Tubingen is like a postcard come to life. A small university town in southwest Germany, its winding cobblestone streets and five story wood frame houses with their colorful facades couldn’t contrast more with Krakow’s gritty uniformity, although there are elements of both cities I find appealing. There is something about the attitude of the people here that is different from Krakow as well. Kate mentioned it over lunch- it’s almost as though you can feel the sense of hope, confidence and direction, as opposed to the kind of defeated feeling that hangs in the air in Krakow. It’s nothing scientific, just an observation, but it makes me think about health, wealth and happiness, how much are they truly connected? Germany has something of a sordid past as well, how is it that it has been able to collectively pull itself from the rubble and start anew, but always guided by history? Maybe the attitudes, values, and general demeanor of Tubingen just match up more with my conceptions of happiness and satisfaction- perhaps Krakow does the same for other people. Every city and society is too complex to be reduced down to such a simple description, but it’s something I think about as I travel.
This afternoon we visited the job center in Tubingen, which is charged with helping people who have been unemployed for more than a year find work, and supporting them financially in the meantime. The presentation got me thinking about the differences between Germany and U.S. in terms of social welfare. Centers like this might exist at the non-profit level in the U.S., but they’re nowhere near as well-funded and regulated as in Germany, each town has their own branch, which is funded by the national government (an element of the program the German court actually ruled to be unconstitutional). It sounds like the best of both worlds to me- the financial power of the national government combined with the know-how of local administration. As the world economy becomes more integrated and advanced, and finding gainful employment becomes more of a complex task requiring ever-changing types of skills, will the U.S. end up having to play “catch-up” to all of these other advanced Western democracies that are working to build a system that truly advances equality of opportunity? As the German economies soars ever higher, while the U.S.’s shows signs of sputtering, are we already beginning to see this phenomenon at work?
