Regional conference launches the Dresden Region Local Authority Association

The Dresden region is in the process of establishing a joint municipal association. At the regional conference titled “Working Effectively Together—Toward a Dresden Regional Municipal Association,” the participating municipalities, the Free State of Saxony, as well as representatives from the business community and various associations, discussed the current status of the project and the next steps. The focus was on how the municipalities can make their cooperation more binding and further develop it in the future.

Over the past 30 years, the city of Dresden and its surrounding communities, i.e. the Dresden region, have undergone extremely dynamic development – in contrast to other regions in eastern Germany.

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 continues 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 Dresden and for the cities and municipalities in the region. However, this also results in a multitude of infrastructural and social challenges for the cities and municipalities, e.g., in the areas of social infrastructure, transportation, housing, and the provision and development of commercial space.

In order to support these and other developments in a sustainable manner in the future and to meet any necessary space requirements in a spatially compatible manner, closer inter-municipal coordination between municipal actors within the region is necessary.

However, there is currently no suitable formalized cooperation structure or platform for structured dialogue on urban-rural issues between the state capital Dresden, the towns and municipalities in the wider region, and other public and private actors in the Dresden region. This means that the Dresden region is not one of the 15 German urban regions with a core city of approximately 500,000 inhabitants or more, all of which are organized in the form of a more formalized and institutionalized urban-rural cooperation.

The Free State, the 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: Dresden Region Municipal Association) for future cooperation between the cities and municipalities in the Dresden region. This is intended to contribute to the implementation of the goals of the Dresden region in the best sense of urban-rural cooperation. The cooperation is also intended to serve as a driving force for increased, integrated overall development of the region.

In the following, such an institution will initially be referred to as the Dresden Region Municipal Association. To this end, a suitable legal form under public or private law must be determined and a corresponding institution established from 2026 onwards.

As part of the Saxony Location Conference “Microelectronics,” which took place on April 11, 2024, in Radebeul, the Dresden Experience Region was commissioned to examine and, if necessary, prepare the possibilities for a new, more formalized form of intermunicipal city-suburb cooperation between the cities and municipalities and the districts in the Dresden region starting in 2026 as part of a project supported by the Free State of Saxony through the Regional Development (FR Regio).

As a key interim result (summer 2025), it should be noted that the region is initially to be regarded as an area comprising 96 cities and municipalities in and around the four districts of Bautzen, Meissen, Central Saxony, and Saxon Switzerland-Eastern Ore Mountains (see map). However, this spatial delimitation is deliberately not intended to be exclusive. The initiative remains open to cities and municipalities outside the area shown here.

Currently (since summer 2025 until approximately the end of 2025), the region is undergoing an intensive coordination process regarding the goals and content of future cooperation.