Dresden dwellers want UNESCO title back

How can a city not be full of itself? It is a large built up area consisting of, itself - so it is full, of itself...

Ah, you are from the provinces, I see

I can't think of any really general sweeping statement at the moment but I'll post them later if any come to mind.

Ah, I have one. London, full of southerners... or is it...

How to contradict yourself in one easy post. If the UNESCO tag meant anything then surely all those empty hotels would be full?

As someone else said it is ok saying "this is a world heritage site" but that shouldn't mean the place is now and forever more enclosed in some sort of "do not touch" bubble. That is a recipe for disaster.

I doubt he had in mind a mindnumbingly-boring bridge completely inappropriate to its setting. Dresden could have preserved its UNESCO status had it better considered the design. But I know well enough from Freising that local politicians are their own town's worst enemy.

(attached image)

God, that is hideous...

Maybe in your rather pathetically simplistic thought process I contadicted myself - but I sure didn't. Dresden is just a mismanaged mess, and yes, it is - for a city - very full of itself. They think because every Dorftante from east German wants to go there for a daytrip means that they're a major spot on the international map.. From among the few international travellers they do get - compared to say Berlin or Prague, I can well imagine part of the lure is the UNESCO title..., and so is a contributing factor to what numbers they do see...

Now now, that is like saying any ity in Britian gets few international travellers compared to London.

The capitol city tends to get more than others (not always mind). I would never expect Dresden to get the same amount, in fact I doubt if the city could cope with that many.

Who are 'they' by the way and who are you to say every visitor is a dorftante?

Talking ab out a city as a 'they' is almost as weird as talking about yourself in 3rd person.

I have not seen this amount of generalization since I last watched a very sensitive issue being raised at PM Question Time back in the UK (ok, that's a lie, but lets forget some of the TT thread

What next, political view-point of the locals?

"They" are the politicians and other city officials involved who organized everything from the referendum to the negotiations and other discussions with UNESCO, the ones speaking to the press when the enviro-nuts were trying to save the bats ot whatever, and on and on.. "They" also include business interests who will profit from the bridge - architects, construction companies, etc...

The over-capacity of hotels and overall over-estimation of the city as a major tourist destination is a slightly different issue. But I kind of think the "they" is the same.. All these cities have city councils who make these sorts of decisions, more often than not for political reasons.., occasionally at the expense of what is best for the city..(Leipzig did the same thing by not selling %50 of their Stadtwerke to GDF..)

I'm an English teacher too - have been for many years. I speak with people from all over the former East Germany every day(I'm also married to one..), and Saxons in general are very very proud of Dresden. Fair enough.. It is one of the major architectural and cultural jewels of eastern Germany for sure.. But it's not quite at the level they would like to think it is. One of my private students is a sales manager for a major hotel chain, and I've discussed this with him before.. Why would American or Japanese tour groups want to go to Dresden, when the map is already dotted with Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Rothenburg, Cologne, Neuschwanstein.., even second-rung cities like Trier, Heidelberg, etc..? Generally, they come for short periods of time, and have a lot packed into their itineraries.. I am not saying - in case you take it that simplistically..., that the UNESCO title will steer all these hoardes of international tourists to Dresden.. However, in a city that is already mismanaged, with overcapicty in their hotels, losing the title will not help things... And because they did go about things with an air of arrogance, I anyway see the whole thing with a degree of Schadenfreude...

Schade nur that in the process Dresden's hubris also probably damaged the reputation of UNESCO, and by extension the very idea that culture is worth preserving at all..

Funny things, bridges. When the Blaues Wunder (Wikipedia) was built in 1893 a kilometre or two upstream from Dresden city centre, many people thought it an abhorrence and compared it to a skeleton without flesh. About 110 years later this didn't stop UNESCO from listing the Elbe valley as a world heritage site, I suppose because the bridge had become part of the valley scenery and a tourist attraction in its own right.

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(image courtesy of Wikipedia)

Now, another controversial bridge is being built as discussed at length above. When the dust has settled and the politics of the thing are long forgotten and comments such as this......aren't made anymore, maybe Dresden will be listed again.

Well, there is the whole discussion and issue of why in the h.ell they listed the whole valley in the first place, and not just the Altstadt...

Now I guess they'll reapply for just the Altstadt, which yes of course should be on the list.. Awkward though..

Dresden, when the dust settles..., will possibly just have brought more recognition to itself, AND still get back on the list... (having tarnished UNESCO and the list itself, ironically enough...) Maybe this was the master plan of the association of Dresdner hotels or something... Now, five years from now, when all those Japanese and American tourists are flipping through their guide-books, instead of seeing "UNESCO world heritage site".., they'll see a small paragraph about the whole fiasco...

Should it? Since it's mostly rebuilt, there is a debate to be had here.

Totally other topic.. But IMO there is no debate, except maybe for bored pedants...

Dresden should continue to claim UNESCO status.

What could the UN do? Send them an angry memo? Have a debate?

We don't have many UNESCO locations back in the US. I have thought about starting a side business selling UNESCO world heritage membership kits to podunk tourist locations. A plaque and certificate for maybe $50? What could the UN do?