The city of Dresden, together with the surrounding communities, i.e. the Dresden region, has undergone extremely dynamic development over the past 30 years.

Economically, the city and the Dresden region have developed into a microtechnology location and center of semiconductor production of national, European and even global importance. This trend is continuing with the relocation of large companies and the planned expansion of companies already established in Dresden.

The various economic developments mentioned above thus open up opportunities for sustainable and successful economic development, both for the state capital of Dresden and for the cities and municipalities in the region. However, this also results in a number of infrastructural and social challenges for the cities and municipalities, for example in the areas of social infrastructure, transport, housing or the provision and development of commercial space.

In order to sustainably support these and other developments in the future and to cover any necessary land requirements in a spatially compatible manner, closer inter-municipal coordination between the municipal players within the region is required.

In the Dresden region, however, there is currently no suitable formalized cooperation structure or platform for a structured dialogue on urban-rural issues between the state capital of Dresden, the cities and municipalities in the wider region and, if necessary, other public and private stakeholders. This means that the Dresden region does not belong to the group of 15 German urban regions with a core city of around 500,000 inhabitants or more, all of which are organized in the form of more formalized and institutionalized urban-rural cooperation.

The Free State of Saxony, the administrative districts and the cities and municipalities have recognized the fundamental need to create a new viable and sustainably organized and financed cooperation platform in the form of an independent body (working title: Kommunalverbund Region Dresden) for future cooperation between the cities and municipalities in the Dresden region. This should help to implement the objectives of the Dresden region in the best sense of urban-rural cooperation. The cooperation should also serve as a motor for increased, integrated overall development of the region

In the following, such an institution is initially referred to as the Dresden Region Municipal Association. For this purpose, a suitable legal form under public or private law is to be determined and then a corresponding institution is to be founded from 2026.

As part of the Saxon "Microelectronics" location conference, which took place in Radebeul on 11 April 2024, the Dresden Experience Region was commissioned to investigate and, if necessary, prepare the possibilities of a new, more formalized form of inter-municipal urban-rural cooperation between the cities and municipalities with the rural districts in the Dresden region from 2026 as part of a project supported by the Free State of Saxony via the Regional Development Funding Directive (FR Regio).

The main interim result (summer 2025) is that the region should initially be regarded as an area of 96 towns and municipalities in and with the four districts of Bautzen, Meißen, Central Saxony and Saxon Switzerland-Eastern Ore Mountains. However, this spatial delimitation is deliberately not meant to be exclusionary. The initiative is still open to towns and municipalities outside the area shown here.

The region is currently (since summer 2025 until around the end of 2025) in an intensive coordination process regarding the objectives and content of future cooperation.

(This is an automatic translation by DeepL Translator.)