Today, we are facing multiple and overlapping crises, some on a planetary scale. From a European perspective, the last 15 years were shaped by the war in Ukraine, the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change, refugee migration and economic downturns. To many, the only viable answer to these crises seems to „change everything“ (following Naomi Klein). In this presentation, I argue that we are witnessing in practice a turn to a politics of „transition everything“. From energy production to land use, from travel to hygiene, everything is at stake and rethought. How does „transition everything“ work on the ground? There is a global rush for new raw materials that are needed for the transition economies, e.g. lithium; and a rush for replacing resources that are byproducts of those extractivist practices that are being phased out (e.g. gypsum from lignite coal mining). On the level of the European Union, old industrial areas in decline and coal mining areas are declared as „regions in transition“. One of those transition regions is the Central German lignite coal mining district. The German federal government spends 40 billion EUR for the transition in its three lignite coal mining districts, the Central German district being one of them. Many want to benefit from that money. The same municipalities who have harnessed the funds against peripheralization are now showcasing their transition frontier opportunism. However, since the money depends on the definition of transition regions, an active negotiation and struggle of who is and wants to be part of that region has begun, resulting in a search and redefinition of the regional self. This process exhibits traits of the identity politics of self/other, but in complex and nuanced ways, as Stuart Hall described it for cultural identities. In the case of the regional self in transition it entails many internal struggles (e.g. between different municipal administrations).