buildings, horizontal extension, separation of living and working area, mass traffic and hasty growth. They are increasingly perceived as impersonal, faceless, even repellent and seem interchangeable. Many people no longer identify with their city. They do not just turn away from her inwardly. City fatigue, the denial of co-creation, sympathy and flight from the city, the turn to the urban environment and smaller towns, are an expression of disquiet. The shape of the city influences the existence and consciousness of its inhabitants; it is a mirror of cultural, social, economic and political realities. It is the result of many individual considerations; but it should also be the result of community considerations. The city should ensure the freedom of the individual and the common action with others; It should enable the free development of the personality in the community, should provide security. The aim of the city in 1980 is to make the city lively and habitable, to return to the values ​​and life forms of urban coexistence, to rediscover the city as a habitat, to encourage city dwellers to actively participate in the life of the cities, to improve their quality started European campaign. It requires an overarching dissemination of the idea of ​​the city radiating throughout Europe. It must be brought back into the consciousness of the people again. The renewal of the cities not only wants to preserve, but rather, building on older traditions, it wants to develop urban life with modern means. Under the idea of ​​improving urban life, the quality of the urban environment should be improved, buildings and neighborhoods worth preserving should be renewed, and social, educational and cultural institutions should be provided more. The main purpose of the campaign must be to turn public attention at all costs to the problems of the cities, with the aim of promoting community awareness and public participation in order to better cope with urban problems and accelerate projects that have already begun have been. The personal freedom, the legal equality and the special economic possibilities of the city exerted an extraordinary attraction on the rural population even in the Middle Ages; in the statement "city air makes free" it found its expression at that time. Therefore, "European Urban Renewal Campaign" means promoting the idea of ​​"living in the city" across Europe.