Around 1840, Dotzheimer Strasse and today's Emser Strasse were laid out as the first residential streets. From the 1850s, the development of today's Wellritzstraße followed, which was initially laid out as a cul-de-sac.

In the 1860s and early 1870s, the inner Westend grew between Emser Straße, Bleichstraße, Schwalbacher Straße and the first ring road, which was built around 1900. The district also continued to develop beyond the ring road: Bertramstrasse and the Feldherrenviertel, named after Prussian-German military officers, expanded the residential area at the beginning of the 20th century, so that the district almost completely reached its current boundaries. Only some open spaces remained in the west, most of which were built on in the 1920s and some only after the Second World War.

The wide streets with impressive façades and the mixture of residential and commercial buildings that has been preserved to this day are characteristic of the architecture in the Westend up until the First World War. The blocks of buildings often have simple rear courtyards, which help to shape the image of the district.

An important event was the purchase and demolition of the barracks site by the city - shortly before the First World War. Today's Platz der Deutschen Einheit and the Secondary School for Girls II (now the Elly Heuss School) were built on this site. This school, which was spun off from the Schlossplatzschule in 1907, was given a new building in 1916.

Leibnizschule, founded in 1905 as a municipal secondary school on Zietenring, is also one of the schools with a long tradition in the district. The first school in the district was the school on Bleichstraße, which opened in 1879 and was later integrated into the Blücherschule. The Gewerbeschule, opened on Wellritzstraße in 1881, is one of the oldest of its kind in Germany and emerged from the commercial training school founded on the market in 1845.

After the Second World War, the school played a special role: from July 2, 1946, the first democratically elected city council after the Nazi dictatorship met in its auditorium until the reconstruction of the town hall was completed in 1951. The trade school developed into the Friedrich-Ebert-Schule and the Kerschensteinerschule, which are now part of the vocational school center in the southeast district.

The demolition of the elevated bridge in 2001 has brought the Westend closer to the city center. The district west of Schwalbacher Strasse is increasingly developing its urban and architectural qualities. Recent urban plans are intended to further develop the Schwalbacher Strasse/western city center area.

Typical of the Feldherrenviertel around Blücherstraße and Scharnhorststraße is the historic basalt cobblestones, some of which have been preserved.