Ostend

Ostend is Frankfurts clearest story of reinvention. A former working-class and industrial quarter, it began changing in the mid-2000s and accelerated sharply after the European Central Bank chose it for its towering new headquarters, which opened in 2014. The wide Hanauer Landstrasse, once a colourless strip of factories and junkyards, is now the districts creative mile, threaded with clubs, restaurants, design showrooms and modern offices, while gaps between buildings fill with contemporary apartment blocks. The district sits in a lively triangle between the ECB, the East railway station and Frankfurts zoo, with the Main riverfront and the modern Hafenpark giving residents green and waterside space. New-build apartments with contemporary finishes draw expats, ECB staff and investors betting on continued appreciation, even as the gentrification has displaced some of the areas older, lower-income population. Ostend ranks among the citys fastest-rising districts for property prices, riding spillover demand from the financial centre.

Ostend in Frankfurt, Hesse (Hessen), Germany