ABSTRACT

Leipzig is situated in the state of Saxony in the East of Germany. With its population size of just above half a million inhabitants, it is a medium-sized city by German standards. In 2008, over 33,000 people with foreign nationalities were living in Leipzig. This was just 6.5" of the city population. The 41-year legacy of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) has a huge impact on the development opportunities of the Leipzig city-region until the present day, even though German reunification is already two decades ago. Leipzig's built environment and infrastructure are to a large extent the heritage of the late 19th and early 20th century, when a further growth towards a metropolis was expected. Leipzig is also making efforts to develop as a centre of knowledge-intensive services and higher education. The Nazi regime and World War II had devastating effects on Leipzig's development, not only in the 1930s and 1940s, but actually until the present day.