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In recent years, an emerging strand of research has focused on the role arrival neighbourhoods play for newcomers finding their footing in a new urban context. However, little is known about the underlying factors and drivers influencing their function(ing). This concerns in particular the role of the local housing market and its players in shaping their emergence and development. The paper deals with the question of how arrival neighbourhoods are (co-)produced by housing market players and how the latter are embedded in local governance structures. Looking at three German arrival neighbourhoods, the article illustrates how they are co-produced by ownership structures and the allocation practices of different housing market players. However, the strengthening of an arrival neighbourhood´s function not only depends on ownership structures but also on the capacities of municipal housing providers and civil society organisations, their strategic goals and the will for (concerted) action. Our findings show that arrival neighbourhoods can take on an important citywide function, enabling newcomers to gain a foothold in the city if three criteria are met: they are accessible/affordable for low-income groups, are equipped with infrastructures for newcomers, and are permeable with regard to residents’ relocation to other neighbourhoods.

The background of this conceptual paper constitutes the manifold efforts in Germany to establish and continue to develop municipal ESD landscapes. Related research is directed toward identifying factors which are either favorable or unfavorable for ESD implementation. Against this background, we outline the process of deriving research questions for new qualitative research. This is realized by adopting a governance analytical perspective. On the basis of a literature review, we elaborate on the state of research and discuss two promising governance approaches, along with associated empirical findings. Along with a further literature review, we also address why we consider expert interviews to be an appropriate approach for data collection and analysis. We conclude that it is important to not only focus on the coordination of collaborations, but also include the history of municipal cooperation, existing ESD (self-)understanding of involved actors, and collaboration practices. On this basis, we identify research gaps and specify research questions, which can serve as a basis for further research on ESD. Corresponding empirical research may optimize municipal ESD implementation processes.

Interim uses have played an important role in research and planning for about 15-20 years. Interim uses were previously negated or dismissed as a marginal phenomenon. Today they are considered to play a central role in dealing with the consequences of shrinking. This paper uses a contrasting comparison to explore how interim uses work in different urban contexts. It compares a continuously shrinking medium-sized city (Dessau-Roßlau) with a large city (Leipzig) that has gone through different phases over the past three decades (shrinkage, reurbanisation and growth). The result of the comparison is that urban contexts, i.e. the respective urban development phases, are decisive framework conditions for interim uses. A critical mass of interim users is needed as demanders of interim uses and a proactive attitude of city policy and administration towards interim uses. These conditions are particularly present in large cities and metropolises as well as in contexts of reurbanisation and growth. Reurbanisation or moderate growth after shrinkage can be seen as an optimal urban context for interim uses. From this perspective, the predominant thematisation of interim uses as an “instrument of shrinkage” seems too one-sided or misleading. The effects of interim use in a context of a medium-sized city such as Dessau-Roßlau are rather small or even marginal. Shrinking medium-sized towns and even more so small towns should therefore not be given exaggerated hopes with regard to the effects of the interim use instrument: Interim uses are not best practice for all cities.

Zusammenfassung Die Wohnungsfrage ist in Deutschland zurück auf der politischen Agenda, ihre gestiegene Bedeutung und Politisierung zeigt sich auch in der Zunahme von Protesten. Mietenpolitische Proteste sind in den letzten Jahren zahlreicher geworden und haben deutlich an Zulauf gewonnen. Es lassen sich lokale und bundesweite Zyklen beobachten, die sich zum Teil miteinander verschränken. Mit mietenpolitischen Gruppen, Initiativen und Netzwerken sind klassische Bewegungs- und Mobilisierungsnetzwerke entstanden. Bei der bundesweiten Mobilisierung Anfang April 2019 handelte es sich um die bislang größte seit der deutschen Vereinigung. Die verstärkten bundesweiten Vernetzungsaktivitäten von immer breiter aufgestellten Akteuren deuten auf eine sich weiter steigernde Dynamik der mietenpolitischen Bewegung in Deutschland hin, die das Thema Wohnungspolitik auf die Agenda gesetzt und den politischen Druck erhöht hat. Die aktuellen Tendenzen hin zu einer sozialeren Wohnungspolitik in manchen Städten können als Reaktionen darauf bewertet werden.

This paper undertakes a comparison of two regrowing and two shrinking European cities in order to identify the factors driving demographic regrowth and economic recovery of cities and how and why those factors are at work in some cities that turned from population decline towards new growth while others did not. Our objectives are to systematically elaborate the factors that are influencing urban regrowth, explain how these factors interact and are mutually dependent and to discuss how these factors relate to contextual conditions at different scales. For our contrasting analysis, we selected Liverpool and Leipzig, two cities that have seen regrowth after shrinkage and Lodz and Ostrava, two cities that continue to shrink. As a result of this comparison, we identify general local and contextual factors driving regrowth and discuss their interaction and what we learn from this for the wider urbanisation debate.

The structural anchoring of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) can be considered as a process of collective action. From a network theory perspective, the question arises as to which network structures promote the implementation of ESD in municipalities. Although network analysis has gained some attention in the research on ESD at a transregional level, it still lacks a theoretically grounded study at the municipal level. Against the background of corresponding theoretical and empirical contributions, we therefore present a derivation of relevant hypotheses. More specifically, argue that ESD is more likely to be implemented in municipal networks that feature medium density and intersectoral as well as intermunicipal bridges. Additionally, we assume that highly centralized municipal networks promote the structural anchoring of ESD in the initial phase, with decentralized structures being more conducive the more advanced the implementation. In other words, municipal structures which allow actors from various fields of action and municipalities to communicate with each other and exchange their specific ideas and experiences on a regular basis should foster ESD implementation. Furthermore, focal actors or fields of action may be advantageous for initiating ESD implementation in a municipality, but should lose significance as adaptation processes increase over time.

Urban brownfields are found in all parts of the world. They suffer from a negative image, generally being viewed as problem areas. However, urban brownfields also offer potentials for new uses as well as for the ecological regeneration of cities. Especially urban brownfields with spontaneous vegetation can contribute to biodiversity and ecosystem services in dense urban environments. Whether and how this potential is exploited depends on the perception and preferred uses of brownfields by local residents. Through surveys undertaken in Dresden and Leipzig, this paper examines the perception and use of brownfields and their spontaneous vegetation by the urban population. Results show a range of views on brownfields with spontaneous vegetation from negative to positive evaluations. Many residents make use of brownfields, have concrete ideas about how such areas should be utilized or designed and are even prepared to take part in the transformation. The paper suggests that the use and design of green space should be rethought in unconventional ways, and discusses how the ecological and social potential of brownfields with spontaneous vegetation can be best exploited for urban residents.

Interest in urban shrinkage has steadily grown among scholars worldwide and Germany has received great attention in shrinkage-related research. Little has been written, however, about how the discussion of urban shrinkage has shaped policy responses and vice versa. This paper seeks to fill this gap with respect to the German experience by examining the relationship between (1) the state and conditions of shrinkage, (2) the discussion, and (3) the design and implementation of policies to address the challenges posed by shrinkage. Covering a time span from the 1970s to today, we explore four distinct chronological phases of this triangular relationship. Particular focus is directed to the rapid shrinkage trajectory of eastern Germany in the 1990s, which was seen as a particularly critical challenge, and which was addressed nationally by public policies through the unique development program known as Stadtumbau Ost . Based on our analysis, we conclude that the phases of the German experience identified represent paradigmatic situations that can be found elsewhere, and thus provide insight into why debates on urban shrinkage emerge, how they result in policies and vice versa and, finally, what can be learnt from this great body of knowledge.

Greening cities, namely installing new parks, rooftop gardens or planting trees along the streets, undoubtedly contributes to an increase in wellbeing and enhances the attractiveness of open spaces in cities. At the same time, we observe an increasing use of greening strategies as ingredients of urban renewal, upgrading and urban revitalization as primarily market-driven endeavours targeting middle class and higher income groups sometimes at the expense of less privileged residents. This paper reflects on the current debate of the social effects of greening using selected examples. We discuss what trade-offs between social and ecological developments in cities mean for the future debate on greening cities and a socially balanced and inclusive way of developing our cities for various groups of urban dwellers. We conclude that current and future functions and features of greening cities have to be discussed more critically including a greater awareness of social impacts.

We state that land use is under constant pressure, no matter if land-use changes take place in growing or shrinking cities. Land-use changes witness multiple interdependencies between environmental, social and economic factors. In urban areas land is highly exposed to accelerating consumption which makes it a scarce and precious resource. Therefore we need transformative processes to deal with land use in a more sensible and responsible way. We define urban transformations as fundamental, multi-dimensional changes in urban land-use patterns, population developments, infrastructures, governance regimes as well as established values, norms and behaviours. A central focus is on land use and its changes to supply ecosystem services as key driver for quality of life. Most important for us is that transformative processes are highly dynamic and non-linear, thus affecting functions of urban land uses in different ways and with varying consequences. In this sense, governance research is a decisive component to implement our research in practice. With this viewpoint we want to contribute to a debate on land-use changes in alternating growing and shrinking cities to foster appropriate development responses for urban transformations towards sustainability.

Which ecosystem services are addressed? Air filtration, air cooling, physical and mental recreation, food production, flood regulation.

The afforestation of urban brownfields represents a new urban redevelopment strategy that is currently being used by various shrinking or shrunken cities like Detroit (U.S.), Halle, Leipzig, Schwedt or Weiswasser (Germany). This paper deals with the perception of both, successional brownfields and their afforestation, they were compared to one another with respect to their acceptance, possibilities for use and potential dangers. The study used visual methods: photo montages were produced that presented several stages of afforestation and succession. Both sets of photo montages were linked to questions about perception, acceptance, and usability. The household-based questionnaire survey was embedded in a real urban redevelopment project in the city of Leipzig, Germany, and had the goal of delivering concrete recommendations for the planning and design of urban forest sites in the inner-city. In a direct comparison, afforestation on brownfields is accepted more than natural succession. However, residents really wanted park-related green structures and traditionally designed urban nature areas.

In this article, we contribute to a better understanding of contextual differences related to residential segregation. We illuminate one specific contextual factor—housing oversupply—and how it intersects with historically inherited patterns of socio-spatial differentiation and other drivers of residential segregation. The study is based on an analysis of how segregation has developed over the last 20 years in the city of Leipzig, Germany. This case offers the rare possibility of studying the impact of city-wide housing oversupply on residential segregation, rather than concentrating on decline or decay in specific areas. We examine how oversupply emerged at the meeting point of changes in market structures, housing preferences, welfare state interventions, and migration trends in the post-socialist transition. Using existing statistical data, we demonstrate how oversupply has fostered a fast and thorough reshuffling of residential patterns. After a period of resolving segregation patterns from the social...

Der Wissenschaftliche Beirat der Bundesregierung Globale Umweltveränderungen empfiehlt in seinem Hauptgutachten zur ,,Großen Transformation“ eine Stadtplanung, die auf klimaverträgliche und nachhaltige Entwicklungen abzielt. Angesichts der heterogenen Urbanisierungsprozesse erscheint es angemessen, statt von einer großen Transformation besser im Plural von urbanen Transformationen zu sprechen.

After the beginning of the post-socialist transformation, the eastern German city of Leipzig underwent various changes within a short time span. These changes have been especially dynamic in its inner city. Whereas it was hit by the loss of large parts of its population and increasing housing vacancies in the 1990s, the 2000s brought about a revitalization and new attractiveness of many inner-city districts. Since then, reurbanization and – in some places – gentrification have become the predominant trends in a rising number of inner-city districts. This development has also reshaped patterns of socio-spatial differentiation in the city as a whole and its inner parts. Set against this background, the paper describes the development of Leipzig’s inner city after 1990. The focus of the paper is it to show how various concepts – reurbanization and gentrification – help to explain this development. Of particular interest thereby is the impact of Leipzig’s specific housing market situation that is characterized by long-term experiences of supply surplus and shrinkage.

Crises are a frequent companion of global urbanization; within the last decades, a wide range of crises has influenced the fates of cities and their inhabitants. When reviewing the first two decades of this century, we might feel that we are living in a “time of constant crises”; starting with the real estate and financial crisis in 2007/2008, a wide range of subsequent crises has spread all over the world: various economic, real estate, and bank crises, as well as the Euro debt crisis, which have led to political crises with significant social repercussions, also across Europe (Funke et al. 2015). In addition, a number of wars and violent conflicts such as, e.g., those in Syria and Northern Iraq have caused new crises; in particular, the increased refugee migration towards Europe (preferably to large cities of some European countries), an area that still has to cope with the consequences of the above-mentioned crises. Multiple environmental crises are receiving much less attention at the moment (Gawel 2014). These include biodiversity loss or climate change that evokes extreme events, such as floods or droughts that also regularly impact on cities or urban regions. Last but not least, the increasing demographic polarization of the world’s population, with population decrease and ageing in the developed countries and further population growth in the Global South, are perceived as a long-term crisis that is leading, e.g., to increasing south-north migration at a global scale. Given a situation of “multiple crises”, i.e., crises that differ in their nature but are characterized by many interlinkages concerning their roots and impacts, we can observe emerging crisis-driven policies. These policies vary according to the type of crisis: bank rescues and austerity policies to tackle the financial crisis, diplomacy and border closures to regulate the immigration crisis, massive international climate-protection agendas and meetings to address the climate crisis that are characterized by particular interests and symbolic declarations, and so on.

With cities acknowledged as key players for active involvement towards more sustainability (Parnell 2016), the city – or the urban scale – is seen as a, or even the, decisive field that can make transformations towards sustainability work (WBGU 2011; UBA 2015b). And, there is “general agreement that effective and integrated solutions can only be found and efficiently implemented through cities and urban areas” (McCormick et al. 2013, p. 2). Cities are, today, assigned a role as pioneers or frontrunners of sustainability transformations (Wolfram 2014; Wolfram and Frantzeskaki 2016). Nevertheless, it still needs to be seen whether these aspirations and expectations about the role of cities is only born out of desperation about slow progress toward sustainability or if they can actually become the real focal point of transformation. The increasingly important notion of “transformation” in policy and research, when talking about changes that need to be undertaken, provokes the question about possible differences between the terms transformation and sustainable development. In this regard, Brand (2016, p. 24) has argued that the term transformation is “more radical and more attractive than the term sustainable development” and stresses both the urgent need for action and the “how to come to” the implementation of sustainability. For Brand (2016, p. 24), transformation is the “new critical orthodoxy”, characterized by a radical problem diagnosis, promising far-reaching change, but also involving a relatively incremental understanding of the processes and steps of social change, in order to cope with the problems. Loorbach concludes that “Sustainable Development itself has become part of the problem” because it has become part of the established regime and has primarily served to make it a little less unsustainable (Loorbach 2014, p. 32). According to this ambitious target, we explore three aspects of urban transformations: extent, topics, and governance (UBA 2015b).

Urban shrinkage, commonly understood as population loss of an urban area, and post-shrinkage regrowth have become prominent pathways of urban development across Europe. While many cities, mostly in Eastern Europe, are still shrinking today, other cities that shrunk in the past now see new growth. Numerous cities have undergone this transformation from shrinkage towards new growth within only one or two decades – a relatively short time. Both shrinkage and regrowth have considerable impacts on urban land use, be it on densities or types of use. Both offer a variety of potentials and risks for sustainable use of urban land as well as for the provision of green spaces and urban ecosystem services (UES). On the one hand, there is the risk that new growth after shrinkage puts pressure on the qualities that emerged and/or were created in the time of shrinkage such as less density, more green areas, or spaces for experimentation and innovation, will be questioned in their existence and benefit. On the other hand, regrowth after shrinkage offers the great opportunity to make use of those qualities in order to build more sustainable regrowing cities and to ensure good provision of environmental qualities and ecosystem services for large segments of the population. Here, many trade-offs emerge, and many new challenges have to be addressed. Often, there is a complex setting of actors and interests that make it complicated to negotiate solutions.

Urban shrinkage has become an issue for urban planning and policy in Europe because approximately 40% of its large cities are currently losing population. Shrinkage implies dramatic land-use impacts, including under-utilisation, vacancy, demolition, emerging brownfield sites, and de-densification. However, shrinkage also offers great potential to “re-create”—that is, to enhance and implement—urban green space including the ecosystem services it provides: Local climate and air quality regulation by trees that grow on abandoned land, carbon sequestration and storage by vegetation on vacant lots, preservation or enhancement of urban biodiversity, and recreational facilities that support the mental and physical health of the inhabitants through the enlargement of parks and woodlands. This paper argues that there is a linkage—a nexus—between shrinkage and ecosystem services provisioning. We develop a matrix approach that links the potentials of land use (change) related to urban shrinkage with ecosystem services provisioning in cities. Through a discussion of these potentials, challenges, and the relevant strategies of urban planning such as interim uses, urban afforestation, or community gardens, we show how planning policy in shrinking cities could benefit from considering the nexus between shrinkage and urban ecosystem services provision. Empirical evidence comes from Leipzig, Germany, a city that has, until very recently, experienced decades of shrinkage and still faces many of the resulting challenges.

This paper presents results of an international comparative research project ‘Smart governance of shrinking cities in a European context’. In recent years, many European cities have experienced urban shrinkage (population decline). Whereas there has been a wealth of research into the governance of growing cities, little consideration has been given to the governance of and policy responses to shrinking cities, particularly in relation to the declining cities of post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe. The aim of this paper is to compare the governance responses to shrinkage in different national contexts and assess the policy responses applied. This is done through the comparison of case studies examining the governance of shrinkage in Leipzig (Germany), Bytom (Poland), Ostrava (Czechia) and Timisoara (Romania). Two different strategies have been identified. First, Leipzig – due to its inclusion in the (former Western) German welfare state – followed a reasonably holistic strategy implemented by strong ...

The transformation to a post-fossil city is one of the central urban challenges of the 21st century, with heat transition representing an important part of this process. In Germany, a structural change commission has proposed a complete phase-out of coal by 2038. For the city of Leipzig, which is located in a mining region, this opens up the possibility of a post-fossil transformation. Leipzig started an energetic retrofitting process within its housing sector several years ago, and is now planning to phase-out coal-fired district heating as early as 2023. This heat transition could turn Leipzig into one of the pioneering cities of post-fossil transformation. However, such a transition will be accompanied by numerous challenges and problems in the financial, political, technological, and labor sectors. Using the example of Leipzig, we conducted a document analysis and semi-structured interviews to investigate how a transition of the heating sector is conceptualized and planned, which governance structures have emerged, and how they work. In addition, our paper outlines the main interests and goals of the key actors and stakeholders in this transition, as well as their competences and resources. We emphasize that while Leipzig has committed itself to ambitious climate goals, up to now, the city has had no systemic approach for reducing local emissions. Although a window of opportunity has opened for a post-fossil heat transition, this still remains at a niche level due to a lack of interest, path dependencies, and weak governance.

Since the second half of the 20th century, urban shrinkage has become a common pathway of transformation for many large cities across the globe. Although the appearance of shrinkage is fairly universal—typically manifested in dwindling population, emerging vacant spaces, and the underuse of existing urban infrastructure, ranging from schools and parks to water pipelines—its essence is hidden from view. Phenomena related to shrinkage have been discussed predominantly using terms such as decline, decay, blight, abandonment, disurbanization, urban crisis, and demographic change. Amongst others, these concepts were typically related to specific national contexts, installed in distinct explanatory frameworks, based around diverging normative accounts, ultimately leading to very different policy implications. Yet there is still a lack of conceptualization and integration of shrinkage into the wider theoretical debates in human geography, town and country planning, urban and regional studies, and social sciences at large. The problem here is not only to explain how shrinkage comes about, but also to study shrinkage as a process: simultaneously as a presupposition, a medium, and an outcome of continually changing social relationships. If we wish to understand shrinkage in a specific location, we need to integrate theoretical explanations with historical trajectories, as well as to combine these with a study of the specific impacts caused by shrinkage and to analyse the policy environment in which these processes take place. The authors apply an integrative model which maps the entire process across different contexts and independently of local or national specifics; it covers causes, impacts, responses, and feedback loops, and the interrelations between these aspects. The model does not ‘explain’ shrinkage in every case: instead, it builds a framework into which place-specific and time-specific explanations can be embedded. It is thus a heuristics that enables communication, if not comparison, across different contexts. With the help of this model, the authors hope to find a way in which shrinkage can be studied both in a conceptually rigorous and in an historically specific way. Instead of an invariant ‘process of shrinkage’, they portray a ‘pluralist world of shrinkages’. Keywords: urban shrinkage, local trajectories, debates on shrinkage, heuristic model

The issue of urban shrinkage has become the new ‘normal’ across Europe: a large number of urban areas find themselves amongst the cities losing population. According to recent studies, almost 42 per cent of all large European cities are currently shrinking. In eastern Europe, shrinking cities have formed the overwhelming majority – here, three out of four cities report a decrease in population. Shrinkage has proved to be a very diverse and complex phenomenon. In our understanding, a considerable and constant loss of population by an urban area classifies it as a shrinking city. So, while the indicator of shrinkage used here is rather simple, the nature of the process and its causes and consequences for the affected urban areas are multifaceted and need to be explained and understood in further detail. Set against this background, the article presents, first, urban shrinkage as both spatially and temporally uneven. Second, this article shows that the causes of urban shrinkage are as varied as they are numerous. We explore the ‘pluralist world of urban shrinkage’ in the European Union and beyond. The article provides an original process model of urban shrinkage, bringing together its causes, impacts and dynamics, and setting them in the context of locally based urban trajectories. The main argument of this arrticle is that there is no ‘grand explanatory heuristics’ of shrinkage; a ‘one-size-fits-all’ explanatory approach to shrinkage cannot deliver. To progress and remain relevant, one ought to move away from outcome-orientated towards process-orientated research on urban shrinkage.

Across Europe, urban shrinkage has become an important phenomenon. According to recent studies, almost 42 % of all large European cities are currently shrinking, the largest number of them being situated in Eastern Europe. Across Europe, shrinkage affects all types of regions; in a way, Europe has become a shrinking continent. Shrinkage is not only a problem of larger cities, but has, in fact, become one of several pathways for European urban and rural development. Given the context that the European Commission’s ambition is to create prosperous, attractive and sustainable cities, they are expected to create equilibrium between population and employment opportunities, provide clean, safe, sustainable environments and avoid social exclusion. Set against this background, the commentary discusses the challenge that urban shrinkage brings about for European policymaking. It addresses especially issues of urban governance and planning. It draws on recent research on shrinking cities across the European territory. It argues that, on the European level, knowledge about shrinking cities is required; hence, the European Commission should encourage networks of researchers and support mutual exchange between research and urban practice. It argues, too, that there is a great deal of expertise available in some European cities about how to cope with shrinkage and there are other places, throughout Europe, that are in urgent need of this expertise. It finally advocates a stronger voice for the vision of the sustainable, shrinking or shrunk city as a priority of current and future urban policy of the EU.