Every design for Norderstedt

At Norderstedt Mitte the U1 reaches the end of the line, and commuters step out of a Hamburg underground train into a different federal state altogether. The town sits right on Hamburg's northern edge, so close that the airport's runway reaches across the border, yet it has a pace and a shape all of its own.

There is a quiet pride here in being the place people underestimate. Norderstedt was stitched together from four villages, Garstedt, Harksheide, Friedrichsgabe and Glashütte, and locals still say which one they live in. Weekends mean the lawns of the Moorbekpark, a stroll through the Astrid-Lindgren-Park, or an hour among the old engines at the Feuerwehrmuseum.

For centuries cattle were driven through the moorland here from Jutland and taxed at the Ochsenzoll before they could enter Hamburg. The name survives, and so does the long Ulzburger Straße running north through town.