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The disruptions associated with health and energy crisis have emphasized the need for hyperlocal cities. However, in Europe, a tool to measure the efficiency of land use and accessibility planning for localizing urban mobility is missing. In this paper, we construct a comparable 15-Minute-Walking City (15-MWC) index that assesses the walking performance of 121 European metropolitan areas and seven amenity types. The data are combined equally following the PROMETHEE II multicriteria approach to assign a final score and to present a ranking of 15-Minutes cities. The main visualization demonstrates European-level disparities and indicates that most of leading cities are in Germany, while most of the worst performers are in the UK. We also reveal a statistically significant difference in 15-MWC performance due to their GDP per capita disparities. The empirical results may serve as a referencing tool for cross-city comparisons and may support policymakers when designing transport and city-planning strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1970s, the existing historical building stock gained more value. Monument protection was gradually introduced in the urban planning process as were its methods and instruments. Approaches for an urban development based on the existing building stock were made in both former german countries, GDR (German Democratic Republic) and FGR (Federal Republic of Germany), even if the extent was different. Especially with the regeneration of the historical old towns in the GDR beginning in late 1989, early 1990, the preservation of urban architectural heritage formally became an integrated part of urban development strategies in united Germany. The adaption and development of instruments to protect and develop historical city centres is part of the research project 'Stadtwende', funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Surveys based on the results of qualitative expert interviews and archive research show that the 'turn' (Wende) in 1989 had an impact on the development of a planning practice that took the existing building stock into account. With regard to recent trends the paper shows the historical genesis of the preservation of urban heritage in urban planning and asks to what extent it could support a resource-saving urban development today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is noticeable about contemporary housing developments in Germany, whether they occur on city fringes or inner-city brownfields (for example, harbour or station areas)? It is not only the return of large-scale housing, but also the leitmotiv that shapes new towns and urban districts. Holistic approaches and integrated planning are experiencing a renaissance. In order to illustrate whether and how past epochs are linked to today's leitmotivs, a review has been undertaken into how social infrastructure, in particular, has been planned in recent decades. The aim is not to compare the urban design of housing from the Late Modern period with today, but to focus on non-housing in housing developments. What role does/did infrastructural planning play? How is/was infrastructural planning woven into integrated approaches and urban design leitmotivs? How are/were planners striving for urbanity in the new housing developments? Back then and today, these new housing areas are/were not meant to be "dormitory towns", but urbanised districts of a lively city. Do planners actively learn from the past, not only from Late Modern housing but also from the Careful Urban Renewal of the past three decades, as many large-scale settlements were and are the backdrop to renewal? This article aims to connect evidence about the past with current planning approaches. It links recent infrastructural demands (for example, regarding education and mobility) with past and present planning approaches and discusses the impact of societal reorientation towards a common good for the urban leitmotivs of today's large-scale housing developments. English title: Takeaways from planning history: Infrastructure planning and housing development construction [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fritz Schumacher (1869-1947), German town planner and reformer, is often mentioned as a 'conservative modernist' or as an 'unmodern architect' and neglected in the works on the origins of modern housing and urban development. Schumacher was a visionary and pragmatic, a reformer and a realist at the same time. Schumacher's oeuvre and its full impact are not specific to Hamburg, but are integrated into the regional, national and international discourse on the reform of the metropolis. His ideas, his concepts for reform, his methods and his ability to ensure that the plans are implemented promptly, are current and forward-looking. The breadth of his work in Hamburg and Cologne is outlined in this contribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integrated approach to urban development consists is an EU policy direction, which was incorporated into the institutional framework by many Member States. This paper aspires to explore, through a critical presentation, the principles and aspects of spatial governance practices of the main tools of Integrated Urban Intervention in Greece. The research concerns governance synergies, both horizontally and vertically, and more specifically, the schemes, mechanisms and tools through which the coordination of the implementation and funding of actions may be achieved. The critical presentation of the governance of a relevant program applied in Germany for nearly two decades is expected to contribute to this effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spatial planning debates in Germany and other European countries, a discursive turn from feminist planning critique to gender planning over the past 20 years has led to ambiguous results. On the one hand, feminist claims have been translated into guidelines and criteria catalogues which help planners to consider them in their professional practice. On the other hand, this approach to gender mainstreaming has not made it any easier in planning practice to address (gendered) power relations and their spatial expressions. A gap between professional practice and academic debate has emerged in spite of feminists' conviction that theory and practice are interrelated. This paper presents this argument with a particular focus on gender planning in Germany, and three options how to go on: a target-group approach oriented towards equal opportunities, a deconstructive approach looking to overcome discriminatory practice and a performative approach. As a consequence, this paper proposes a diversification of strategies both in professional practice and in academic research in order to reconcile different rationales and theoretical concepts that are used in gender studies, planning theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State garden shows in Germany are an option that is mainly used in small and medium-sized towns, they seem to be a relatively 'handy' format. They are, however, concerned not only with the development of recreational space but also with built infrastructure, and trigger controversial local discussion about their economic benefits and social costs, with assessments by the actors involved diverging considerably. They are also an indication of a town's planning culture. This paper presents general findings on the over 150 state garden shows that have been held in Germany and a detailed consideration of the 2014 state garden show in Gießen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visions of a society for all are closely intertwined with the question of how to develop inclusive communities. Social innovations are able to facilitate inclusion and catalyse the improvement of participation opportunities, especially in urban settings, as this is the place where positive and negative transformation becomes noticeable first. New legislation on international, national, as well as on regional and communal levels has set new goals and standards regarding social inclusion in urban structures, and monitoring and reporting efforts will show whether these requirements are met or not. In recent years, social monitoring and reporting systems have evolved and gained a human rights-based perspective by denoting the actual life-situation of people affected. On the basis of the human rights approach to participation, Germany started to reconfigure its reporting system. First municipalities have started to implement it. This Paper reflects on two different approaches to implement the new federal reporting system on a local level. Based on a generic context-understanding guide of innovative processes, collaborative municipal reporting is analysed as a social innovation itself. It especially tries to single out the benefits collaborative and interdisciplinary modes of work may hold for city administrations in the field of social reporting efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to understand the social process of the emergence and institutionalization of innovations in spatial planning (which we describe as 'social innovations'). The paper is based on a recently finished empirical and comparative study conducted in four distinct areas of spatial planning in Germany: urban design, neighbourhood development, urban regeneration and regional planning. The empirical cases selected in these areas encompass different topics, historical periods, degrees of maturity and spatial scales of innovation. As a temporal structure of the innovation processes in the different cases we identified five phases: 'incubating, generating, formatting, stabilizing, adjusting'. In a cross-comparison of the case studies and along these phases, we furthermore found typical (groups of) actors, tensions and conflicts. In the focus of our case analyses are the following dimensions: (1) the content of the innovations, (2) actors, networks and communities involved as well as (3) institutions and institutionalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study discusses the potential of power-to-heat (P2H) as an effective option to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the heating sector and energy curtailment. P2H promotes the integration of electricity from renewable energy sources into the power grid by utilizing otherwise unused electricity (excess energy) for space heating. To estimate the contribution of this effect from a techno-economic perspective, a linear problem is defined by minimizing the overall heating costs and solved by an open source model generator. Four different scenarios are modeled on a city level, using real heat demand data from a case study regarding the municipality of Greifswald, a region with dominant wind-energy. Results indicate that district heating networks are an important technology for coupling power and heat to meet CO2 reduction targets. In addition, further integration of renewable energy is promoted to reduce overall emissions and achieve Germany's climate protection goals by 2050. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that it is important for urban scholars and practitioners to comparatively appraise the differential forms of local embeddedness of cultural quarters. Such appraisals can help to realize more sustainable practices of cultural quarter anchoring within neighbourhoods. The case study of Leipzig, Germany – a city that deploys both 'creative city' and 'cultural industries' models of urban development within a context of post-industrial, post-socialist transformation – is used to examine the adaptive re-use of a former cotton-spinning mill, the Baumwollspinnerei, into an internationally renowned cultural quarter. The POSES Star Framework is developed as an analytical tool to systematically outline multiple local embeddedness dynamics (political, organizational, social, ephemeral, and spatial) of a cultural quarter within a neighbourhood and within a specific urban planning and policy context. The application of the POSES Star Framework to the Baumwollspinnerei reveals that internal organizational concerns for site development and marketing are prioritized over external engagements with Leipzig's urban planning and cultural policy discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on green infrastructure planning in three different regions, namely, the Ruhr in Germany, the Capital Region of Denmark and Greater Manchester in the UK. We investigate planning cultural research heuristics and propose a conceptual refinement of existing planning cultural research and approaches. We use framing and storytelling to show how societal beliefs and cultural assumptions are consolidated as spatial frameworks that guide planning practice. Theories of spatial governance describe how spatial frames are mediated, accepted and changed through institutionalized structures. We present arguments from urban design and implementation research to illustrate how planning ideas materialize. The empirical material presented in this paper shows how cultures of green infrastructure planning operate in diverse spatial contexts and that a dynamic perspective is useful for understanding how planning cultures develop and change over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a primary objective in transport planning urban neighbourhood accessibility plays an essential role in the sustainable transformation of cities and their infrastructure. In most studies, accessibility is objectively measured using aggregate travel time or generalised costs as an indicator of the separation of people from places. However, this approach does not reflect perceptions of residents, which ultimately shape mobility decisions and represent the "lived reality" of accessibility. This paper addresses this research gap, adding to a growing evidence base on understanding the relationship between perceived and objective measures of accessibility, and discusses opportunities for incorporating perceptions into measures of accessibility. We offer suggestions for how and why individual perceptions of accessibility differ from objective measures using data from Germany and the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nineteenth-century master plans for European cities influence their development beyond their intended lifespans and provide a variety of robust urban fabrics to this day. The Hobrecht Plan for Berlin's urban expansion (1862) was intentionally conceived to adapt to an uncertain future, remaining influential even today. For a considerable time, the Hobrecht Plan was disregarded and considered irrelevant across the spectrum of development plans in Europe. This article presents a comprehensive re-assessment of the Hobrecht Plan with an emphasis on its intrinsic value. The plan defined a new set of urban patterns, forms and spaces in 15 section plans and a range of public space typologies defining Berlin's cityscape. The plan developed a spatial and structural framework using three different urban design elements: the ring boulevard, the harbour square, and the neighbourhood square. These key organizing elements have helped public spaces remain the effective planning units of Berlin's neighbourhoods. This analysis provides insight on how contemporary master plans can better formulate long-term strategies to address complexity, adaptability, and flexibility. The article presents novel outlooks on Berlin's city structure and new knowledge of Hobrecht's contribution to the planning discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigration is one of the most contentious fields in policy-making, not only on the European and national, but also on the local level. Due to the declining and ageing populations, European cities today increasingly need immigration. On the other side, rightwing populist parties are increasing, who are following an antimigrant agenda. This paper examines the opportunities that cities have to more effectively attract migrants at the municipal level. The literature indicates that cities cannot pursue their own migration policies given their dependence on states' migration regimes. Cities face a dilemma. They are responsible for integrating migrants but not for recruiting them. Urban growth policies and urban planning approaches often aim to attract highly skilled workers, creative classes and students. But cities have no control over the inflow of refugees, however, as they are allocated by the state. Against this backdrop, this article examines and compares the cities of Bremen and Leipzig to assess which immigration strategies German cities are developing and whether a shift from reactive integration plans to proactive immigration policies is occurring. In the conclusion, the paper reflects on factors that encourage and hinder the formulation of immigration strategies and explain the 'strategy gap' at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Housing prices are largely determined by physical location. By applying the outsample prediction accuracy of rental prices as evaluation criteria, we examine whether the choice of the hedonic model additionally depends on the spatial structure of housing data, i.e. accounting for locational effects by either district fixed effects or spatial econometric modelling. Our results show that a generalised spatio-temporal model outperforms a district fixed effects model only if the spatial density - the weighted mean distance to nearest neighbours - is relatively small. Moreover, we use the required density thresholds to deduce a pseudo indifference curve, thereby showing that the ratio of the weighted spatial distance-to-the mean district diameter increases with the mean sample size per district. This emphasises the role of data structure and district choices for model selection. Differences in data can thereby serve as an explanation for contradictory findings in literature, whether spatial econometric methods or simple district fixed effects are used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the southern German city of Tübingen, a 'city of short distances' planning model has been applied to try to reduce the need to travel through the co-location of employment space with housing—a style of compact city planning reportedly influenced by Jane Jacobs' principles for urban vitality. However, until now the impact of this mixed land use model on work travel patterns has not been systematically researched. This paper reports on empirical research that has explored the implications of the model for employing organizations and employees, through qualitative key actor interviews and quantitative data obtained by surveys of employees in short distance neighbourhoods and those in two control neighbourhoods. The findings show that short distance planning appears to reduce work travel distances and encourage sustainable travel patterns of work travel, although the role of residential self-selection in producing these patterns remains unclear in this preliminary study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue bridges the existing gap in the tourism and urban literature regarding planning and tourism in European cities and investigates the interrelationship between urban planning and tourism and its evolvement and transition over time. It includes nine articles that focus on different cases of urban planning and tourism in European cities. All the cities presented in this special issue function as capital cities, therefore they were designed and planned to represent the nation to itself and to the world for incoming tourists. As a result, all those cities are endowed with monumental city planning and architecture, they have abundance of cultural institutions and monuments thus raising questions about the choice and type of the representation of heritage arise. In addition of being capitals, those cities are also places where ordinary people live and with the growing intensity and volume of tourism, questions of social and economic carrying capacity arises; some of the articles reflect on those growing concerns. The cities chosen to this special issue are: Berlin, Paris, Vienna, Barcelona, Lisbon, Prague, Budapest, Skopje (and several additional cities in Macedonia). Those cities represent a balanced geographic distribution of cities in the European continent from East to West and North to South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is concerned with the increasing role and relevance of tourism in processes of urban change as well as its overlap and interplay with other mobilities and place consumption practices. It responds to recent debates surrounding the extension and intensification of ‘touristification’ processes in urban areas and uses the case of Berlin to draw attention to a number of intricacies and complexities that complicate their interpretation. The main argument the article advances is that developments in Berlin which are currently discussed under the rubric of ‘touristification’ can by no means be exclusively attributed to tourism, however conceived, and instead illustrate the need to adopt new ways of approaching and understanding what is perceived as tourism-induced urban change. To this end, the article will present a preliminary heuristic portrayal of (tourism) mobility and place consumption as a pentagon with five interrelated but distinct dimensions and present several salient issues and questions that warrant further investigation. The paper will conclude with some brief reflections concerning the wider implications of the increased centrality of mobility flows and place consumption practices in today's cities. These, it will be argued, not only challenge the way we think about tourism. Rather, they also raise fundamental questions concerning our understanding of cities and neighbourhoods, the ‘legitimacy’ of particular claims over them, as well as several traditional precepts of modern urban planning and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a highly organized and institutionalized planning framework, regions in Germany are widely considered the most variable and experimental layer of planning and vary quite extensively in terms of their organizational composition, strategic purpose, and administrative competencies. This research examines the role of German regional-level planning in explaining urban spatial structure and urban development patterns. Our unit of analysis consists of the 114 planning regions in Germany. We model change in urban structure and density over 2 time periods as a product of a number of demographic, geographic, political-economic, and policy variables. We utilize data from the CORINE land cover data set for the years 2006 and 2012. In addition, we use the Raumordnungsplan-Monitor (ROPLAMO) data set from the Federal Office for Building and Regional Research, a unique data set that allows us to rank regions based on the relative restrictiveness of their growth management policies. We find that regions are not particularly effective in explaining urbanization rates. Instead, the central place system, a planning framework that guides land use decisions, and whether or not a region is located in the east are the most significant factors in explaining urban spatial structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the use of planning methods in German planning practice against the background of the ‘communicative turn’. The debate about concepts of rationality in Germany as well as in other countries can be said to have resulted in the paradigm of communicative actor-oriented planning achieving at least the same standing as the analytical rationality of the classical expert-based planning model. The inconsistent use of the term method in research corresponds to empirical findings indicating that the term is used ambiguously in practice. Nonetheless, planning methods fulfil a number of functions in practice. The notion of a relatively clear division between ‘analytical-rational’ methods on the one hand and ‘communicative’ methods on the other hand was relativized by experimental investigations. The setting in which the methods are applied seems of more importance; even apparently ‘analytical-rational’ planning methods can be implemented in a more or less communicative fashion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Socially engaged’ participatory design projects from the performative arts are often seen as producers of ‘other’ knowledge. This encompasses embodied, affective and non-representational dimensions of architectural knowledge on future dwelling. Such understanding of what the arts do is in opposition to rationalizations and particularly the scaled concept of a pre-social singularised future inhabitant—the ‘user’—as imputed by modern(ist) architecture and urban planning practices. This paper proposes a combined argument rooted in body sociology by showing that the incorporation of future inhabitants in architectural design processes is a material struggle for social difference around the abstract concept of the ‘user’. It is a political dynamic that concerns all stakeholders in the design processes. The case is called ‘Planbude’, a participatory project in Hamburg, which questions the conventional self-referential body techniques and methods of embodying design in the profession of architects. It will be shown that Planbude’s intervention into the conventions of design processes is not about the aesthetic ‘othering’ of knowledge production only. It will be argued that the members of Planbude have strong practical competences in translating their research results into design processes by critically dealing with the conventional methods of architects and planners. Among all stakeholders this leads to a cultural sensibility and to considerations of differentiated bodily needs in the politics of an architectural design process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A growing number of German towns established Urban Improvement Districts (UIDs) as instrument of redevelopment of urban neighbourhoods. Real-estate owners and further actors participate politically and contribute financially to the process of revaluation, but this brings about problems of local democracy, legitimation, participation and accountability. The article examines the implementation of UIDs in three German cities and compares experiences made with this new instrument of participative urban development. It focuses on the implications for local democracy and explores whether UIDs could be useful instruments of city governance and appropriate arrangements to unlock additional resources at local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stuttgart is located in a natural basin, which both forms the city and challenges it at the same time. Urban developments on green slopes with clear views across a handsome city centre belong to its strong points, whereas windless inversions with smog and a shortage of space belong to the weak points. Stuttgart is well known for its auto industry but is also known for its internationally recognised architecture such as the Weissenhof. With respect to building history, the famous Stuttgart School as well as engineers like Frei Otto have contributed to its reputation. In terms of urban planning, some remarkable decisions have been made that are unspectacular but efficacious in carefully dealing with the peculiarities of the city. They include an 18km-long, U-shaped recreation area within the city (“Green U”), the protection of hillside areas against the pressure of investment, and the transformation of parts of a city highway into a boulevard. Recently the highly controversial project Stuttgart21 and the protest against it received widespread response. The project includes a new underground through station that will yield space for inner-city development. However, citizens were often misinformed and had no real chance to have any decisive influence. Connected with Stuttgart21 is the conversion of an old railway carriage depot into what is now a recognised centre for cultural functions and the creative industry. Planning discourse and practice have gained momentum. The future of Stuttgart will be formed by those perspectives that envisage possible solutions to the development problems in the metropolitan region around the city in the basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how planning experts understand the potential of integrating the concept of green infrastructure in planning practice in Germany. It develops a systematic approach for green infrastructure planning at the landscape scale. Research methods include a web-based survey among German planning experts and geographic information system analysis in the case study region of Hannover. Survey results suggest that the green infrastructure concept is not yet well known in planning practice, and that the potential benefits for planning lie primarily in communication purposes. An approach is developed here that sets priorities for green infrastructure development based on its potentials for creating synergies in the provision of ecosystem services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The topics of the territorial structure of the German states and the strategic development of the metropolitan regions are at first glance two completely separate discourses. However, this paper demonstrates that the development of the metropolitan regions in Germany, supported by Federal Spatial Planning, has at least in some cases been influenced by the possibility of offering an alternative to state restructuring and that the metropolitan regions today continue to represent a basis for interstate cooperation. The in-depth observation of four cross-state metropolitan regions makes clear that different development paths have been followed. Thus, while certain metropolitan regions have distanced themselves from issues relevant to interstate cooperation, the examples of Hamburg and Berlin-Brandenburg show the value of metropolitan regions for cooperation between states and as an alternative to state restructuring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Wolfsburg is the auto city of Europe – a city that was planned and built for the newly established Volkswagen factory from 1 July 1938 on and, as regards its evolution, is still closely associated with the global company to this day. This comparably small Lower Saxony city, which grew from practically nothing to its current population of 125 000 in-habitants, tells of the relationships between politics, society, economy and urban planning like almost nowhere else. From a historical perspective, Wolfsburg is regarded as the founding of a National Socialist city, however in terms of its urban planning principles and its prominent architectural features it may be viewed as perhaps the most important late-modernist city in Europe. Initially founded on a plot with just 1000 inhabitants, Wolfsburg was created as a ‘ functional city’, as laid down in the Athens Charter, and later developed according to the then influential ideal of the ‘car-friendly city’. Almost 80 years later and these concepts of urban planning in the 20th century are under scrutiny and being stretched to their limits. Yet Wolfsburg, still in its infancy, today remains a ‘city lab’, continuing to break the mould through its many pilot projects. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Population shrinkage has become an unavoidable process in many cities and calls for new planning approaches. Typically, economic restructuring causes small urban centres in peripheral locations to lose economic functions and population. In small towns however, social capital has been considered as a specific resource. In this article, we focus on small postsocialist towns in Estonia and Central Germany that have mostly experienced severe shrinkage since the end of state socialism, especially during the first transition decade. We aim to clarify to what extent local planning strategies accept the ongoing shrinkage and how various forms of local social capital have contributed to these strategies and the development of the localities in general. Interviews with different stakeholders in selected towns in Estonia and Germany revealed that shrinkage has not been systematically accepted in local planning. Instead, planning is strongly steered by the external financial resources to strengthen the remaining urbanity. In all towns, specific key development niches have been found in the 2000s to compensate for the peripherality. We also demonstrate that local public institutions need to adjust their governance culture to the existing specific local forms of social capital in order to achieve synergy between local actors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Urban governance processes and strategies in small cities in times of an integrated global economy have received little attention in urban research. However, in Germany as elsewhere they form the backbone of the urban system. On the basis of research in two small German cities—Pirmasens and Völklingen—this paper discusses local governance approaches in reaction to peripheralization. Peripheralization here is defined as a process of out-migration, dis-connection, dependency and stigmatization. The two case studies show quite different patterns of political governance. Pirmasens demonstrates a collective local project on how to deal with structural change, while Völklingen shows a more fragmented approach to overcoming peripheralization. These different political reactions are analysed and related to aspects of specific local settings. It is to be hoped that in future cohesion policy at the European level, but also on the respective national levels, more active policies will be targeted towards nurturing place-based opportunities for small cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The creation of a Communist society between 1917 and 1939 implied the concomitant establishment of a non-capitalist economy and a non-bourgeois culture and lifestyle. In terms of the rhetoric used at the time, the Communist utopia was based on confidence in the beneficial impact of science, technology, planning and management. This necessarily presupposed alternative (new) town planning concepts, a reformed building industry, a new housing typology, and new management styles. Solutions for this mission were expected to come from foreign (mostly German) engineers, architects, and town planners who were invited to the USSR to realize the Communist utopia during the first Five-Year Plan (1928–1933). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

High-skilled groups are regarded as a key asset for economic growth and urban development and are thus increasingly targeted by cities. Within this context, the paper analyses the effects of urban decline and intra-national migration trends on cities. The impact of both processes on population development varies considerably between cities and regions and calls for micro- and macro-level policy responses. The contribution focuses on the local impact of the (out-)migration of higher-skilled groups and addresses the research questions: how do local stakeholders and decision-makers evaluate the consequences of the out-migration of highly qualified residents and how are they responding? Our analysis combines the findings of two research projects and draws mainly on qualitative data. The case studies are located in Germany and comprise three medium-sized cities outside of major agglomerations and three large cities within metropolitan areas. The six cities share the common characteristic of urban decline as a result of structural change and have been experiencing population decline. While medium-sized cities lose the highly skilled after they complete schooling, larger old industrial cities lose them after they complete higher education degrees. The paper discusses the implications of intra-national migration for these cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses strategic planning and urban development in Germany. Topics include strategic planning as assistance to traditional planning and zoning, six factors that contributed to the failure of traditional land use planning, and the possibilities of theme-specific strategic planning. Other topics include the creative elements of strategic spatial planning, the promotion of innovative urban and regional economies, and the creativity of planners.

How does an average, aging society deal with the challenges of climatic and demographic change? In reality, the effects vary regionally. This paper explores how an urban society responds to the challenge of increasing summer temperatures using the example of Aachen, a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The research started with the perception of heat in the working and living environment of older and thus particularly vulnerable residents. As actors of urban development actively influence living and working conditions, their projected need for action is compared to the results of a survey of the residents. It clearly showed that demographic, socio-cultural, spatial, and construction factors affected the perceptions of the residents. Climate change awareness and possible adaptation measures usually exist, but, in general, initiatives are only taken if the effect is noticed by an individual. Although not all residents and stakeholders of Aachen perceived heat waves as a problem, a variety of adaptation strategies could be established. They ranged from aspired lifestyle over individual and short-term behavioral changes to urban planning, architectural and technical measures. These measures can be used to raise awareness of climate issues and implement adaptation strategies. Thereby, all stakeholders and residents, employers and employees, homeowners and tenants, planners, architects and developers, investors and users, etc., are asked to take responsibility within their field. English title: Adjustment through Acceptance – The Approach of Local Actors to Summer Heat Waves [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local property owner's associations (Eigentuemerstandortgemeinschaften (ESG)) are a new approach to implementing public–private partnership in urban redevelopment. The approach focuses on smaller landlords in residential areas, providing incentives for the modernization of real estate if their local associations work cooperatively for the revitalization of their neighbourhood. The research initiative consists of 14 model projects spread throughout Germany, which test this relatively informal urban redevelopment approach. The article considers public–private partnership initiatives in the context of stagnating federal financial assistance for urban redevelopment and provides new financing tools such as endowment funds. This article presents first results and suggestions for the continuation of model projects beyond the pilot stage. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the middle of the last decade, new guidelines for spatial planning policy were adopted in Germany. There was quite a lot of criticism at the time, saying that this constituted a realignment of German spatial planning, with the focus being shifted more towards growth and the metropolitan regions. This contribution shows that, despite the major importance attached to metropolitan regions as “growth motors” in the guidelines, the structurally weak peripheral regions also play an important role in certain places. One problem with the guidelines is, however, the fact that not all German metropolitan regions are growth motors, but have major structural problems instead. Moreover, nothing is said about increasing socio-spatial segregation, even in dynamic and successful metropolitan regions. English Title: Discourse on Spatial Planning Policy in Metropolitan Regions – the Construction of (New) Peripheries? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper focuses on the infrastructural dimension of the development of peripheral rural regions in North Eastern Germany. Taking the region Uecker-Randow (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania) as an example, we show that peripheral rural regions are not only confronted with economic decline and demographic change but also with a significant degradation of infrastructure supply. Limited access to technical and social infrastructures amplifies existing regional disparities and contributes to processes of “peripherization” of rural regions. “Peripherization” means a dynamic process of regional socioeconomic decline and demographic shrinking and is connected with limited options for regions and its inhabitants. The emergence of “peripherised regions” challenges the political aim of equivalent living conditions in Germany and the ideal of standardised infrastructure supply in all parts of the country. Therefore, coping with infrastructural problems will shape the future development of the Uecker-Randow region. English Title: Infrastructural Peripherization–The example of the Uecker-Randow region (Germany) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Berlin has always been a city in a process of change. Since the reunification, however, the transition has gained pace. Berlin has reclaimed the status of the German capital city and become a target of international direct investment. Despite prestigous developments such as the Potsdamer Platz or the new central station brought forth in the earlier years after re-unification, the economics recovery has not gained strength until recently. The historic center has re-established itself as the center of the unified city while at the same time, the City West, despite several ups and downs, is thriving. The new international major airport is finally close to completion. Not least, the city has become a research lab for e-mobility and a center of IT and creative industries. At the same time the economic recovery has started to eliminate excess supply of space, which was characteristic for the city over the recent decades, giving rise to affordability concerns and social conflicts. This city tour introduces into the tensions between ambitions and anxieties of planners and residents that are associated with the ongoing transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After many decades of inner-city decline and massive suburbanization during the post-socialist transition of the 1990s, in eastern Germany there has been recently evolving a new, specific phenomenon: the simultaneousness of shrinkage, fading suburbanization and rising reurbanization. In this paper, the focus is on processes of reurbanization. Starting from a critical debate of conceptual approaches, the paper aims to scrutinize whether reurbanization can serve as an appropriate explanatory framework for the currently changing patterns of spatial development in eastern Germany. Reurbanization is applied to both processes on the urban macro-scale and the meso-scale of inner-city districts. By using regional, local and small-scale data from municipal statistics and questionnaire surveys, reurbanization processes will be analysed mainly for the city of Leipzig. In our paper, we argue that there is evidence for reurbanization in the sense of the model by van den Berg et al. (1982) mainly for some bigger cities since 2000. It occurs as an increasing in-migration as well as diminishing out-migration from the inner city. Taken together, reurbanization processes lead to a stabilization of the housing function of the core city. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The transfer of knowledge about urban planning and architecture from the socialist East and the capitalist West to the post-colonial South was in the case of Germany not only a matter of built projects or experts. Important vectors for the migration of architectural and urban knowledge were public exhibitions. This paper focuses on the 1966 exhibition ‘Neues bauen in Afrika: Ausstellung der heutigen afrikanischen Architektur’ by the critic and historian Udo Kultermann in the Kongreshalle in Berlin, as well as on the ‘German Mobile Exhibition’ that travelled 24,000 km throughout Africa between 1961 and 1963 and in which German architecture and housing played an important role. The first exhibition was commissioned by the Deutsche Afrika-Gesellschaft, a state-sponsored association that was initiated ‘to clarify what may be expected in Germany of various territories in Africa and what we can do for its development’, while the second was a joint initiative of the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Development Aid that was considered as ‘a countermeasure to the strong presence of the Eastern Bloc in the African region’. Indeed, both exhibitions were reactions to the architectural and urban policy of the DDR in Africa, which was presented to a broad public in the 1969 nationwide exhibition ‘Architektur und Bildende Kunst. Austellung zum 20. Jahrestag der DDR’ and defined in its turn as a weapon against imperialism and as assistance to the birth of post-colonial nations. The paper argues that in 1960s' Germany exhibitions on architecture and urban planning in Africa were not only important vectors for the transfer of knowledge, but also the sites of a harsh symbolic battle between East and West that articulated a view of modern architecture as simultaneously oppressive and emancipatory. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This contribution outlines the potential of the category of gender in critical analyses of land use policy and the perspectives it offers for the development of conceptual strategies for sustainable land management. It illustrates gender mainstreaming in urban development approaches, thus showing the potential for enhancing the quality of planning and the reduction of land consumption. The paper goes on to discuss the potential for extended and differentiated communication and participation within participative planning support systems. A major point of discussion is the constraints of computing formalisations and the means of developing software systems for planning support systems (PSS) for participative planning approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Green Area Ratio (GAR) is an urban site sustainability metric which has been used in Berlin, Germany since 1997 to enhance the urban environment by requiring green infrastructure enhancements on private properties. Following an overview of the principles of the GAR instrument, this paper outlines metric development and implementation procedures in Berlin and then analyses how instrument features might affect its potential environmental, social and economic impacts. Despite identified policy deficits and the lack of adequate outcome monitoring in Berlin, the GAR instrument resonates with the environmental planning needs of many urban communities, including its compatibility with dense urbanism, utilisation of green infrastructure techniques, and an aim toward comprehensive environmental planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, the majority of the world's population is living in urban areas. Cities undergo constant development in their morphology. The latter is always a turned-into-stone representation of the coetaneous social, economical and technical values. The technical developments in recent years of very high-resolution spaceborne earth observation methods enable mapping of large urban areas with a decent level of detail. Additionally, detailed elevation information of urban areas in developed countries is widely available. Digital surface models (DSMs) support the classification of urban structures beyond two-dimensional classifications. We present a hierarchical, object-based and transferable framework to extract the urban structure on a high level of geometric detail for two test sites in Germany. The results show accuracies of above 90% for the land-use/land-cover classification for both test sites applying the same routines. DSMs from various sources have been utilised for the extraction of the individual building structures with accuracies of 90% and 80%, respectively. The methodology is suited to extract the urban structure on the level of individual buildings and the results can be utilised as 3D city model for the purpose of decision-making, urban planning and further analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the end of the 1990s cultural and creative industries have generated increasing attention in academic, public and political discourse. Nowadays, these industries are seen to be important factors of regional development. Because an urban environment offers a special quality of place, which is stimulating, motivating, challenging and inspiring for creative people, cultural and creative industries are spatially highly concentrated in the major cities of each country. Furthermore, urban places have an advantage compared to more peripheral or rural regions by offering the creative talents particular surroundings with openness, diversity, tolerance and internationality to realize their individual life styles. Overall, it can be assumed, that the cultural and creative industries fulfil their role as engines of innovation, growth and increasing employment rates predominantly in major cities. The empirical analysis of regional employment shifts in the cultural and creative industries in Germany shows that the main hubs of the cultural and creative industries in Germany generated above-average growth rates between 2003 and 2008. The more rural regions declined in most cases against the overall employment growth of the cultural and creative industries in Germany by 5.0%. Hence, the peripheral regions afar from the urban cores could not benefit from the growth of cultural and creative industries. Furthermore, a shift analysis shows the importance of locational effects in explaining the regional employment dynamics in these industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ruhrgebiet, the engine of Western Germany, constitutes a unique social, political and architectural landscape shaped by industry. In the 1950s, during Germany's post-war 'economic miracle', few people imagined that within 50 years, the region's heavy industry would virtually shut down. Fewer still would have predicted that many of industry's remaining structures would become monuments of the German nation. Effecting the transformation from industrial wasteland to European 'Cultural Capital' has required courage and creativity. This paper demonstrates that conservation of industry's remains has been a creative tool for democratic and social progress, shaped as much by 'bottom-up' initiatives as by 'top-down' directives. Workers who took action to save their neighbourhoods and citizens who united to rescue factories sparked the democratization of conservation. In the ensuing decades, conservation created new philosophies for re-imagining a landscape permeated with traces of industry. Ultimately, conservation became a key participant in regional planning through IBA (Internationale Bauausstellung) Emscher Park, which responded to industry's decline with a comprehensive approach to attracting investment, providing better prospects for workers and solving social problems. In the Ruhrgebiet, conservation has not simply memorialized the past - by creating real social progress and democratizing the planning process, it has meaningfully shaped the region's future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]