„There are some changes in energy policy, but I don’t know exactly what they are about,“ said the elderly lady my team and I approached at the bus station at Sonnenplatz. The woman has lived in Emmen for over 60 years. She has worked and raised children there, but what is happening and changing in the community does not seem to interest her. Her statement summarizes the impression I got of Emmen pretty accurately.
As we walked up Gerliswilstrasse, we saw several hair salons, some of them almost next to each other. You get the feeling that everyone runs their own business without arranging each other. In a well-designed city structure, this would not be the case, because it makes no sense to set up a street full of competing service suppliers. To me, this is a sign of a lack of cooperation and no sense of community. It seems that there is little communication or planning happening within the municipality. Wouldn’t it make more sense to set up one or two bigger barbershops instead of several small ones to tame the citizens‘ overgrown beards?
The infrastructure of the community and the short interview with the elderly lady resonates very well with what Emmen writes in its „Gemeindesteckbrief“. Everyone does their own thing and has no consideration for the others, so more cross-regional cooperation is hard to achieve. After exploring the community, I realized that Emmen has to start improving its own collaboration before trying to achieve better teamwork with other municipalities.
Lisa Kraan