The 1920s are considered to be the defining era of housing construction.
During the “New Frankfurt” era, tens of thousands of apartments were built for broad sections of the population.
The city wants to build on this 100 years later - the city planning office therefore deliberately set an event on Friday evening as part of the "Big Frankfurt Arch Summer" initiated by the state of Hesse under the motto "Living in the new twenties?".
When Head of Planning Mike Josef (SPD) looks back at the "old twenties", he sees parallels to today: "Even back then it was about affordable living space, about modular construction, about the design of green spaces," he said.
"And Lord Mayor Ludwig Landmann complained about the region's lack of willingness to cooperate."
This puts Josef right in the middle of the current debates revolving around urban development in the north-west.
This is being vehemently opposed by neighboring communities, but that evening Josef again advocates urban expansion: it fits in with the state's strategy of designating new development areas, especially on local public transport routes.
This also applies to the area between Praunheim and the A5.
The Regionaltangente West will run there in a few years, the bus stop in the Praunheim commercial area is "in the middle of the field" according to the current plans.
It makes sense to further develop the city there.
However, the challenges are greater today than they were 100 or 60 years ago, says Josef, pointing out that the justification for the development plan for the north-west city built in the 1960s was just one page.
Today, 80 to 160 pages are needed even for smaller development plans.
Therefore, the planning of new residential areas takes much longer.
Work has also been going on for several years on the "district of the quarters" in the north-west.
The results of the ongoing investigations should be available in autumn.
Then there will also be an answer to the question of whether construction should take place on both sides of the autobahn or only in the east, i.e. on the side facing Frankfurt.
The design by the Cityförster planning team, which was selected in the urban planning competition, envisages the majority of the planned apartments for 23,000 people in the east anyway.
In the west, only a small building area near Steinbach and a large amount of agricultural and green areas are planned.
"We want to strengthen the natural areas," says Tim Kohne from Cityförster.
"Our design is based on the landscape that is already there."
For the first time, it shows images of how the planners envision the new development areas: a variety of building types with lots of greenery in between, a stepped transition into the open countryside, special uses such as an agricultural center ("Agro-Hub") with farm shop and animals.
The views look like something out of a picture book.
"They convey a nostalgic, village character," said architect Sabrina Wirtz in the discussion that followed.
But Tim Kohne says it is important to her to "produce images that can be discussed".
The planners tried to combine “what people like”, ie to combine urban and village structures.
Successful examples, such as in Rotterdam, show that something like this can succeed.
Whether and in what form the city expansion will be realized is still open.
However, as a precautionary measure, Josef points out that it will not be possible to please everyone.
"The idea that everyone has to pull together in urban planning is an illusion." In the end, it is important to weigh up the various interests.