BERLIN, April 2 (Xinhua) -- More and more Germans wanted local politicians to deal with climate change, environmental and social issues, according to a report presented by the Bertelsmann Stiftung on Tuesday.
Nine out of ten Germans identified climate issue as a particularly urgent task to be tackled locally, indicated the study, which surveyed Germans on sustainability and poverty in cities.
A total of 84 percent of Germans believed ensuring affordable housing was an urgent task for local politics. Eighty-three percent regarded reducing waste or fighting poverty as most urgent.
"Sustainable development is the great challenge of the 21st century. Its principle presupposes that economic, social and ecological concerns are taken into account in a balanced manner," said Brigitte Mohn, member of the board at Bertelsmann.
Fifty-seven percent of Germans had the impression that sustainability was not a high priority in their own city or municipality. This figure was unchanged from 2017.
"The importance of sustainability - also in local politics - must increase. Sustainability in municipalities is an issue that affects all urban concerns and must be tackled comprehensively and strategically," Bertelsmann expert Oliver Haubner told Xinhua on Tuesday.
As long as sustainability was not a political priority at local level, Germans would "have the impression that politics and the public administration do not devote themselves to the topic to the appropriate extent," said Haubner.
Germans, particularly those in big cities, were concerned about poverty, another dimension of sustainable development. The more inhabitants a German city had, the more often the poverty problem was considered urgent by respondents.
According to the report, 27 percent of Germans considered poverty in their place of residence to be a "major" or even "very major problem". In large cities, this figure was almost twice as high, at 51 percent.
Two-thirds of Germans thought that local politicians should do more to combat poverty, which showed that "citizens see a clear need for action. They expect politicians to make greater efforts to combat poverty in a country as rich as Germany," said Henrik Riedel, expert at the Bertelsmann Stiftung.
The poverty rate in large German cities was above average, the Bertelsmann report found. The most recent data showed that 14 percent of the population in large German cities received social benefits compared to 10 percent nationwide.
It was therefore becoming increasingly apparent that social, economic and environmental problems were concentrated in individual neighborhoods in Germany's metropolitan areas, concluded Bertelsmann expert Kirsten Witte.
