Firstly the project should fill up the lack of research focussing on small and medium-sized towns. Mainly the focus lies on large or metropolitan cities. Secondly it was intended to investigate polycentric structures in urban regions in greater detail.

A research project of the German Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning focussed on the role and the perspectives of medium-sized cities in urban regions. Quantitative (statistical methods) and qualitative research approaches (case studies) were combined.

The project was set up as research project of the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning in 2004.

The main results concretise the development, the functions and the perspectives of medium-sized cities. Simultaneously, the role of medium-sized cities was investigated in the regional context, considering that in urban regions the hierarchy of large, medium-sized und small cities is overlapped by network structures.

German Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning
Bonn
Germany
http://www.bbr.bund.de/
Dr. Brigitte Adam, tel. ++ 49 (0) 1888- 401 2325

01/01/2006

research

Urban Policy > Urban environment > Land use

Urban-rural relationship