74 Geographie, Raumordnung, Städtebau
Refine
Document Type
- Doctoral Thesis (5)
- Article (1)
- Book (1)
Institute
Keywords
- Stadtplanung (7) (remove)
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.
Real-world labs hold the potential to catalyse rapid urban transformations through real-world experimentation. Characterised by a rather radical, responsive, and location-specific nature, real-world labs face constraints in the scaling of experimental knowledge. To make a significant contribution to urban transformation, the produced knowledge must go beyond the level of a building, street, or small district where real-world experiments are conducted. Thus, a conflict arises between experimental boundaries and the stimulation of broader implications. The challenges of scaling experimental knowledge have been recognised as a problem, but remain largely unexplained. Based on this, the article will discuss the applicability of the “typology of amplification processes” by Lam et al. (2020) to explore and evaluate the potential of scaling experimental knowledge from real-world labs. The application of the typology is exemplified in the case of the Bauhaus.MobilityLab. The Bauhaus.MobilityLab takes a unique approach by testing and developing cross-sectoral mobility, energy, and logistics solutions with a distinct focus on scaling knowledge and innovation. For this case study, different qualitative research techniques are combined according to “within-method triangulation” and synthesised in a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis. The analysis of the Bauhaus.MobilityLab proves that the “typology of amplification processes” is useful as a systematic approach to identifying and evaluating the potential of scaling experimental knowledge.
The objective of this thesis was to understand the 20th-century history of informal urbanisation in Europe and its origins in Madrid and Paris. The concept of informal urbanisation was employed to refer to the process of developing shacks and precarious single-family housing areas that were not planned by the public powers and were considered to be substandard because of their below-average materials and social characteristics. Our main hypothesis was that despite being a phenomenon with ancient roots, informal urbanisation emerged as a public problem and was subsequently prohibited in connection with another historical process occurred: the birth of contemporary urban planning. Therefore, its transformation into a deviant and illegal urban growth mechanism would have been a pan-European process occurring at the same pace that urban planning developed during the first decades of the 20th century.
Analysing the 20th-century history of informal urbanisation in Europe was an ambitious task that required using a large number of sources. To contend with this issue, this thesis combined two main methods: historiographical research about informal urbanisation in Europe and archival research of two case studies, Madrid and Paris, to make the account more precise by analysing primary sources of the subject.
Our research of these informal areas, which were produced mainly through poor private allotments and housing developed on land squats, revealed two key moments of explosive growth across Europe: the 1920s and 1960s. The near disappearance of informal urbanisation throughout the continent seemed to be a consequence not of the historical development of urban planning—which was commonly transgressed and bypassed—but of the exacerbation of global economic inequalities, permitting the development of a geography of privilege in Europe.
Concerning the cases of Paris and Madrid, the origins of informal urbanisation—that is, the moment the issue started to be problematised—seemed to occur in the second half of the 19th century, when a number of hygienic norms and surveillance devices began to control housing characteristics. From that moment onwards, informal urbanisation areas formed peripheral belts in both cities. This growth became the object of an illegalisation process of which we have identified three phases: (i) the unregulated development of the phenomenon during the second half of the 20th century, (ii) the institutional production of “exception regulations” to permit a controlled development of substandard housing in the peripheral fringes of both cities, and (iii) the synchronic prohibition of informal urbanisation in the 1920s and its illegal reproduction.
Post Conflict Reconstruction is a very complex topic, whether it is to be undertaken by the Local or the International Community. The process of the Post Conflict Development is to be very hard to investigate, primarily for the combination of socio-cultural phenomena, war and political instability; having difficulties of conducting solid empirical analysis (obtaining reliable data) and dealing with war-torn communities. The multifaceted process of the reconstruction is ought to touch a lot of countries vital segments, whereas each of them requires different approach; coordination with one another; and unification in their common aim.
The emergency of the assistance programs are not equal, same as with the priority and weight when compared with each other, therefore occasionally there are programs for the success of which the other less important actions are violated or neglected.
The case is with the International Community presence ( the set up), which aside from their mission and projects, it is considered to play a very important role on the urban development of a post conflict city; the setting was never planned or considered in a holistic manner, therefore IC establishment was done ad hoc and it was guided by issues which did not help at its greatest to the urban development of the city and more over to the citizens who were most in need.
The study is about the Urban Development, due to the fact that the biggest concentration of the International Community is likely to be in the urban centers, and the experienced changes are of a much considerable magnitude. The reconstruction phase is likely to be lasting at about 10 years and more , consequently the International Community for that time being tends to be recognized as temporary citizens of the city, and it is inevitably that they will be having an impact on the urban development of the city; in that basis it is considered to be significant that the International Community Establishment/Set Up be included into the International Organizations mission and assist in the overall mission of the reconstruction.
Stadtpolitik für alle
(2021)
Die Corona-Krise hat die Erosion städtischer Solidarität offen zu Tage treten lassen. Dagegen bringen Anton Brokow-Loga und Frank Eckardt in dieser Schrift die praktische Utopie einer solidarischen Postwachstumsstadt „auf den Punkt“.
Vom Commoning über die Umverteilung der städtischen Flächen bis zu einer sozial-ökologischen Verkehrswende: Eine progressive Stadtpolitik für alle überwindet bisheriges Schubladendenken. Sie setzt stattdessen auf heterogene Zusammenhänge und ungewöhnliche Bündnisse. Zu dem hier umrissenen Vorhaben gehört auch, eine basisdemokratisch orientierte Stadtpolitik mit dem Ziel einer umfassenden Transformation von Stadt und Gesellschaft zu verknüpfen.
Wie kann ein Blick auf die kommunale Ebene helfen, globalen Ungerechtigkeiten zu begegnen? Welchen Weg weisen munizipalistische Plattformen und Vergemeinschaftungen jenseits von Privat- oder Staatseigentum?
This dissertation investigates the interactions between urban form, allocation of activities, and pedestrian movement in the context of urban planning. The ability to assess the long-term impact of urban planning decisions on what people do and how they get there is of central importance, with various disciplines addressing this topic. This study focuses on approaches proposed by urban morphologists, urban economists, and transportation planners, each aiming the attention at a different part of the form-activity-movement interaction. Even though there is no doubt about the advantages of these highly focused approaches, it remains unclear what is the cost of ignoring the effect of some interactions while considering others. The general aim of this dissertation is to empirically test the validity of the individual models and quantify the impact of this isolationist approach on their precision and bias.
For this purpose, we propose a joined form-activity-movement interaction model and conduct an empirical study in Weimar, Germany. We estimate how the urban form and activities affect movement as well as how movement and urban form affect activities. By estimating these effects in isolation and simultaneously, we assess the bias of the individual models.
On the one hand, the empirical study results confirm the significance of all interactions suggested by the individual models. On the other hand, we were able to show that when these interactions are estimated in isolation, the resulting predictions are biased. To conclude, we do not question the knowledge brought by transportation planners, urban morphologists, and urban economists. However, we argue that it might be of little use on its own.
We see the relevance of this study as being twofold. On the one hand, we proposed a novel methodological framework for the simultaneous estimation of the form-activity-movement interactions. On the other hand, we provide empirical evidence about the strengths and limitations of current approaches.
Recent years have seen a gradual shift in focus of international policies from a national and regional perspective to that of cities, a shift which is closely related to the rapid urbanization of developing countries. As revealed in the 2011 Revision of the World Urbanization Prospects published by the United Nations, 51% of the global population (approximately 3.6 billion people) lives in cities. The report predicts that by 2050, the world’s urban population will increase by 2.3 billion, making up 68% of the population. The growth of urbanization in the next few decades is expected to primarily come from developing countries, one third of which will be in China and India.
With rapid urbanization and the ongoing growth of mega cities, cities must become increasingly resilient and intelligent to cope with numerous challenges and crises like droughts and floods arising from extreme climate, destruction brought by severe natural disasters, and aggregated social contradictions resulting from economic crises. All cities face the urban development dynamics and uncertainties arising from these problems. Under such circumstances, cities are considered the critical path from crisis to prosperity, so scholars and organizations have proposed the construction of “resilient cities.” On the one hand, this theory emphasizes cities’ defenses and buffering capacity against disasters, crises and uncertainties, as well as recovery after destruction; on the other hand, it highlights the learning capacity of urban systems, identification of opportunities amid challenges, and maintenance of development vitality. Some scholars even believe that urban resilience is a powerful supplement to sustainable development. Hence, resilience assessment has become the latest and most important perspective for evaluating the development and crisis defense capacity of cities.
Rather than a general abstract concept, urban resilience is a comprehensive measurement of a city’s level of development. The dynamic development of problems is reflected through quantitative indicators and appraisal systems not only from the perspective of academic research, but also governmental policy, so as to scientifically guide development, and measure and compare cities’ development levels. Although international scholars have proposed
quantitative methods for urban resilience assessment, they are however insufficiently systematic and regionally adaptive for China’s current urban development needs. On the basis of comparative study on European and North American resilient city theories, therefore, this paper puts forwards a theoretical framework for resilient city systems consistent with China’s national conditions in light of economic development pressure, natural resource depletion, pollution, and other salient development crises in China. The key factors influencing urban resilience are taken into full consideration; expert appraisal is conducted based on the Delphi Method and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to design an extensible and updatable resilient city evaluation system which is sufficiently systematic, geographically adaptable, and sustainable for China’s current urban development needs. Finally, Changsha is taken as the main case for empirical study on comprehensive evaluation of similar cities in Central China to improve the indicator system.