Every two years, for a few summer weeks, the city of Munich is taken over by children. Filling government roles, running businesses, building structures, and talking politics, kids participate in what’s known in Germany as a spielstadt, or play city: a miniature city composed almost entirely of children.
Typically set in one large warehouse or compound, this year’s play city has been distanced and distributed throughout Munich, operating in about 40 different locations concentrated in four main zones of the city. Cases of COVID-19 peaked in early April in Germany, and of the 217,000 cases nationwide, only about 7,000 have been in Munich. Despite relatively low numbers, the play city organizers remain cautious and have put in place a mask requirement and social distancing rules. Only about 1,000 children can participate on any day—less than half the typical population—and they are clustered in small groups.
The game follows a loose set of rules that are based on each participant having a job or role, set at the beginning of each day, and followed based on the day’s needs and the city’s changes. A child-run laundry in one part of town washes the robes used by the children working the high court in the town hall. If officials in the mayor’s office need to send a letter, they go to the post office to buy stamps. If workers in the library need a new mailbox, they go to the carpenters to get it built. Each office, business, and department submits funding requests to the city council, and the city council votes on how taxes should be distributed. This year, much of the daily operations and interactions are happening by a phone system originally proposed by the children themselves. Others set up an active stock market, and the organizers hired a group of 17- and 18-year olds—now aged out of being able to play—who developed a web application that maps out job locations and lists the latest city news. (One recent headline: “Lemonade sold out!”)
“It’s modeled after a big city, but obviously it’s a game, very consciously so. We have some very serious elements like tax and the tax collector and the city finances,” Thiele says.”And then at the same time we have very playful, silly things.”
By the end of the second week of this year’s play city, children in one section of the city had built a small wooden island that floats in a lake in a public park. A travel agency was soon opened to offer trips to the island. “So you imagine you get on a plane and fly to this island, and you have drinks there and get a stamp on your passport and so forth,” Thiele says. The days typically end in the late afternoon with cultural activities such as talent shows and performances, film screenings, and political debates. “Public weddings are very popular,” Thiele says.
Helping to guide the game, and to offer assistance with things such as carpentry and operation of the radio and TV studios, about 200 adults participate daily. Along with Thiele, a team of about a dozen works full time for about four months ahead of each year’s game, as well as throughout the time between each iteration to secure locations, funding, and material support.
“That doesn’t mean that we know what’s going to happen ever,” he says. “A lot of things are very unpredictable.”
Thiele says this level of self-determination and control over the game is an important part of the play-city concept and helps to engender a kind of children’s public sphere—a sense that the city is a place not just for adults, and that the local economy and urban realm can be reframed to suit the ideas and hopes of young people.
The game has also had an economic impact in Munich, where much of civic life is still disrupted by the pandemic. Due to the need for more locations to safely conduct the game, Thiele says some facilities such as city libraries and a concert hall have reinstated furloughed employees to open and operate the buildings during the day. The quirks of this year’s event haven’t overshadowed the game, though. Thiele says that aside from some complaints about masks, Mini-Munich is humming along, with all the liveliness, diversity, and spontaneity of a real city.
“It always has these different elements, learning about the functions of a city, the institutions, how a city works, but also opening up a space where children can imagine the world, be playful, express their own ideas,” Thiele says. “For three weeks it really is like a miniature society.”
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