Bremen branches out

THE CITY OF BREMEN stretches for thirty miles along the river Weser and nowhere is it more than ten miles wide. It has more than 600,000 inhabitants, divided into seventeen districts with about 40,000 people in each. The very shape of the city means that many places are far from the centre, which has necessitated decentralisation wherever this is at all possible. This in turn has been favoured by the relatively strong and even concentrations of population in the individual districts. To me 40,000 people seems an ideal number! So this decentralisation applies to public administration, schools, hostels, kindergarten, playing fields and swimming baths and to the whole network of public libraries.