Munich again the clear winner in Prognos 'future prospects' study

Every three years the "Prognos Zukunftsatlas" is published in Germany, a comprehensive study assessing the future prospects of all of Germany's 402 cities and districts. The study looks at 29 separate indicators of economic prospects, employment levels, adaptability for future challenges, and a host of quality of life factors. The latest study from Swiss research group Prognos has just appeared.

The winner, as it has been in every study since 2004, is Munich, both the city and its surrounding district. The Bavarian capital is followed in the rankings by near-neighbour Ingolstadt in second place and Böblingen outside Stuttgart in third. All of the top 10 cities in the ranking – bar the Volkswagen city of Wolfsburg – are located south of the river Main, which flows through Frankfurt (am Main).

This year's study shows several eastern German cities making rapid advances up the rankings, while other eastern German cities are falling back. Leipzig jumps from Nr. 334 in 2004 to Nr. 137 now, while Weimar and Chemnitz also rank highly, alongside contenders Potsdam and Dresden and steady outperformer Jena. The biggest jumper in the rankings, however, is Berlin, which improved by 110 places in 2013 to its current Nr. 114.

Prospects still don't look so good for many rural regions in eastern Germany, with the very bottom ranking being held by Stendal in Saxony-Anhalt, followed by eight further eastern districts. But certain districts in western Germany are also among those offering the worst prospects, such as Lüchow-Dannenberg in the west's Lower Saxony at Nr. 393.

Among notable steady fallers are Kaiserslauten in Rhineland-Palatinate, falling from Nr. 85 to Nr. 309, and over the last three years the North Rhine-Westphalian towns of Mülheim an der Ruhr (down 114 places) and Leverkusen (down 107 places). Big gainers included Calw in Baden-Württemberg and Rhein-Lahn-Kreis in Rhineland-Palatinate.

According to Peter Kaiser, project head at Prognos, the north and western parts of the country are having big difficulties catching up on the prosperous southern states. "The sharp divide between East and West on the one hand, and North and South on the other, remains unchanged", he said.

Germany's economic growth of the past ten years has done little to smooth out the differences, but has actually increased the imbalances between the regions, he says. The losers are finding themselves in a vicious circle of high indebtedness, high unemployment and heavy social expenditure. Regions such as the Eifel, Pomerania and Bayerischer Wald (near the Czech border) are facing a bleak future, with young people moving away on masse. On the other hand some rural regions, if they're close to larger urban areas, may still have good perspectives.

The Prognos researchers carried out a parallel study on how well the towns and districts are equipped for a digital future, with IT and web-expertise, digital startups, and other indicators. The results showed that only about 10 metropolitan regions are in good shape, with half of all the 432,000 digital jobs last year concentrated on these regions, although these account for only a quarter of all employment in the country. In other words, the digital divide is helping to polarise the country even more.