The Emscher Valley passage.
Back to nature at a world level.
A view of the Rhine-Herne canal at Oberhausen
Photo: RTG / Joachim Schumacher
Visitors can trace the fascinating development of the “thousand smokestack” region to an ecologically sustainable 21st century metropolitan area.
For many years the unattractive side of the area was all too clear in the Emscher region with its dominant landscape of spoil tips. It is precisely here that a gigantic prototype of cooperative regional planning to restructure and renaturise the landscape has been in progress during the last 20 years.
The Emscher Park International Building Exhibition in the 1990s set new standards for cleaning up and redefining a whole area of land. This has resulted in the largest renaturisation project in the world in the form of a renaturised river arising from a new 60 kilometre long concrete effluent canal. A large number of disused industrial areas have been turned into natural habitats or turned over to attractive new uses. This is not simply restricted to work and trade, but also includes residential areas and leisure and artistic activities. It might be difficult to grasp, but if you still don’t believe it, why not come and take a look at the “miracle of the Emscher” yourself?
“Essen for the Ruhr” in cooperation with the Emscher River Association (Emschergenossenschaft) stands for the success of joint cooperative projects. The people in the region are very proud of this fact – no matter from what social class, origin or country they come. And there are people of so many different origins in the Capital of Culture.