Equator of Inequality
The A40 motorway stretches from Dortmund via Essen and Mülheim to Duisburg - right through Germany's largest metropolitan area. For sociologists, it is more than just a road: it is considered the "social equator". This is because older, wealthier people, often of German origin, live in the south of the A40 – whereas in the north, a young, immigrant population is growing up in poor neighbourhoods.
For many, ‘deprived neighbourhood’ sounds like drugs, violence and apartment blocks. In the northern Ruhr area, it often means less spectacular circumstances. Primary school children growing up in poverty and not getting a hot meal a day besides the canteen meal. Run-down "junk properties" that are rented out overpriced to Romanians and Bulgarians because they have no chance on the regular housing market. A closed public pool, a below-minimum wage job with a subcontractor.
The towns along the A40 motorway, characterised by coal and steel, were long regarded as a symbol of a promise: social rise through work. But the reality today is different, both in the region characterised by structural change and in the rest of Germany. In terms of wealth distribution, social inequality is higher than in almost any other country in the eurozone: while the richest decile owns over 60 per cent of the wealth, the bottom half has barely more than two per cent. Despite the welfare state, social background determines educational and life chances as much as in the USA. Studies show: Those who grow up in the northern Ruhr region have significantly poorer prospects - in terms of school qualifications, health and income.
Social inequality is often not even recognised as such. In 2018, Friedrich Merz, multi-millionaire and now Germany’s chancellor, famously declared himself upper middle class. Many rich and poor people wrongly consider themselves to be middle class because they primarily compare themselves with their immediate environment. In the richest neighbourhoods in the south, this environment is also rich. There you meet more employees of gardening companies than residents, and people enjoy culture at Villa Hügel, the historic estate of the Krupp industrial family and home to the powerful Krupp Foundation. Sociologist Volker Kersting describes these neighbourhoods as the most segregated.
The last election results reflect the social conditions: In Essen, the ten neighbourhoods with the highest voter turnout were all in the south. The Rüttenscheid district, where there is a restaurant on every corner, the city forest is around the corner and the unemployment rate is one of the lowest, counted less than 8% of the vote for the extreme-right AfD. In Gelsenkirchen, the party became the strongest force with just under 25%.
This project follows the A40 motorway across the Ruhr region, along the social divide. It portrays places, people and living conditions on both sides of the motorway. It asks: How visible is Germany’s inequality? And until which point are people willing to put up with it?