With a provocative name like that, this could be just about anything, but the Blue Banana is another name for the backbone of Europe, the European Megalopolis, the most populous region of Europe by far. Shaped like a banana, it bends from Liverpool and Cardiff in the UK at one end to the densest regions of Northern Italy and the South of France like Milan, Venice, Monaco and Nice.
Staying in a Dusseldorf trade fair hotel, you will experience the very heart and soul of the Blue Banana.
This solid mass of urban sprawl, seen from above, includes the populous cities in the North and Midlands in England, South Wales, and London and the surrounding metropolitan areas, on through what is known as the ‘Flemish Diamond’ in Belgium (namely Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent and Leuven), skirting Lille and sections of Paris, the cities of the Netherlands like Rotterdam and Amsterdam, Den Haag and Eindhoven, then taking in many of Germany’s biggest cities and suburban regions in Stuttgart, Frankfurt and North Rhine-Westphalia, (so Dortmund, Essen, Cologne, Bonn and Dusseldorf), and also the greater areas of Basel and Zurich. The Banana has a total population of 110 million people and is growing significantly every year.
The strange name came about when the idea was illustrated for an article on the subject and rendered in blue by the artist. This was the birth of the banana bleu.
It is thought that the Banana came into being as a result of many factors, including historical trade routes across Europe and of course the simple fact that when you have major urban centres near to one another, further trade, industry and populous is going to grow up between them faster than it might elsewhere. In its very centre, the city of Dusseldorf is a perfect example of how the area’s industries are turning from secondary to tertiary. Dusseldorf is now famous for its trade fairs and is home to many Dusseldorf trade fair hotels. Far from an ugly manufacturing hub, it is a smooth, sophisticated city, powered by wealth.
No comments:
Post a Comment