Growth and change are important characteristics of all cities as they change their shape continuously: old building are replaced by new ones, streets are newly constructed or expanded, traditional land uses are succeeded by modern ones. Additionally during the foregoing decades the area of settlement has been extended constantly by population growth and suburbanization [1]. Whereas the well-ordered extension of the cities belongs to the tasks of urban planning, reshaping or remodeling of existing urban districts are the central tasks of urban renewal [2]. This field is seen as an important part of urban development planning and contains not only the upgrading of single buildings but the renewal of urban districts as a whole. The main goals of urban renewal fit into the following categories (Albers 1992:245):
Preserving and maintaining the historic townscape as part of the cultural heritage plays an important role in urban renewal. But quite often tremendous land use conflicts arise when this goal is implemented. A circumspect urban renewal has to consider the interests of the preservation [3] and the economic and social necessities of a modern urban development [4] as well. The goal of urban renewal policy can neither be the setting up of open-air museums nor the complete obliteration of historical structures.
The beginnings of urban redevelopment go back to the first decades of the 20th century. Some years earlier, at the end of the 19th century, the main interest of urban planning was still the extension of the urban area. In order to erect the so-called residential and industrial rings of the Gründerzeit (1871-1873 period when many industrial firms were founded in Germany) medieval urban quarters were often torn down - in following the example of the Haussmann plan for Paris, an apparently necessary tribute to progress. As a consequence a part of the urban heritage was lost for ever. But as much as the eclectic architecture of this period was criticized the pre-industrial buildings gained renewed appreciation. As a result the first attempts to renew the medieval structured old part of the cities can be found in the 1920s. In the 1930s the rehabilitation of dilapidated districts became a pronounced goal of the - ideologically biased - redevelopment policy of the National Socialists. Decayed buildings, evaluated as the breeding-ground of political unrest, should be rehabilitated or be torn down and then replaced by a representative new construction. An example is the rehabilitation of the Martinsviertel, a quarter in Cologne. However, before having been able to carry out most of these ambitious plans the majority of the medieval structured inner cities were heavily destroyed by the bombardments of Word War II.
Due to the fact that reconstruction activities in the 1950s were concentrated on erecting new buildings, the conditions of these historic buildings deteriorated within a short time. First in the 1960s attention was again given to the improvement of housing quality in the historical districts. In accordance with the concept of the gegliederte und aufgelockerte Stadt [5] (sectionalized and dispersed city), valid at that time, the planners favored a spatially extensive structural change in particular in the districts erected in the period of industrial development. Models were the construction of the Hansaviertel [6] in Berlin [7] and the Constructa-Block in Hanover. These quarters set good examples of how the block pattern of the industrial city could be replaced by row housing and how green spaces intersperse this new pattern. This practice of area and total redevelopment was legally supported by the Städtebauförderungsgesetz [8](law of promoting urban construction), which was passed in 1971. Created in the ideals of the 1960s it allowed the tearing down of historic structures in favor of modern ones.
Already soon after this law came into force a paradigm change in redevelopment began to emerge. The criticism against area redevelopment - often regarded as a "second destruction" - started with two main points. On the one hand displacement threatened the local residents when housing with reasonable rents was torn down and expensive new dwellings were erected. Also importance was increasingly attached to the aesthetic aspect. More and more, the value and the historic importance of the buildings of the Industrial period became apparent to those involved in preservation. After all they represent the characteristic architectural style of a past epoch of urban development. Before the last witnesses of that period disappeared from the townscape the actual redevelopment policy changed into the direction of the so-called behutsame Erneuerung [9] (careful renewal). Henceforth, Objektsanierung [10] (object redevelopment) instead of area redevelopment was propagated, repair and modernization instead of tearing down were the order of the day. All of a sudden, apartments in stucco decorated buildings of the Industrial period, earlier disdained as antiquated, became much sought -after and as a consequence these buildings became profitable objects for investments. Because of this, urban renewal was provoked to counteract this gentrification process [11], i.e. luxury redevelopment and displacement of residents, a trend which could be observed in English [12] and North American cities [13] at the same time, too. In carrying out a gentle [14] and socially compatible renewal the planners used the legal foundations and procedures of urban redevelopment as they are determined in the several amendments of the Städtebauförderungsgesetz (law of promoting urban construction) and since 1987 in the Baugesetzbuch [15] (code of law for construction).
One basic principle of the redevelopment practice in Germany is to meet the unprofitable public costs - as a rule a third each by the municipal, the state and the federal level. In a countermove the landowners supported by this public money [16] are obliged as follows: within a special period of time - regularly 10 years [17] - the rents may only be increased within the legally fixed limits of rent increase. As a consequence the danger of displacing residents after housing modernization were reduced at least for the medium-term. A second basic principle is the opportunity, for the municipality to skim off the increase in land value arisen by the renewal measures. Such amounts of compensation [18] help to prevent the fact that publicly financed redevelopment measures result in a one-sided financial advantage to the private house and land owners. A third basic principle is that the residents of the redevelopment area can actively take part [19] in the planning process within the bounds of a public participation program.
Usually the course of a redevelopment measure is carried out in five steps:
Besides such a formal redevelopment process, which might last up to ten years, the legislation has also set up the opportunity for a less strenuous method [27] of maintaining and keeping quarters of old buildings. Quarters in which the housing stock is in danger can be imposed with a ban of change by a so-called maintenance or residential environment preservation [28] statute; urban areas with a problematic structure are upgraded by residential environment improvement measures without direct intervention into the development structure. After 25 years of practicing urban renewal the success can hardly be quantified. There is almost no German city in which not at least one redevelopment area has been set up or urban renewal measures have resulted in improved housing and living conditions. Meanwhile the necessity of modernization has shifted from the quarters of the period of industrialization to settlements erected in the period between the two world wars and in the immediate post-war period, and even quite often to the Großwohnsiedlungen (high-rise housing areas) of the second half of the 1960s.
The many years of redevelopment experience in West Germany has become a great advantage for the East German cities since 1990. After the so-called Wende (the downfall of the Berlin wall in 1989) their situation was a big challenge for the planners and investors who were responsible: in the former GDR the quarters with old structures have been neglected for decades. Up to the 1980s the Socialist practice of urban development was concentrated on the representative remodeling of the city centers and the erection of industrially prefabricated template buildings (Plattenbau). Many culturally and historically important urban districts with old buildings have fallen victim to this kind of development and the remaining quarters were in a completely neglected condition at the time of reunification. Only since the late 1970s has the GDR begun to set up redevelopment areas, but only in a limited number. The city of Rostock, an important city of the former Hanseatic League, for example started to restore the old harbor district [29] in 1979 and in East Berlin the Nikolaiviertel [30] was reconstructed and became a tourist attraction. With the reunification contract the West German urban planning and renewal legislation was transferred to the Neue Bundesländer (new states). Subsequently redevelopment areas [31] were set up all over East Germany and millions of public financial support were invested in construction.
At present urban renewal is confronted with new problems both in East and West Germany. They are connected to the fundamental structural change from an industrial to a post-industrial society. The handling [32] of industrial sites which have fallen waste, the so-called recycling of sites [33], belongs as much to the tasks of municipal redevelopment planning as do the efforts to produce concepts for renewing abandoned military sites, the so-called conversion [34]. Due to the reducing financial and regulative margin of municipalities and, at the same time, the increasing polarization of social structures [35] a solution to these problems is a challenge for decades to come.
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