SCHWEDT (Germany): Demolition crews enjoy a thriving business in depressed Schwedt, where thousands of abandoned apartments are being torn down to prevent the shrinking eastern German city from looking like a ghost town. Depopulation and de-industrialization are plaguing regions across the formerly communist east, where an ever-worsening shortage of jobs after reunification prompted a mass exodus to the richer West, with the young and skilled leading the way.

The brain-drain since 1990 is especially acute in cities like Schwedt, once a bustling East German industrial centre of 53,000 proud of its huge oil refinery and paper factories.

Having lost most of its industry and nearly 20,000 residents, the town on the Polish border 130 km northeast of Berlin has become a German synonym for depopulation. It has been perfecting an oddly optimistic-sounding concept known as “Rueckbau”, or “de-building”.

Behind the term is actually a despairing attempt to counter the plight of towns being deserted by tearing down empty high- rise apartments and returning large urban slices to nature.

“Knocking down these empty high-rises is better than leaving them standing around as urban ruins that might one day turn into slums,” said Dieter Woitars, director of a firm involved, the 3S Gesellschaft fuer Abriss und Recycling mbH.

“It’s a good thing because it’s not only created business for us and jobs but it’s also better to do away with eyesores that won’t be needed again,” he added. “It’s unfortunate so many left Schwedt but ‘renaturisation’ is the only logical step.”

More than 1.5 million people have left eastern Germany in the last 15 years — almost a tenth of the population. Because young women and young families have abandoned the region in disproportionately high numbers, the population — in a country which already has a low birth rate — is expected to shrink further.

Sabrina Trautsch, 17, was walking past an abandoned high rise where wreckage crews were about to tear down another tower.

“It’s sad to see everything come down like this,” she said. “I played here when I was small. Most of my friends have left Schwedt and I’m getting out of here as soon as I can. My parents say there’s no reason to stay. The town’s dying.”

Some demographic experts have predicted there will be just 9.5 million left in 2020 — roughly half the 17 million who lived in Communist East Germany when it imploded in 1989.

Pensioners, the poor and the unskilled are already the majority in many towns. The consequences of the unchecked population shrinkage on schools, property values and the business climate are only small parts of a bleak story in the east. Some shrinking towns are now without any doctors or medical care.—Reuters