Schmidt says that, rather than asking people for feedback on specific ideas, it's better to ask questions such as what would the good life look like here after coal has gone? "If you just ask people on the street, you're not going to get very intelligible answers – not because people are stupid, but because they haven't really engaged with the subject," she says. She also warns that you can't just plonk something like a museum in an area without building the community around it first: "Who's going to visit the museum? Who's going to care about it? It doesn't need to be a perfect project, but it needs to be something that people feel belongs to them."
Residents are, overall, supportive of the coal exit and understand its importance from an environmental perspective, a survey of other mining regions in Germany found. However, they also say they are struggling to identify an overall vision for the transition.
Back in Old Morschenich, standing in front of the houses once marked for destruction, Mayor Gelhausen says he is feeling rather optimistic. "This is a really unique situation, so we have a unique opportunity," he concludes. "I think it's going to be thrilling to see how ideas develop here."
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