Word: strasbourgers
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...basic and how fundamental is immediately evident in the boomtown prosperity of Strasbourg, which has capitalized on its schizophrenic past in planning its European future. It not only exports most of its products -chiefly synthetic rubber and machine tools-but it also draws on the German Wirtschaftswunder for its own development. More than 26,000 Alsatians cross the Rhine daily to work in German and Swiss plants. Conversely, 10,000 Germans drive into Alsace every day, many to load up on cheaper French food...
Twenty years ago, Strasbourgers would have found it impossible to seek better-paying jobs in the neighboring German river towns of Kehl and Offenburg. Even vacation trips across the Rhine involved complicated visa forms and meticulous custom searches. The Common Market has changed all that. "A lot of young people in Europe take open borders for granted," said a French customs official at the 13-year-old Europe Bridge that connects Strasbourg and Kehl. "They seem to think it was always this...
Roads. Once part of a backward, undeveloped pocket of northeastern France, Strasbourg today has the Continent at its doorstep. Some 230 trains pass through the town daily, and there are 5,000 miles of quality roads in the immediate area, including German autobahns and Swiss autoroutes that put Frankfurt and Basel only two hours away. (Ironically, it is easier for an Alsatian to travel out of France than to his own capital: Paris is 200 miles and a five-hour drive away, on a treacherous, obsolete two-lane highway.) The handsome new Entzheim Airport, with runways big enough to handle...
...planes and trains, of course, are not only for business. Strasbourgers share the mania for seeing Europe first -even in winter. Many families are spending some of the gray days of February and March on tours. Four days in Rome are offered for $60, Athens for $100. Even for those who do not travel, Europe is in evidence. In Strasbourg's new suburban supermarkets, shoppers pick their way through oranges from Spain, smoked bacon from the Black Forest, mortadella from Bologna, gingersnaps from England and coffee-flavored hopjes from Holland...
Bilingualism is one of the few positive inheritances of Strasbourg's checkered past. Almost everyone speaks both German and French, as well as the local throat-curdling dialect. Strasbourg's stay-at-homes need only change a channel for a new language experience. They get the three German TV channels on their sets as well as the three French ones. With a bit of antenna fiddling they can also pick up Swiss and Luxembourg television, although it is hard to imagine why they would want...