The monitoring enables interested parties from politics, administration, business and society to gain a picture of the fundamental and very different structures and development trends in the German Metropolitan Regions. Jakob Richter, spokesman for the Association of German Metropolitan Regions and head of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region office, comments: “The monitoring is important for the perception and understanding of the importance of the German Metropolitan Regions. At the same time, it provides a very good data basis for recognising challenges, opportunities and the need for action in the metropolitan regions. The data also shows how important metropolitan regions are for the development of Germany as a whole.”
Both the overall situation in the eleven metropolitan regions and the situation of the districts and administrative districts within the individual metropolitan regions can be visualised here. The monitoring compares the situation in the eleven metropolitan regions with each other and the situation of the districts and administrative districts in the individual metropolitan regions with each other. Topics that are equally important for all eleven European metropolitan regions are taken into account. These include Labour market and education data, data on population structure and development, services of general interest, finances and subsidies, settlement structure and the housing and real estate market, as well as data on economic performance, mobility and tourism, and the development of the population.
This year, the Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Region created the monitoring system for the IKM for the first time.
Four modules are available in the new monitoring system:
- Structural data: Data for comparing the structural situation of the metropolitan regions
- Absolute values: planning and calculation-relevant absolute values – five-year time series
- Brief profiles: short reports on the individual metropolitan regions – structurally relevant TOP indicators
- Maps: Geo-information on the location and district structure of the metropolitan regions
The monitoring of Germany’s European Metropolitan Regions has been published by the Initiativkreis Europäische Metropolregionen since 2006. It draws on data from the Federal and State Statistical Offices, the Working Group on National Accounts of the Federal States and the Federal Employment Agency.