(1) the cost of living is to high,
(2) Germans almost never give spousal visas to work (and, in my case, even a spousal visa to live with me), and
(3) integration in Hessen for long-term foreign labor and children of laborers has been abysmal for decades.
The USA Army in Germany is
helping to drive up housing and living costs in Hessen with its newest move to Wiesbaden from Baden-WÃ rttemberg's Heidelberg base over the next two years. This
comes at a time when the USA
needs to be watching its overall federal budget much more carefully.
According to USACE, Justin Ward, "With the demolition of a few empty storage
bunkers south of the Wiesbaden Army Airfield recently, a new era has begun. The
flattening of the garrison's Basic Load Ammunition Storage Area is the first
significant step to prepare a 99-acre tract of land for a new $133 million military
family housing community. The project marks the first Army-funded townhouse
community in Wiesbaden
- a change in direction from stairwell living. It also marks the first visible
sign of 7th Army Headquarters' move from Heidelberg
to Wiesbaden.
http://www.army.mil/-news/2009/04/21/19915-wiesbaden-prepares-new-townhomes/
Another US Army Corp of Engineers spokesperson in Wiesbaden, Syballe Ballnath, shares, "This
housing project is monumental not only in its size, but also in its symbolism.
. . . By building this community, we're setting the stage for the future
footprint of the Armed Forces in Europe.
Ward writes, "By early 2012, plans call for up to 324 new townhouses, duplexes,
and single family homes to be built for the staffers of 7th Army's operational
facilities. The community will include a mix of three- and four-bedroom
quarters ranging from junior enlisted to general officer. Recreation areas will
include 10 playgrounds, seven picnic areas with grills and shelters, two sports
fields, two community plazas for yard sales and shuttle bus service, and a
running path. When fully funded, the two-phased construction project will be
the Army's largest ever in Wiesbaden.
DESPITE ALL THE HOOPLA
In short, less than a decade or so after the USA Air Force in Europe moved its
headquarters in Europe away from Wiesbaden, thousands of Americans are now set
to move back into the Wiesbaden, Hessen area, i.e. near the Rhine River and
Frankfurt's many regional and international airports.
The huge reversal in American Department of Defense (DOD) plans to build new
base capacity in Europe has come at a terrible
time in many ways. First of all, the U.S. Dollar to Euro exchange rate is
currently at its worst level in history "(1) making it unwieldy in to keep
budgets on target (in terms of U.S. Dollar expenditures) to build this new Army
Command in Europe at this particular time and (2) making it extremely expensive
for U.S. personnel and contractors to be sent into central Europe to work for
years on end.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,531486,00.html
Finally, (3) the leadership of the state of Hessen, where Wiesbaden is the
capital, under the Christian Democratic Union (CDU party) political leadership of Roland Koch over the past decade (1999-2009) has become considered
throughout Germany to be one of the least-foreigner friendly states in Germany
to migrate to.
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