Deindustrialisation and housing vacancies in both Eastern Germany and in selected Western German cities have recently sensitised people to focus their discussion about urban development to the fact that it does not only mean a spatial distribution of growth. One important task will also be to arrange stabilisation and shrinkage processes which are currently covered by the term “urban restructuring” in Germany. The change in the economic structure and in the demography resulting from the restructuring processes observed in cities is not limited to Germany but does also concern many highly industrialised areas to different degrees. The study, which was drawn up by FORUM GmbH on behalf of the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning and with the cooperation of five teams, investigated this trend based on ten European examples of cities.

Due to public support in subsidising and controlling urban restructuring activities, some European cities affected by a structural crisis have managed to transform themselves from an industrial city into a city with postindustrial urban qualities. Based on this impression and although this measures cannot be applied in all cases, an urban restructuring process realised in three steps might be recommended to German cities affected by a structural crisis:

FORUM GmbH
Germany
info@forum-oldenburg.de
http://www.forum-oldenburg.de/

01/01/2005

research

Urban Policy > Urban environment > Urban renewal

City centre development