The construction of a railway station!

The dispute over the rebuilding of Stuttgart’s main railway station is now reverberating throughout the German political establishment. Chancellor Merkel has tied her political fate directly to this controversial building project—“Stuttgart 21”— an issue that has brought tens of thousands of protesters onto the streets in recent weeks.

In the budget debate in the Bundestag (parliament), Merkel defended the costly multi-billion construction of Stuttgart’s new main railway station. She has refused to call for a referendum, on the grounds that the state elections due next March will be tantamount to a public referendum on the “Stuttgart 21” project.

It’s impossible to imagine any section of the right side of our political spectrum being at the center of a controversy involving the construction of a train station. Just impossible.

Charles Mudede—who writes about film, books, music, and his life in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and the UK for The Stranger—was born near a steel plant in Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe. He has no memory...

8 replies on “The Big Political Controversy in Germany?”

  1. At least they didn’t build it underground, below sea level, in quake-prone glacial till and construction fill … and bust the budget cap in so doing.

  3. true, that’s why the Greeks tossed out the right wing government that let the rich avoid taxes and exposed the lie of “conservatism” to the world.

    but we haven’t killed the Tax Giveaway to the Rich yet – the Bush “Tax Cuts” don’t expire until the end of this year.

  4. World Socialist WebSite? Really, couldn’t find a article a bit less biased?

    And the Bundestag is a mixture of a parliament and House of Representatives. The Bundesrat is like a neutered Senate.

  7. It’s an urban re-development project of massive proportions which will make a vast amount of prime inner-city construction ground available for other projects (I believe we’re talking about 1,000,000 sqm or 11,000,000 sqf, but don’t quote me on those figures) in a city that may be medium-sized but is very rich and expensive. I doubt it’s inconceivable something like this could happen in the US when interests of investors would make Republicans care…

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