Urban life forms are spreading. For the first time since 2008, more people now live in cities than in rural areas, and this number is increasing. Big cities and their metropolitan areas are attractive. They offer a variety of training and job opportunities, an increased earning potential, a better infrastructure and a wide range of leisure activities. Some East German regions recorded a population decline of up to 36%. But what happens to these rural areas? How are these regions changing? Who stays behind?
As part of her project Heute wie gestern?, Nora Klein takes a closer look at small villages in the north of the German borough of Thuringia. The Kyffhäuserkreis, for example, has been strongly affected by the departures of the younger inhabitants. Klein has come in contact with the young and the old. She met senior citizens playing cards, tending to their gardens and driving around in the mobile ice cream truck. The project documents the ongoing process of change. Klein has captured everyday situations – a family sitting together over dinner, older women eating ice-cream, or teenagers meeting at the gas station in the evening.