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Der Text folgt in essayistischer Form einem Spaziergang durch das politische Zentrum Brasílias in Brasilien. Die Konzentration liegt auf der Gestaltung des Bodens. Wie ist die Planhauptstadt „vom Reißbrett“ in der Horizontalen gestaltet? Wie sehen repräsentative Plätze einer Stadt aus, die vor allem für Autos gebaut worden ist? Der forschende Blick liegt auf dem erlebten Ist-Zustand und wird assoziativ mit Ergebnissen der Forschungsarbeit aus Deutschland reflektiert. „Mächtiger Boden“ entstand als Satellit zur aktuellen Forschung der Autorin im Rahmen eines Aufenthalts in Brasilien.
The aim of this doctoral thesis was to investigate whether the German term “shrinking city” is appropriate to depopulating Polish cities. In order to do so an attempt to define the currently still vague notion of “shrinking city” was made. The urban development of Eastern Germany was thoroughly examined both in a short term perspective and in a wide historical as well as international context, with the Polish urban development used as reference. 25 cities (kreisfreie Städte) in Eastern Germany and depopulating Polish cities: Łódź and the Metropolis Silesia were chosen as case studies.
On the basis of the gathered information a “shrinking city” in Eastern Germany was defined as a city with a long-lasting population decrease coupled with over-dimensioned, growth-oriented development policies carried out for decades. Such a development path is triggering negative consequences in the spatial, economic and also demographic dimension, which tend to intensify each other.
The thesis postulates that the definition of the “shrinking city in Eastern Germany” is not appropriate to depopulating cities in Poland. Polish cities are characterized by a short-lasting population decrease and this trend is not triggering negative spatial and economic consequences. Oversized growth development policies were never present in the cities and they still suffer from great deficiencies in housing and other basic infrastructure, which derive from the socialist period. Furthermore, radical de-economization, known from Eastern German cities, did not occur in the Polish cities. Both Łódź and the Metropolis Silesia remain main production centers of the country.
This doctoral thesis presents a contradictory view to contemporary publications on “shrinking cities”, in which this phenomenon is regarded as having occurred suddenly after the collapse of the socialism. It proved that “shrinking cities” in Eastern Germany are not the outcome of short-lasting processes, but are deeply rooted in the past. Moreover, they represent a very distinct development pattern that highly differentiates from the one found in Central Eastern Europe and the one in Western Europe. In this way the doctoral thesis provided a new, critical approach to the discourse on “shrinking cities” in Germany. It also draws attention to the importance of the historical analysis in cities’ development research, particularly in cross border studies. In time of European integration peculiarities resulting from centuries of different spatial, economic and social development paths should not be underestimated.
This practice-based research examines platforms and encounters that have a participatory character as a strategy to create lived and shared experiences where new forms of appropriation of the city can emerge. The selected case studies propose and initiate certain urban experiences that induce changes in perception, the exchange of perspectives, and that denaturalize habits and patterns of behavior. I suggest that when these sensitive experiences become imprinted in body memory, they can empower citizens to have more active, creative, and/or critical attitudes towards their environments. Searching for new repertoires of everyday practices that contest commodification of both the body and the city, this thesis is oriented towards open-ended processes of constructing mentalities rather than those of planning changes on the material conditions of public space. It uses forms of academic investigation that merge intellectual debate and experimental practice, joining art, urbanism and social engaged practices in an extradisciplinary (Howes 2007) attitude towards the city. Based on the materials generated by the case studies (combining theoretical knowledge with artistic sensibility), the affective and corporeal involvement of researchers in the situations they analyze and co-create, is sustained in opposition to the traditional academic critical distance.
The present study analysis the environmental benefits of urban vegetation within the municipal boundary of a megacity through multi scale integrated modelling to estimate its benefits approximately. The advantages (and challenges) that Nature, inserted into cities, offers to the population are observed from different viewpoints. As geographical reference the profile of megacities located in low (tropical) latitudes was observed, in a case study on the city of São Paulo/ Brazil. Commonly, urban vegetation is overlooked by local people, governments and economical structures. Although sparse vegetation exists, it is hardly recognized. Along the brief history of rapid urbanization which is accompanied by massive environmental degradation, urban green becomes, in the dispute for space, a true luxury in cities like São Paulo. Not as retrogression but as advance, it demonstrates that the integration between nature and city would be desirable. The approximated quantification of the variations which occur between actual scenario and greened scenarios shows the need to rethink the urban biome as a man-dominated ecosystem. The benefits of the urban vegetation are diverse. This work details plants as agents of climatic and ecosystem balance and performance. It also approaches current issues like climate change, energy efficiency and thermal comfort, as well as the purification of natural resources, through the treatment of water, soil and air. Especially because at present no efficient technical solutions exist, that could substitute the environmental services of the vegetation. These benefits contribute to quality of life and increase socio-environmental equity especially important in high-contrast megacities. The vegetation assumes two important roles in cities. The functional dimension brings concrete and measurable benefits to the environment. From a symbolic vision, vegetation represents Nature in cities, approximating humans to their origins. Conclusively the study defends the importance of the valorization of Nature and of the united efforts for literally green cities because it proves that financial investment in urban vegetation has direct effects on the costs destined to the areas of health and infrastructure. The City of São Paulo, invested in 2008 about US$ 180 million (one hundred and eighty million dollars) in urban green (and environment) which tends to save US$ 980 million (nine hundred and eighty million dollars) of expenses annually. In other words, for each US$ 1 invested in planting and maintenance of urban green, the society saves at least US$ 5 of expenses in health, construction of French drains, energy etc.