2013 German Federal Election - Hamburg Metro Maps (by precinct)

[Franknburger]

I actually quite like some of the aggressively contemporary and geometrical architecture found in some northern European cities (having only seen it in photos, I should add), so I can't say I agree with your friend. I agree, though, that what was posted in your HafenCity photos doesn't look too brilliant.

In my youth, I have been deeply impressed by Alexander Mitscherlich's famous (at least in Germany) book on "The Inhospitality of Our Cities". He noted that up to the early 20th century, in the absence of any formal coordination, citizens still managed to create a hospitable urban landscape that  transmitted a place's special identity and flair. Local materials and building traditions, but also a mixture of self-expression and respect for the neighbour('s building), provided for a largely unconscious yet effective coordination mechanism that made cities look homogenous. That ability got lost after WW II in Germany, but probably not only here.

There are buildings that - to me - suit Hamburg, and others that don't. I myself am still struggling to understand what makes the difference to me. It is definitely not the architectural style - 'nordic', 'clean` geometrical architecture can be perfect. Local building materials is one aspect, but, of course, my friend's statement was (and was meant to be) exaggerating. It has to do with certain colours (red brick, copper and pastel green, chalk white), proportions, the way windows are arranged, a central vertical line that recalls medieval warehouse architecture (the hoist on the top of the building, and the loading hatches below it), and possibly a dozen more things.

Here is one of my favourite buildings, not far from my parent's house, early 1960s, which might represent what you call "geometrical architecture". The architect, Munich-based son of a Norwegian father, definitely had a "feel" for Hamburg:


Or there are these guys which, though also occasionally building outside Hamburg, have been quite influential to reshaping the city over the last decades.

[Franknburger]

Before eventually leaving Hamburg down-town, let me give a bit more information on the old town. As I have mentioned before, unlike Lübeck and Luneburg, Hamburg hasn't much of a "real" old town left, and here is why:



In the Great Fire of 1842, during four days about a quarter of the city, some 1.700 houses, three churches, the town hall and a number of other public buildings were destroyed, and some 20,000 people lost their homes. The fire almost completely ravaged the town centre, i.e. the part with the largest and most representative houses. [The city structure was still medieval - wealth and social status closely related to the distance to town hall and market square. The worst housing was next to the city walls, which is the area most vulnerable to bombardment, and also where you would find horse stables and other "infrastructure" for visitors]. 

The fire was used as opportunity to re-model the affected area, and especially improve and modernise the sewage system. The centre was shifted northwards towards the south bank pf the inner Alster lake, which was rebuilt with large, representative buildings.

Directly southwards, near the little Alster basin, the new townhall was constructed, which, however, only  was completed by the end of the 19th century.


Many of the classicist buildings from that reconstruction have subsequently been replaced by banks, office buildings, and department stores, but a few have remained to date.


The second reconstruction was the creation of the Speicherstadt on what used to be the southern part of the medieval old town. Starting in 1883, and being mostly completed until 1898, this reconstruction affected some dense areas populated by port labourers and craftsmen, but especially smaller merchant houses with their traditional integration of street-level  kontor (office/ shop), living area (1st & 2nd flloor) and warehousing further upstairs. With upper and middle-class areas mostly remodelled/ gone, the remaining old town was predominantly lower class and extremely densely populated.

What followed may be regarded as a masterpiece of political window-dressing: The first act was the 1892 Cholera epidemics, which killed nearly 9,000 people.  Hamburg had been the first German city to in 1848 install a central water supply system, but could afterwards for decades not decide on the need for and financing of water filtration. Drinking water was extracted directly from the Elbe some 2 km upwards of the city, while excrements went untreated into the various canals, which also saved as waste dumps.
The hot and dry summer of 1892  lead to drinking water being contaminated with Cholera germs. Initial occurences were downplayed and covered up. Emigrant ships were still given health certificates when the outbreak was already obvious, so the infection could make its way to New York. Ultimately, the German government, fed up with the city government's inaction, installed Robert Koch as health commissioner. Koch immediately placed the whole city under quarantine, including closing the port (which Hamburg's Senate and merchants had wanted to avoid at all costs), and initiated ad-hoc works on building a water filtration plant. After his first inspection of the old town, he commented on hygienic conditions: "Gentlemen, this makes me forget that I am in Europe"



The Cholera epidemics had made the need to improve the old town's hygienic conditions obvious. The large port worker's strike of 1896/97 furthermore showed the old town to be a hot-bed of political unrest. In order to calm down tensions after the strike had finally broken down, the Senate established two commissions on "social reform" and on "urban cleansing". "Cleansing" ("Sanierung"), originally meant in an hygienic sense, quickly evolved into demolition and re-construction of complete areas. The first stage, the southern new town, still created residential areas (the "Portuguese quarter", 1903-14), though not necessarily for the original inhabitants.
However, already in the next stage, the focus shifted towards more profitable objects. The Mönckebergstasse (see photo above), created 1908-14 as new and comparatively wide connection between city hall and the central railway station, is lined with department stores and office buildings, and still one of Germany's most frequented shopping streets (though it has, with the general demise of department stores, lost its traditional first place several years ago). The south-eastern old town, where large office buildings such as the Chilehaus were erected, followed in the 1920s. The Nazis more-less completed the job by in the 1930s clearing the central-western new town, including the old Jewish quarters and a former (already unused) synagogue. Most of remaining old housing in the north-western new town (with 2,000 inhabitants and 120 small enterprises) had to give way to Unilever Germany's new HQ (1958-64).


That essentially leaves a small pocket of old merchant housing along the Nikolaifleet, squeezed in-between the 1842 fire area, the Speicherstadt, and the 1920s office buildings in the south-western old town, as last contiguous remain of medieval Hamburg. Even that part, now a prime tourist attraction, would have been gone, had there not been a citizen's initiative in the 1970s lobbying for preservation. And there are the 17th century "Krameramtsstuben", housing for members' widows erected by the retailers' guild, which somehow escaped cleansing, as last remains of traditional courtyards.


Where did former inhabitants go when an area was cleansed? They had to look for new housing themselves, and, together with newly arriving migrants from the countryside, fuelled rapid development of housing areas outside the old town. I have combined Hamburg area maps from several editions of the Brockhaus encyclopedia (Source: http://www.christian-terstegge.de/hamburg/karten_umgebung/index.html) into a GIF to visualise the resulting rapid development. Note also how the port area changed over that period, and check out Harburg to the south.



[I hope the Caudillo is happy!]

[Franknburger]

You may have guessed what is to come - yes - the "jump across the Elbe". This part of Hamburg absolutely deserves a close up, as it includes (ballot-box results only):
- the CDU's best and third-best districts,
- the SPD's top two precincts,
- the one and only Hamburg district won by Die Linke (plus another precinct they carried),
- the FDP's best district (shouldn't be too hard to guess which one that is),
- AfD's best precinct and district,
- the Pirates' top 4 Hamburg districts,
- the top 3 districts for Die PARTEI,
- The NPD's five best precincts, and three of their best four districts.

Let's start with an overview. Inhabited areas are coloured according to the leading party (intensity=2X ballot-box vote share, SPD shares above 50% coloured dark red), Further maps for individual parties will include precinct borders and list precinct results, but I thought a "cleaner" version is better for initial overview.
,

To the NW, you have the HafenCity. Eastwards follow Hammerbrook and Rothenburgsort, which were almost completely destroyed by WW II bombing. Hammerbrook has been mostly rebuilt with offices, but includes a few blocks of late 19th century housing close to the central station, which isn't shown on the map anymore. Rothenburgsort is a lot of commercial premises, especially truck yards, continuing further eastwards into Billbrook, but also a contiguous zone of 1950s/60s apartment blocks.  At the NE corner, you see the outskirts of Hamm and Horn - most of the built-up area (also predominantly 1950/60s blocks) however, lies beyond the map's northern border. The Kaltehofe peninsula, just south of Rothenburgsort, contains the waterworks erected after the 1892 Cholera epidemics.


Those who have followed this thread from the beginning should easily be able to identify the structures to the SE as Marschhufendörfer - agricultural areas that Hamburg took possession of from the 12th century onwards in order to be able to control and regulate the Elbe's water flow (and especially to divert the main current away from Harburg to the south northwards to its own port). The villages there used to provide Hamburg's daily supply of vegetables (up to the early 20th century mostly by boat), and are still quite agricultural. Let me draw your attention to Seevetal-Bullenhusen in the SE corner - also a Marschhufendorf, but already in Lower Saxony, which displays some interesting difference in voting compared to the Hamburg side.


In the SW, there is Harburg proper, which has lent its name to the city borough, as well as to neighbouring Harburg county in Lower Saxony. Established in the 9th century, the settlement gained city status in 1297, and in the 16th/ 17th century was capital of the Duchy of Harburg. A typical regional center with some 3,000 inhabitants in the 18th and early 19th century, Harburg experienced massive population growth during the industrial revolution to more than 70,000 inhabitants by 1925. Together with its suburbs and Wilhlemsburg to the north, Harburg became part of Hamburg through the 1936 Greater Hamburg Act.
Dense, lower-class, late 19th to early 20th century housing. The photo below shows where my wife, but also a certain Mohammed Atta, used to live. Aside from Harburg proper, the map also includes smaller adjacent parts of Wilstorf, Eißendorf and Heimfeld districts, which are similar in structure.


Wilhelmsburg, at the map's centre, is Hamburg's largest district size wise and, with more than 50,000 inhabitants, the sixth most populated one. Its western part is covered by port-based industries, especially oil refineries. The adjacent Reiherstieg quarter developed in the late 19th/ early 20th century as housing area for port and industry workers. As the nearby oil refineries (ironically owned by Shell and by Standard Oil) were prominent allied bombing targets, the Reiherstieg quarter suffered quite some WW II destruction, but a good part of 19th century housing has remained to date. The area to the east of the railway line also includes some late 19th century housing NE of the Wilhelmsburg railway station, however, most of it was only developed after WW II.  You find there 1950s/60s housing blocks close to the railway, small individual and semi-detached housing further east (see photo below), and the 1970s Kirchdorf-Süd housing estate towards the SE, close to the A1 motorway.


Finally, there is Kleiner Grasbrook and Veddel along the southern bank of the Norderelbe. Mostly port, industrial, and, more recently, musical theatre area. Kleiner Grasbrook, in fact, only includes one settled road - several blocks of late 19th century houses just south of the port area (photo below) that for some mysterious region have neither been merged into Wilhelmsburg to its south nor into adjacent Veddel to the NW. Veddel is built up quite densely with 1920s housing and home to some 5,000 inhabitants. I'll do some more write-up on it in a subsequent post (it hosted the emigration port, Hamburg's counterpart to Ellis Island, which might be a topic interesting to some American readers).

[Franknburger]

Let's continue with a look at the SPD:


You may note a couple of light yellow-green areas, crossed by networks of rectangular paths, especially in the NE corner. - that's allotment gardens. The area in the NE corner is actually Europe's largest contingent zone of allotment gardens. Originally developed as enterprise zone in the 1920s, it was during the Great Depression converted into an allotment zone in order to provide (unemployed) workers the opportunity to sustain themselves with self-grown food. When the surrounding quarters were almost completely destroyed by WW II bombing, many of the survivors moved into the small cottages on their allotment - in Rothenburgsort and Horn, as well as in Wilhelmsburg, Harburg and elsewhere. Anecdotes point at quite some squatting - dig a drain around unused wetland, and it's your allotment. Illegally, but tolerated by the authorities, which were glad to have a few less of homeless people to take care of. The situation continued after the war, some allotment residents even received public loans to upgrade their cottages. In 1956, still some 90,000 people lived illegally, but tolerated, on allotments.
 

There are two problems with such housing: Firstly, it was often on lowland which is insufficiently protected from flooding. The problem became obvious during the 1962 flood that submerged almost one sixth of Hamburg's territory, destroyed more than 6,000 buildings and cost 315 lives. Particularly hard hit was Wilhelmsburg, and especially allotment areas to its north-west, which alone accounted for 220 deaths. The death toll could even have been much higher - many people had escaped to the roofs, but were threatened by freezing to death in the chill, rainy February weather. However, in what was technically a coup, a certain Helmut Schmidt, at that time Hamburg's Senator of the Interior, assumed control of the German army and even British forces, by-passing all lines of command and ignoring the German constitution that forbade the armed forces to engage domestically, and had them supplying and rescuing survivors by boat and helicopter. His 'unconventional' but effective disaster management made Schmidt a local legend, and cemented the already high support for the SPD in the Wilhelmsburg area and among allotment residents.

More pictures: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:North_Sea_flood_of_1962_in_Wilhelmsburg

Another problem of residing on allotments is insufficient access to facilities, especially canalisation. In order to reduce the risk of soil and groundwater contamination, in the late seventies it was officially declared illegal to permanently reside on allotments. However, those already living there were granted right of continuance, but were only allowed to transfer the residence to their children, not anymore (as previously tolerated) to any purchaser. Consequently, the number of allotment residents has now fallen to around 1,300, most of them seniors. In most precincts, allotment dwellers don't play a major role anymore. An exception is the "Horner Marsch" (the precinct in the NE corner with "Horn" written above it), which still houses 250 allotment residents, a third of the precinct's eligible voters (to visualise the population, the allotment area has been partly coloured). That precinct stands out as SPD stronghold (48.9%), as does nearby northern Rothenburgsort that includes another still settled allotment area (45.2%).

Some notes on other SPD strongholds: Their best precinct in all of Hamburg (62.5%) is a large public home for elderly and disabled people in western Wilhelmsburg. It also happens to have the lowest vote participation in all of Hamburg (16.7%). Next comes the central part of the Kirchdorf-Süd 1970s large housing estate (57.9%). Interestingly, the estate's two other precincts are having the SPD considerably weaker (41.7% in the western part), though all the estate's buildings are similar in lay-out. I also think I now have solved the mystery of the SPD's strong showing in Wilstorf - the dominating landowner there is the Eisenbahnbauverein Hamburg (Hambuirg railway housing association).

Finally, a look at the marsh villages - the SPD's results around 25% there aren't great, but still better than their results in the HafenCity and several inner city districts such as Hammerbrook. Moreover, these are among the few areas where the SPD is still reaching similar results as in the 1960s and 1970s. Across the state line, in Seevetal-Bullenhausen (Lower Saxony), the SPD achieved 35% - quite a decent result for the Hamburg periphery. Of course, that part of Seevetal includes some new housing development (starting just where the map ends) that has diluted traditional voting patterns a bit. Nevertheless, the SPD's weakness (and CDU's strength) in the marsh villages is quite a Hamburg-specific feature.

[palandio]

Housing cooperatives in general and railroaders' cooperatives in particular can be recognized on election maps of Munich as well.
I'm very glad that you dig so deep into ownership structures, historical developments and so on because very much of the voting statistics can be explained by that, the rest being inevitable statistical noise.

Very impressing work, I like what you are doing here very much. One request: Do you have turnout maps as well? Of course they're somehow predictable, but particularly in districts that are undergoing gentrification they could provide additional information.

[Franknburger]

I actually could do turnout maps. The problem, however, is that they would exclude vote-by-mail, which is quite an issue in Hamburg.
I had in November asked the Hamburg Statistical Office for additional information on the allocation of vote-by-mail precincts to individual city districts/ precincts. At that time, they answered they would check with the boroughs and expect more info by the beginning of this years. They haven't replied to me since, but have additional data online that for many districts includes vote-by-mail data. Since their figures correspond with my calculation, I suppose my estimate will also be correct for the districts they did not cover. In any case, however, a number of districts in question here, especially the marsh villages, but also Billbrook / Rothenburgsort / Veddel,, Harburg / Neuland, and HafenCity / Altstadt, have been lumped together into one vote-by-mail district.

Below you find district-level vote participation maps for Hamburg, separated into ballot-box, vote-by-mail and total participation. Note that the latter is my estimate for those districts which did not have vote-by-mail recorded separately. I have also included two background maps on Hartz IV recipients and taxable income (note that the latter is based on 2004 data and may be outdated for some disticts under gentrification, especially St. Pauli and Sternschanze). The maps speak for themselves.



As the Rpthenburgsort-Veddel-Wilhemsburg-Harburg area is generally displaying a low vote-by-mail share, a vote participation by precinct map makes sense, and I will do one later. The western inner city is a bit more of a problem -vote-by-mail has been considerable in Eimsbüttel and Ottensen, and extremely high in Rotherbaum (which that map partly covers as well). If, however, there is interest, I could prepare a participation map for the inner city as well.
As to the Hamburg metro in general: Given the huge variation in the share of vote-by-mail between certain districts of Hamburg and many small villages, there is not much point for a ballot-box-only vote participation map. So, for a meaningful map, I would have to aggregate precinct data to the smaller vote-by-mail district (usually the Amt in SH, the Samtgemeinde in NDS), and add vote-by-mail data to it. Now,  it has been quite cumbersome to retrieve the data from various county portals, in some cases I had to do it precinct by precinct, so I often left out the vote-by-mail precincts to save time.  Currently I really don't feel like going back to all the county portals (some are apparently even not online anymore), but should I feel bored over Easter (there is still enough other stuff I am planning to do here, e.g. the FDP map, possibly also the Pirates, for the Hamburg metro, close-ups on Lübeck, Luneburg, Neumunster and some Hamburg suburbs, etc.), I may give it another thought...

[palandio]

The maps in your last post are already quite helpful. And it's still "your" thread.

German turnout maps on a local level are quite enlightening, but rarely surprising. Turnout is almost completely explained by social status. (Local elections can be different. Often the time of residence becomes a relevant factor.) As far as I know similar patterns can be found in other countries, but some are quite different (India,...)

The lumping together of several ballot box districts and the fact that many data can be found only on local portals, makes statistics very cumbersome. In Munich you can find at least the number of requested mail-ballots for every ballot box district, which is very helpful, because over 90% of them were filled out and sent in. I should also do a map on the proportion of mail-ballots, I think I haven't done that yet.

[Franknburger]

I haven't been paying much attention to vote participation so far. I also lack a bit of experience in explaining patterns beyond the commonplaces (SPD/Linke stronger at the ballot-box, CDU/FDP/Greens stronger in vote-by-mail, etc.). As such, I invite you, palandio, to add further comments, especially when it comes to issues like gentrification impact on participation etc. If you have additional Munich maps to contribute, feel free to post them here (a Hamburg-Munich comparison should be very interesting). The same applies to Hamburg's sister city further up the Elbe, in case somebody from Saxony feels like doing some mapping...

Anyway, I now have prepared a vote participation map for the Wilhelmsburg-Harburg area. At first, I thought "there isn't anything to see at all", so I played a bit with the colouring scheme. Then I realised that vote participation has indeed been embarrassingly low across most of the area. Anyway, colouring is now  Intensity = 2 * (Vote Participation -15%). This makes participation look somehow higher than it actually has been, but serves to better distinguish the subtle variations between "really low", "quite low" and "below average" participation across this part of Hamburg.


Leaving aside the special case of care units for elderly and disabled, participation has been lowest in areas characterised by dispersed housing, where you find apartment blocks scattered amidst commercial/business areas (Billbrook, Northern Rothenburgsort, Harburg down-town and port area). Participation in all these precincts has remained below 40%, going down as low as 29.9% in southern Billbrook. Obviously, dispersed housing is not conducive to ballot-box voting - the voting office tends to be rather distant, while the area to cross in order to get there is not necessarily the preferred choice for a Sunday afternoon promenade. Increased vote-by-mail could make up for this (and has probably done so in other less dense parts of Hamburg), but Rothenburgsort/Billbrook ranks last, and Harburg/Neuland seventh-last in terms of vote-by-mail participation, which makes substantial vote-by-mail participation in the a/m dispersed housing areas rather unlikely.

Next comes apartment blocks and large housing estates (Kirchdorf-Süd), where participation generally tends to range between slightly below 40% and close to 50%. Results in the latter range generally correspond to a stronger "alternative" (Green/Linke/Pirates/Partei) vote and areas that are becoming 'hip' for students, most notably Veddel and the north-eastern Reiherstieg, but also western Harburg, close to the Harburg Technical University. Surprisingly, the Phoenixviertel in southern Harburg, which is commonly regarded as Harburg's version of Ottensen (it's the place where you go if you look for an Asian supermarket, a Portuguese football club or a Lebanese take-away south of the Elbe, 2/3 of all buildings date to the late 19th century) had a very low participation of only 34-39%, in spite of a quite substantial "alternative" vote.


Precincts characterised by (predominantly simple) individual housing (Moorfleet, eastern & southern Wilhelmsburg, eastern Harburg, western Neuland) range around 50% vote participation. This is possibly slightly lower, but generally in line with ballot-box participation in similarly-structured areas elsewhere in Hamburg (e.g. western Farmsen/ eastern Bramfeld). However, elsewhere in Hamburg, vote-by-mail participation tends to be at least some 10%  higher than in Wilhelmsburg and Harburg/Neuland.
The marsh villages, finally, top the list with vote participation between 50% and slightly above 60%. Tatenberg is the district with the highest ballot-box (60.6%) vote participation in all of Hamburg (though there are a handful of individual precincts having higher ballot-box rates, up to 65%). That is, however, still less than in Seevetal-Bullenhausen, where ballot-box participation was 63% (further south-eastwards along the dyke, it even reaches 66-69% in Winsen-Hoopte, Winsen-Laßrönne, Drage-Drennhausen, Drage-Elbstorf and Drage-Schwinden).
A special case is the HafenCity. Though ballot-box participation is only average (49/55%) heavy voting by mail puts it among the districts with the highest vote participation in all of Hamburg. Interestingly, more recent openings of additional, less 'posh' quarters has resulted in a 3.7% decline in overall vote participation compared to 2009, and had the HafenCity lose its previous status as district with Hamburg's highest vote participation.

Vote participation in the area has traditionally been below average, though not as embarrassingly low as now. As the maps below shows, the big drop occurred in 2009, affecting in particular "blue collar" districts like Harburg, Wilhelmsburg and Rothenburgsort, plus the also blue-collar-ish eastern districts. Underlying data has to be taken with some caution: Apparently, the Hamburg Statistical Office has only after my e-mail request started to allocate vote-by-mail precincts to city districts, which has resulted in various corrections to previously published participation rates, e.g. Wellingsbüttel -8.3, Sasel +3.2. Before, as they explained in their e-mail to me, they only estimated participation based on "previous elections and vote-by-mail requests".  As such, 2009 participation, as well as 2005-2009 and 2009-2013 changes may be affected by methodological inconsistency. This could especially explain the surprisingly strong increase in 2013 vote participation in St. Pauli and Sasel, and the corresponding substantial decrease in neighbouring Hamburg-Neustadt and Wellingsbüttel, respectively.



This a good opportunity to do away with an urban myth, namely low vote participation primarily damaging the SPD. The SPD has in 2009 definitely suffered from declining participation in several of their traditional strongholds. However, their biggest loss occurred in Stenwerder, which massively shifted to Linke and Greens, while at the same time having participation increasing by 5%. Obviously, this relates to a turnover of the electorate - SPD-voting seniors being replaced by "alternative" students. The same applies, on a somehow reduced scale, to neighbouring Veddel, which saw the SPD lose over proportion while vote participation decreased only slightly.
Moreover, there are a number of districts, especially marsh villages such as Neuland, Neuengamme and Spadenland, where substantial decline in 2009 vote participation left the SPD relatively unaffected. Instead, it was the CDU that suffered most, presumably as part of their traditional base couldn't cope with "their party", led by a gay mayor, entering a city-level coalition with the Greens. Note also Neuland in 2013 - 4.5% increase in vote participation, 9.4% CDU gain (ballot-box only). A look at the 2009-2013 change map furthermore suggests that in 2013, vote abstention could especially have negatively affected the FDP.

Conversely, there are several examples for the SPD possibly having benefitted from low vote participation. I already Have mentioned several times the Kirchdorf-Süd housing estate. Its central part gave the SPD their second-best result in all of Hamburg, 57.9%, at 34.6% ballot-box participation. The western part had the SPD at just 41.7% - at 44.2% ballot-box participation. Conversely, the CDU got 15.3% in the central, and 28.9% in the eastern part. Another, less extreme example is the eastern Reiherstieg: Two adjacent precincts, same kind of 1950s/6ßs apartment blocks: The southern one has the SPD at 46.6% at 41% vote participation, for the northern one its SPD 45.3% at 42% vote participation.  In this case, it is Greens and Pirates doing a bit better in the north than in the south.
Sinstorf district (the most southernmost part of Hamburg, south of Wilstorf): One of the biggest SPD losses in 2009 (-16.5%), but also the biggest come-back of 2013 (+9.0%).  Was the 2009 loss related to abstention? To some extent, yes, but the 7.9% decline in 2009 vote participation only explains part of the loss. Is the 2013 comeback related to increasing participation? Not at all, vote participation in Sinstorf decreased above average, by 1.7%.

The most plausible explanation for these patterns is a traditionally SPD-leaning electorate that has partly become disappointed with the party after 2005, but in most parts isn't ready to vote for any other party, hence they just abstain. Once they vote again, however, they don't vote SPD anymore. As such, higher abstention is currently helping the SPD:

[Franknburger]

Before continuing further with looking at the Wilhelmsburg-Harburg area, a bit more of Hamburg-wide comparison is useful. I have combined the "alternative" vote - Greens, Linke, Pirates and PARTEI. That vote has quite a local concentration. As already mentioned, it is particular high in the western inner city, but not only there. A second stronghold (and one of the reason I thought focusing in on Wilhelmsburg makes sense) is south of the Elbe. In fact, the most "alternative" district is not St. Pauli, but Kleiner Grasbrook. That small stretch of late 19th century housing close to the port area had the Linke coming in first, and gave both Pirates and PARTEI their best Hamburg result district-wise. Pirates beat the CDU, Die PARTEI gained more votes than FDP and AfD.



Unsurprisingly, the "alternative" vote is closely related to age. According to the analysis published by the Hamburg Statistical Office, Linke have been doing comparatively well across all age groups, with the exception of those over 70 (3.6%). The Green vote already drops sharply (<10%) among voters over 60. Their best demographics are women under 45, where the achieved over 20%. The "other" vote (primarily made up of Pirates and Partei, but also comprising further small parties including the NPD), is dominated by young voters. It has been strongest with males below 25 (13.9%) and between 25 and 34 (11.5%), but falls below 5% for the 45-59 age group, and below 2% for those older than 60. However, age is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for an elevated "alternative" vote, as the comparably young, but less "alternative" north-eastern inner city shows.
Most older voters have been voting SPD or CDU. While the SPD still dominates the 60-69 age group (40.1%), 44% of those 70 and older have voted CDU. However, again, here age is only explaining part of the partisan map. Other factors such as income are equally, if not more important, and the marshlands stand out as CDU stronghold in spite of their relatively balanced age structure.


When we zoom in on Wilhelmsburg, the district's strong internal differentiation becomes apparent. The "alternative" vote in the eastern, rather rural part is only around 15%, at a level comparative to the marsh villages across the Elbe. The alternative vote isn't much higher in Wilhelmsburg proper / Kirchdorf - blue-collarish, SPD-leaning, and most likely over-aged.  The area north-east of the railway station has seen some recent housing development, and also contains a few blocks of late 19th century apartment blocks, which might explain a slightly higher, but still below average "alternative" vote. Conversely, the Reiherstieg quarter to the NW is almost as "alternative" as it can get, with vote shares in the 50-59% range. That is a bit (but only a bit) less than in St. Pauli and Sternschanze, but higher than in Ottensen or Eimsbüttel. Further south, the "alternative" vote quickly drops to 20-25%.
Elsewhere, note how traditionally blue-collarish Rothenburgsort is gradually getting "alternative", with a quite remarkable difference between areas close to the city rail station and further west (34-36%) and those more towards the periphery (20-25%). A similar micro-differentiation can be observed in Harburg: 30-35% "alternative" vote in the Phoenixviertel, the old town, and areas close to the Technical University, 23-25% elsewhere.


Here is Die PARTEI. No socio-demographic analysis available, but I would guess we are mostly talking college-educated (especially social sciences) youngsters. The Reiherstieg stands out at 4-6% vote share, they are furthermore quite strong on the Grasbrook (4.2%, best Hamburg district), the Veddel (3.4%, '#2 Hamburg district), and in western Rothenburgsort (2.6%).  Above average (1.7-2.8%) in parts of Harburg, though overall it seems that Die PARTEI is a bit less appealing to Technical University students. Hamburg average was 0.7%.


Pirates - internet freedom, legalise dope. Predominantly younger males, presumably with a higher share of non-college educated than Die PARTEI. Spatial and electoral patterns (e.g. substantially better at the ballot box than in vote-by-mail) are closer to SPD and Linke than to the Greens. Their best (ballot-box only) districts in all of Hamburg were the Grasbrook (12.9%), the Veddel (8.5%), Hammerbrook (8.1%) and Billbrook (6.0%). In addition, the most north-western Reiherstieg precinct (10.6%) and western/central Rothenburgsort (8.4%/ 6.3%) stand out. Across most of the Reiherstieg and of Harburg, they received 5-6%, which is comparable, though slightly below their performance in St. Pauli. Apparently, their message is appealing to quite some engineering students. Compared to their Hamburg average (3.0%), they also over-performed in some of the peripheral parts of Wilhelmsburg proper, and Rothenburgsort  Rothenburgsort in general has been their 6th-best district (5.4%), after St. Pauli (5.8%), but before Sternschanze (5.1%). Yeah, Pirates live by the river!

[Franknburger]

Let me take you on a tour to "Alternativeland" south of the Elbe. First stop:

Hammerbrook (23.1% SPD, 21.7% Greens, 19.4% Linke, 15.4% CDU, 8.1% Pirates, 4.4% Die PARTEI)

This isn't yet south of the Elbe, but, as usual with such tours, we start at the central railway station. A few blocks of late 19th century housing just south of the railway have miraculously survived WW II bombing. Otherwise, this once densely built-up area was almost completely destroyed by the firestorm - to such an extent that it was for several years off-limits to prevent people from being struck by collapsing buildings.
 
 
A wonderful opportunity for post-war urban planners to build a car-friendly city, with 4-6-lane roads leading out of downtown to the Elbe bridges and the motorway to Lübeck. In-between, office and commercial buildings, petrol stations, and, on smaller empty lots, your friendly Turkish or Afghan used car dealer who also collects cars for export to the near east. So ugly that it already has its own, special charm: Our 14-year old son stated this week that no area is more "typically Hamburg" to him than this part of Hammerbrook.


The area is crossed by several channels, which served for draining the marshy terrain, but also for goods transport in the early 20th century. As extension of the Speicherstadt, warehouses were built along the channels, and, if you were lucky, in the 1980s you could rent nice lofts there at a bargain. By now, of course, most of these lofts house advertising agencies or publishers.

In the late 1980s and 1990s, the south-eastern part was developed into the "City Süd", with large office buildings, and piers and terraces along some of the channels. Actually quite nice, but completely dead after 6 pm. As usual in Hamburg, investors were a bit too optimistic about demand for office space, and when HafenCity development started, the area quickly lost its appeal. You still find some larger, empty lots there awaiting development. More recently, on one of these lots, a large block of student apartments has been built.


In essence - this isn't a place you choose to live in. But if you want to be close to the center, don't mind street and railway noise or crossing 4-6 lane roads on your 10-minute walk to shops, restaurants and pubs, there's  quite a chance you may end up here. Prime student area, nothing for families with kids - Hammerbrook has the lowest percentage of households with children in all of Hamburg. Gentrification is creeping in: For the proximity to the central station, hostels are gradually crowding out residents, and new apartment blocks are being developed on empty lots along the channels. In total, 1,800 new apartments, one third of which shall be social housing, are to be constructed in Hammerbrook over the coming years.