International | Urban planning

Rus in urbe redux

A growing number of cities will have to plan for drastically smaller populations

|DESSAU-ROSSLAU

IN LEIPZIGER TOR, people are giving way to grass, flowers and potatoes. So many prefabricated 1950s apartment buildings have been razed in this working-class district of Dessau-Rosslau, a city in eastern Germany, that the plants receive all the light and rain they need. And the local planners have other buildings in their sights. Some residential blocks are half-empty. An abandoned school is succumbing to weeds. They too will probably be demolished and replaced by meadows.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Rus in urbe redux”

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