Political ambitions in Hagen aim to boost local connection and camaraderie
In the recent 2022 Hometown Check survey, Hagen received a disappointing grade of 3.55, with a decline compared to the 2020 results. The city's sense of community appears to be a pressing concern, as revealed by the survey results and the opinions of various political parties.
The CDU party in Hagen is proposing measures to strengthen volunteering and make it easier for children and young people to join clubs, aiming to reduce bureaucratic hurdles and improve the sense of community. The HAK party shares similar goals, aiming to promote volunteering, expand meeting places, and strengthen civic engagement for better togetherness in Hagen.
The Alliance 90/The Greens advocate for more funding for projects that promote neighbourhood and encounter, and they aim to strengthen community through neighbourhood projects, community centers, and festivals. The Left party, on the other hand, advocates for the preservation of free cultural centers and the continued support for clubs.
The SPD party stands for better dialogue about the concerns in the city and promises more social justice, citizen-oriented politics, and sustainable investments. The FDP party demands a gradual reduction of energy and maintenance charges for sports clubs, as well as increased support for volunteering.
However, the survey results show clear differences between the districts, with Altenhagen and the city ring receiving poor grades. In contrast, the Volmetal and the area "At the Lenne" received the highest grades among the surveyed districts. Breckerfeld residents gave their city a grade of 1.8 for the topic of community feeling, a slight improvement over the result from five years ago. The citizens of Hohenlimburg believe that the sense of community in Hagen is weakly expressed and that it is more likely to be achieved in districts like Haspe, Boele, or Hohenlimburg.
The AfD party in Hagen believes that community in the city center has been estranged, partly due to cultural differences and the emergence of parallel structures. They suggest reducing integrative cultural offers and inviting new residents to existing cultural offers. Meanwhile, Josef Bucker, the leader of Hagen Active, attributes the disruption in the sense of community to conflicts on social media regarding the COVID-19 vaccines.
After the century flood in 2021, the HAK party noticed that Hagen residents can come together as a community. Following this observation, it is hoped that the proposed solutions by Hagen's city council factions will help improve the subjective sense of community among neighbours in response to the low grade in the Hometown Check survey.
The HAK party, along with the CDU, is proposing measures to promote volunteering and strengthen civic engagement, aiming to enhance the general sense of community in Hagen, as highlighted in the discussions about policy-and-legislation and politics. The SPD party, on the other hand, is focusing on better dialogue and social justice, promising citizen-oriented politics that could potentially impact the community feeling in the city, a matter of general-news concern.
