On why Munich is a "Toytown"

The name "Toytown Munich" comes from the observation that Munich is not a real town. Real towns have litter, crime, visible poverty, heroin addicts lurking at the railway station, vomit on the pavements, etc. Munich has none of this. Munich is not real. It's an ideological town where everything is perfect. It's a Toytown.

All About Toytown Munich

Morning EditorBob, I would like to contradict the puke on the pavements statement, go to the Hofbräuhuas anytime and you will see plenty of that. However, I agree that Munich is a Toytown, what is the 'point' of Munich. Take most towns and you can see why it came into being. Hamburg is a huge port, the Ruhrgebiet towns are there for the large stocks of raw materials but Munich? Apart from being expensive and a handy place to live if you like skiing what does it do?

From what I've seen of Munich so far, it's a very surreal place. Having spent the past 8 years of my life in and aroud London, Munich does live up to it's name of a Toytown.

Pootle

Another observation about the 'Toytown'ness of Munich: in Ireland the cops wanted the government to liberalise the licensing laws so that not all the pubs would dump out their contents at the exact same time every night. They reckoned this is what caused all the agro on the streets at night. At the time I didn't give it much credit, but now I am wondering. I have wandered around Munich at various wee hours and seen isolated bursts of decidedly UnToytown like behaviour and wonder would it be different if all the people were on the streets at the same time.

To NicNok if you really want to know why Munich came to be here is a brief answer. It started as crossroads for trade routes (mainly salt). Which was then controlled by a bunch of monks. Then some royalty caught wind of the cash the monks were making and decided they wanted some of the action. They took the city burned a bridge and set up camp. After that it was adopted by a ruling dynasty that dumped it's money into the city to show there power. Like I said that is just a brief overview.

On 1st March 2004 the consultancy company Mercer released the latest update to their world-wide quality of life survey. Just like last year, Munich once again figures in the top ten (that's a politician's way of saying we're 10th). Many die-hard Muencheners will be frothing at the mouth. We were beaten by Frankfurt! Those guys came in 5th. Is Frankfurt really a better place to live than Munich? I find that hard to believe. The top four were Zurich, Geneva, Vancouver, and Vienna. Central Europe ain't doing too badly, eh? Baghdad comes in last with the ranking 215th. The rest of the lower rankings are dominated by African countries. New York is 'average' at 100th.

The Germans have discovered toytowngermany.com and they've been discussing whether Munich is really a Toytown or not. The consensus seems to be that they think Munich is *not* a Toytown. Tchya! They just don't get it, do they?

If you read German, see here: sofa. rites de passage :: Toytown munich

Nolita agrees with us though: Nolitas :: lokales mal aus einer anderen perspektive

...as does Hendrik Mans: Hendrik Mans » Toytown Munich

Well I can't read German too well, so don't know quite what they say about it not being a Toytown.

I can as an Auslander try to shoot three things down:

"Real towns have litter"

-get a puppy and you will see just how much litter is around, the amount of used tissue paper and half eaten food I have pulled out of our puppy's mouth is pretty phenomenal. Pretty disgusting too.

"visible poverty"

- The two benches in front of our house, which we can see from our window have a group of impovershed people who drink beer all day and hang out at the Plus across the street waiting for throwaways. These people also sleep there and take a piss at their leisure, right in front of the intersection for all to see. I'm thinking a webcam in the window might be fun!

"vomit on the pavements, etc. Munich has none of this. ."

-Hehe uhm, all summer due to the campground and youth hostel in the area there is vomit all over our U-bahn stop, granted I've only been here one summer, so we'll see if it happens again this summer.

I know those are barely problems compared to a lot of big cities out there...

I can read German, and as Bob says, they didn't get it. Looks like you didn't either, Socko.

Yeah I forgot to put a line in saying I probably am missing the point as well

seems like these germans are all some students who want to compete in who is writing the bigger bullshit in "classy supercool and in" German.
Probably they are all wearing long coats, long hair and smoke bags full of weed.
imho we don't want them in Munich anyway. I love my ToytownMunich even without rundown houses, puke on the streets and drug addicts round the corner. Drug heads... reminds me of some incident on Friday night...

i think those sofa rites people should read bob's quote about munich not being a real city (link to lifestyle page here please!). and this out of the mouth of a german! yeah we @ tt know what munich is really like and have know it from the beginning.

admittedly, i am glad munich is a TT. this is first big city i've every really lived in, always lived close to a big city, but never IN one. (austin i my eyes does not count). i like the tt-ness of it all.

does all this mean that the locals review lots of the articles written on this website and then comment on them on their own websites?
All sounds a bit odd to me...

Of course Munich is a Toytown, seems pretty obvious to me - although l would say that it is more so in summer when there's loads to do. Last winter seemed to go on forever - hurrah for super weather and biergartens.

I think I should have the last say in this matter (for no reason at all):

Munich IS a Toytown. And Editor Bob's original comment is very much true.

As I approach my fourth year in Munich, I am beginning to think less of Munich as a Toytown. I suppose the appeal is wearing off now.

The comments about London, we every city has its good parts and bad parts, god, head off to some parts of south east Munich, its horrible there ! Then there is the muck on the pavements, hey in Britain this is illegal and although not altogether cleaned up, getting better.

I think unless something is done quick ! we can no longer call Munich a Toytown !

There never was any appeal in a Toytown to me.

If you think Munich is in danger of losing Toytown status then you need a good dose of some other cities for a while

Get a good dose of other cities regularly with my Job. But this is really personal opinion. 1 person cannot answer for everyone I guess !

Yes they can. See my comment two above. I commented for everyone

jk. Yeah I know, maybe Munich is worse than it was 4 years ago, but it's just still nothing in comparison to most other cities in the world!

Aiight so I'm in the city centre, minding my business..trying to be a good local, you know staring at peeps, not crossing against the light and what not. I notice a guy looking at some bananas that were left on the trash can by some unseen good samaritan.

First, these were fine bananas...a couple of spots but still good on their own..definitely not yet ready for banana bread bin (mmm fresh, home made banana bread - oh I digress). Second, the guy looked like he could use a good proper meal much less a few bananas. He was obviously down on his luck but very dignified looking.

Anyway, the guy actually picks through the bananas and takes one, just one. At first I think he took the best one and doesn't want the rest (kinda like the picky old broads at the Viktualienmarkt eh). But I've got a clear line of vision...he's taken one of the spotty bananas...presumably thats all he wants, needs and therefore takes thus leaving the rest for others. I dont know about you guys, but in most other cities I've been too, one dude would have happily taken em all and ran.

I wanted to see what would happen next, but then I got hit by an old lady with a wheeler thingy. Apparently I was in her way, and she took pains to make sure I knew it both verbally and physically. Forget numbchucks man, I'm getting me one of those wheelers...and er I don't know how to use numbchucks anyway but I pretty much got the wheeler routine.. bang, bang, bang until the path is clear... Anyway, I forgot about the bananas and hobbled home.

Toytown status reconfirmed at least on the ferocity of old bavarian ladies.

Cheers,
*goes off to contemplate making banana bread...damn no bananas..hmmm... wonders if bananas from above story still available...hmmm*