Zuffenhausen

Zuffenhausen is one of three northernmost boroughs of the city of Stuttgart, capital of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. The borough is primarily an incorporation of the formerly independent townships Zuffenhausen, Zazenhausen, Neuwirtshaus, and Rot, the latter is a historic town that gained importance in 1945 as a refugee camp for German refugees. As of 2009, around 35,000 people lived in Zuffenhausen's area of, making it the third largest of Stuttgart's outer boroughs. Zuffenhausen is also one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in Stuttgart with evidence of permanent settlements that can be traced back 7,500 years.
The etymological roots of "Zuffenhausen" are assumed to be found in the name of a seventh century Alemanni settler "Uffo" or "Offo". The oldest known official denotation as a property of Bebenhausen Abbey by Pope Innocent III dates to May 18, 1204. Zuffenhausen was proclaimed a city in 1907, yet soon financially badly affected by the Great Depression, Zuffenhausen and later Zazenhausen, agreed to the incorporation into Stuttgart city on 1 April 1931.
Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen station on the Franconia Railway is served by lines S4, S5, S6 and S60 of the Stuttgart S-Bahn. The headquarters of Porsche and the Porsche Museum are located in Zuffenhausen. Stuttgart Neuwirtshaus station is nearby and served by lines S6 and S60.

Geography

Geography, topography and geology

Zuffenhausen's terrain, a river valley carved into existence by the Feuerbach river, has two distinct elevations: Zuffenhausen with an average of and Zazenhausen at. To the north and northwest are the vast stretches of the Langes Feld rolling hills on a height of over that peak at near Neuwirtshaus, an area that constitutes the eastern Strohgäu, a rich farmland largely free of trees. To the south are the Stuttgart Mountains and the Neckar valley to the east, followed by the Schurwald mountains. Irregular ascents are characteristic for the Zuffenhausen region, of which Burgholzhof is the highest at above sea level.
Zuffenhausen's and the northern part of the Stuttgart Bay's topography are crucial for transport and settlement planning, as a central north–south axis of the city's most important transport hub has always traversed the area. On August 29, 1797 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe drove through Zuffenhausen on this road while on his third trip to Switzerland from Ludwigsburg.
The location of settlements in the municipal area was determined by the quality of the soil, proximity to the river and the necessity to build high enough that the Feuerbach and its tributaries would not inundate the area in case of flooding, yet to be close enough to a water source and the major trade routes.

Geology

The geology of Zuffenhausen is, by the nature of a cuesta landscape, determined by a topographically varied picture of the different layers of rock and sediment as they were deposited in the 240 to 145 million year span of time that Zuffenhausen was part of the bottom of a tropical ocean. This is manifested in the presence of countless quarries and the many fossil discoveries from a layer of Muschelkalk at the bottom of this formation, that surfaces on several locations. On top are layers of Lettenkeuper and Gipskeuper that indicate the area's height around sea level at the time of the Triassic period. Following that is the Schilfsandstein; sediment deposited here, that originates from an old river delta of an ancient river system, of which the only remains are to be found on the highest areas of the Burgholzhof and the Lemberg. Higher layers are not expected to be found in the area due to the relatively low elevation and only occur in relation to local faultlines.
Zuffenhausen area is traversed by a huge faultline, called the "Schwieberdinger-Zuffenhäuser-Cannstatter rejection", which was formed 65 million years ago by the tectonic activities that created the nearby Alps. It has a fault height of about, from which rise the mineral waters of nearby Cannstatt. In Zuffenhausen it led to the fact that, due to its irregular course, greatly disturbed by collapses of quarries, Muschelkalk and Gipskeuper alternately surfaced at about the same height and further to the west near Neuwirtshaus even elements of ragstone and the Löwenstein Formation.

Landscape, flora, and fauna

Landscape development: The diverse landscape present in Zuffenhausen is the result of a disparate geological history the deposited various soils and rocks of differing density and solubility. The ice ages of the Pleistocene era completed the recent physiography, composed largely of Loess, Brown and Black soils, the prerequisites for later agricultural use, that began during the Neolithic Revolution with the Linear Pottery culture. Though these fertile soils were spread generously across the river valley, some areas were less fertile than others and were thus better suited for pastures. In the succeeding Holocene epoch, the landscape changed from Tundra into Deciduous forest, whose composition changed several times parallel to climate fluctuations. The Linear Pottery culture, established since the mid 6th Millennium BC started to slowly turn the area into a Cultural landscape around central settlements that featured patterns of pastures and fields for agriculture, as hunting accounted for only 10% of meat consumption.
These settlements must be imagined as increasingly large settlement chambers enclosed in forest, which at that time covered Middle-Europe. Still, the forest remained economically irreplaceable for a long time by means of forest grazing, logging and gathering of fruit, as pastures and meadows in the present sense did not yet exist. However, especially in the Loess areas, the forests quickly faded by intensive use within decades and their composition also changed with Elm and Tilia disappearing almost completely. However, the settlements continued to be islands in a sea of forest.
Loosely wooded forests existed as far back as the 18th century, such as lush oak forests of the Burgholzhof, which were used for pig farming, and as pointed out by names such as Wannenwald, Kögelwald and Lorcher Mönchswald. The Lembergwald also stretched farther east than now and was a ducal hunting forest, which must have been so profitable that it was worthwhile to erect a hunting castle on the Schlotwiese. Today there are only a larger connected forest area in Zuffenhausen, namely on the Lviv, a mountain range rising from east to west with the Feuerbach vineyards on the south side and the wooded northern slope on the north side of the Zuffenhausen side. However, pieces of that primordial forest still exist as the "Hofkammerwald", an area of over that has been operated by the City of Stuttgart as a community forest since 1968. The eastern part of the forest is the present city park, the northern section near Neuwirtshaus is now Schützenwies Forest, the westernmost part in Weilimdorf is now called the Maierwald.
The modern course and the valley marshes of the Feuerbach exist since the Holocene, which created large deposits of fine material during high tides of up to as the one near the old village, nicknamed the Alte Flecken. In modern times, the entire water network is oriented on the Neckar, but the Feuerbach is still an important part of it featuring several tributaries of its own coming mostly from the west. The old town center was hardly affected by floods because of its location on the elevated west bank. A few old creeks and streams would later become city streets. The water network depended on the density and composition of the bedrock as Muschelkalk with its many crevices permits percolation that causes superficial outflows.
Since the 19th century, people have also considerably changed the geographical features of Zuffenhausen via the development of railway lines and roads, the excavated material was used to fill depressions and drain local ponds. Until very recently, the settlement of Zuffenhausen itself was confined to the valley created by the Feuerbach eons ago. The landscape changed during the massive expansion of settlements beyond the Feuerbach valley, especially during the second half of the 19th century to the west and to the east, after 1945, with the introduction of Sealed roads and the rerouting of streams in unprecedented scale. Further profound changes on the landscape took place after the Second World War as agricultural lands were leveled with debris and overburden. Miscellaneous changes to the landscape includes the filling in of a few old quarries and clay pits in the Feuerbach river valley, and the creation of a high plateau of an old ditch that came down from Stammheim, which now serves as an expansion of Zuffenhausen's cemetery.
The flora and fauna are quite diverse, even though the fauna have declined in number since the introduction of sealed roads. Birds, however, are less affected by the loss of habitat thanks to generously sized home gardens and the Hofkammerwald. Located west of Zuffenhausen are larger forests and different types of semi-arid grassland between increasingly marginal fields and by now almost totally absent pastures and orchards, that were the most important assets of Zuffenhausen's economy until 1907, still visible on the coat of arms of Zazenhausen. Since the emergence of a concern for the conservation of natural habitats and the creation of an association for local biospheres in 2003, nature reserves have been declared as conservation areas by the local government. Most of the vineyards on the western slope of the Feuerbach river in the region were made fully operational between 1976 and 1979.
Environmental protection: In response to prolonged pollution with nitrogen oxide and particulates from the relatively heavy traffic nearby that caused forest damage and the ongoing disruptions of the formation of the water table a comprehensive environmental protection program has been established. Noise pollution in the area is attributed to the Bundesautobahn 81, Bundesstraße 10, 27, 27a, the Stuttgart S-Bahn and the Stuttgarter Straßenbahnen. Measures have been made to improve the situation faced by the landscape of Zuffenhausen, such as land restoration, the creation of wildlife corridors, and the establishment of green development plans.