Living in Höhenberg, Cologne

Höhenberg lies on the right bank of the Rhine, in the Kalk Stadtbezirk. Buchheim is to the north, Merheim and Ostheim to the east, Vingst to the south and Kalk to the west. Around twelve thousand people live in its 2.2 square kilometres. It is a young Stadtteil in administrative terms: until the twentieth century the name referred to open fields, and Höhenberg was only declared a Stadtteil in its own right in 1927, out of land taken from Buchheim, Kalk, Merheim and Vingst, after the municipal housing company GAG built an estate on it.

What it is

An estate district. The Germaniasiedlung, with around fifteen hundred dwellings, is the core of it: low brick terraces and small blocks laid out around courtyards and planted strips in the manner of the 1920s municipal housing movement. The Schultheis-Siedlung, built after the Second World War, housed displaced people and still stands. Around and between them are post-war blocks, some newer infill and the wide Frankfurter Straße, which is a federal highway (the B8) heading east towards the motorways. Only about forty-four per cent of the Stadtteil is residential land; more than half of it is recorded as green space, most of that on the eastern side, where the Sportpark Höhenberg holds the stadium of the football club Viktoria Köln along with the grounds of several other clubs.

Who lives here

A working-class and strongly multicultural population. More than a third of residents are foreign nationals, and unemployment here has long run well above the Cologne average - this is one of the poorer Stadtteile in the city and it does not hide it. Families with children are a large share, and there is a settled older German population in the estates alongside Turkish, Kurdish, Arab, Balkan and more recent arrivals. It is not a student district, but rooms and small flats are cheap enough that people looking to spend the least possible in Cologne end up looking here.

What it's like during the day

Ordinary and residential, with the traffic concentrated on one road. Frankfurter Straße carries the cars, the buses and most of the shops; behind it the estate streets are quiet, with courtyards, laundry lines and playgrounds. The Sportpark is busy with training sessions and school sport through the week. There is no café strip and no pedestrian shopping street. People do their bigger shopping in Kalk, which is a couple of Stadtbahn stops west and has by far the largest retail concentration on this side of the river.

What it's like in the evening

Local and quiet, with the caveat that the wide roads and the underpasses feel empty after dark. There are Kneipen, Turkish cafés, Imbiss counters and a few restaurants, mostly on or near Frankfurter Straße, and no bar scene. Match nights at the Sportpark are the exception. Anyone wanting a night out takes line 1 west: Deutz is a few stops away, the Altstadt around a quarter of an hour, and the same line brings you back.

Getting around

Stadtbahn line 1 runs through the Stadtteil with stops at Fuldaer Straße and Sportpark Höhenberg. Westwards it goes through Kalk Kapelle and Kalk Post to Deutz Technische Hochschule, Bahnhof Deutz/Messe and Deutzer Freiheit, then across the Deutzer Brücke to Heumarkt and Neumarkt - about a quarter of an hour to the centre. Eastwards the same line continues to Merheim, Brück and out to Bensberg. Bus lines 151, 152, 153 and 179 cover the streets away from the tram. Being on the right bank matters here in a practical way: everything on the other side of the river depends on a bridge, and if the tram is disrupted the alternatives are slow. Cycling into the centre takes around half an hour and means crossing the Rhine.

Eating and shopping

Frankfurter Straße is where the everyday shopping is - supermarkets, discounters, bakeries, greengrocers, halal butchers, pharmacies and phone shops - and prices here are among the lowest in Cologne. Eating out means Turkish, Arab, Balkan and Italian at neighbourhood prices, plus the usual Imbiss counters. For a full high street, Kalk is two stops west and has the biggest shopping concentration on the right bank; for anything beyond that, Deutz and the centre are on the same line.

When NOT to pick it

Do not pick it if you want an attractive street scene, a café culture or period architecture - Höhenberg is 1920s and post-war housing along a federal highway, and the wide roads are unfriendly on foot. Do not pick it if the social profile of a district matters to you, because this is one of the poorest parts of Cologne and the problems that go with that are visible. Do not pick it if you need to be near the university, which is on the far side of the river and a long journey. If you want the same rents with more life around them, look west to Kalk; if you want quieter and greener at a similar price, look north to Buchforst; if you want to stay on the right bank with better housing, look at Deutz.

Höhenberg is the right choice if rent is the deciding factor and you want a direct Stadtbahn line that reaches the centre in about fifteen minutes, green space and sports grounds at the edge of the district, and a large, genuinely mixed community around you. For people arriving in Cologne on a tight budget, and for families who need space more than atmosphere, it is one of the cheapest workable addresses in the city.