A Europe of clean, green cities and resurgent industry is a fantasy – unless we get really creative | Hans Larsson

If we want things to be ‘Made in Europe’ again, we need to be realistic about how grimy and grey our centres of commerce once were “Bitterfeld, Bitterfeld, where dirt falls from the sky,” went a popular saying. Located in the intensely industrialised Chemical Triangle of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), in the 1980s Bitterfeld became known as the dirtiest town in Europe. Its chemical industry and lignite mines dumped toxic waste in waterways, and the air carried a concentrate of sulphur ...

By Hans Larsson