The Goetheviertel is the poorest district of Germany’s poorest city, the postindustrial harbour city of Bremerhaven. However, for many local inhabitants it is also the city’s most beautiful district with its 19th century architecture and central location, and any visitor of Bremerhaven would agree: this district is ripe for gentrification. Gentrification has been anticipated for the district at least since the 1980s when the city declared the Goetheviertel to be an investment area. Investors from all over the world bought property in the district, but, as many inhabitants underline today, they never really invested into the maintenance of their houses. The results are postindustrial ruins of a special kind: ruins of pre-gentrification. These ruins are former apartment houses whose ongoing decay materialises not just the general postindustrial decline of Bremerhaven, but results from the continued failure of the realization of gentrification. They are ruins of failed anticipation. As many of the people living in the district, these houses might still await a better future, but, statically speaking, time has run out for them. Their deterioration has deemed them scrap (‘Schrott’-) houses that are legally uninhabitable. They epitomize the standstill in urban renovation that dominates both district and city. However, this absence also produces spaces for those that are usually excluded from a gentrified future. The scrap houses’ material qualities therefore maintain the current district inhabitants’ local futures by delaying the gentrification everybody continues to foresee. This article maps their temporal agency in order to scrutinize social sciences approaches to the production of time. Whilst discussing recent contributions to the anthropological literature on time and infrastructure, I present these houses with their specific material properties as active partners in the co-production of time in this particular district, and its potential futures.

中文翻译：

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前绅士化的废墟：Schrotthäuser 和后工业城市中的城市停滞

Goetheviertel 是德国最贫穷的城市，不来梅哈芬的后工业港口城市中最贫穷的地区。然而，对于许多当地居民来说，它也是这座城市最美丽的地区，拥有 19 世纪的建筑和中心位置，任何不来梅哈芬的游客都会同意：这个地区已经成熟了，可以进行高档化。至少自 1980 年代该市宣布 Goetheviertel 为投资区以来，该地区就已经预计会出现高档化。来自世界各地的投资者在该地区购买了房产，但正如今天许多居民所强调的那样，他们从未真正投资于房屋的维修。结果是一种特殊的后工业废墟：前绅士化的废墟。这些废墟是前公寓楼，其持续的衰败不仅体现了不来梅哈芬的普遍后工业衰落，而且是实现高档化的持续失败的结果。它们是预期失败的废墟。与居住在该地区的许多人一样，这些房屋可能仍在等待更美好的未来，但静态来说，时间已经不多了。他们的恶化使他们废弃了（'Schrott'-）在法律上无法居住的房屋。它们是主导地区和城市的城市改造停滞的缩影。然而，这种缺席也为那些通常被排除在绅士化的未来之外的人创造了空间。因此，废弃房屋的材料质量通过延迟每个人继续预见的高档化来维持当前地区居民的当地未来。本文绘制了他们的时间机构，以审查社会科学对时间生产的方法。在讨论最近对时间和基础设施的人类学文献的贡献时，我展示了这些具有特定材料特性的房屋，它们是该特定地区共同生产时间及其潜在未来的积极合作伙伴。