by MICHAEL PETEREK
For a long time, almost all cities in Germany have been determined by a merely quantitative expansion of their urbanised areas. These developments were related to an important change of scale: from delimited cityscapes to almost unlimited city-regions.
The effects are widely known: suburbanisation and extensive urban sprawl, mono-functional zoning of our cities, leading to a physical, functional and social separation of their single constitutive parts. On the one hand, there are mono-functional residential zones, strictly divided under the terms of the specific socio-economical status of their inhabitants, and on the other hand, there are equally mono-functional areas zoned for business and industries, too. The result is a disintegrated city that falls apart into different zones, sectors and partitions, creating an increasing necessity of connecting individual automobile mobility to make the city work at least. To sum up, this disintegrated city is not a sustainable form of urban living at all.
At the same time, urban societies are subject to enormous changes today, facing novel and so far unbeknown demographic, social, ecological and economic challenges – like the ageing of society, smaller and much more diversified household typologies – well beyond the traditional nuclear families –, an increasing immigration and with it cultural differentiation in our cities, severe ecological and economic constraints and others. These transformations make the enhancement of new forms and models of collective living in urban societies necessary. The scale of urban districts can be helpful for these purposes.
The effects are widely known: suburbanisation and extensive urban sprawl, mono-functional zoning of our cities, leading to a physical, functional and social separation of their single constitutive parts. On the one hand, there are mono-functional residential zones, strictly divided under the terms of the specific socio-economical status of their inhabitants, and on the other hand, there are equally mono-functional areas zoned for business and industries, too. The result is a disintegrated city that falls apart into different zones, sectors and partitions, creating an increasing necessity of connecting individual automobile mobility to make the city work at least. To sum up, this disintegrated city is not a sustainable form of urban living at all.
At the same time, urban societies are subject to enormous changes today, facing novel and so far unbeknown demographic, social, ecological and economic challenges – like the ageing of society, smaller and much more diversified household typologies – well beyond the traditional nuclear families –, an increasing immigration and with it cultural differentiation in our cities, severe ecological and economic constraints and others. These transformations make the enhancement of new forms and models of collective living in urban societies necessary. The scale of urban districts can be helpful for these purposes.
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| Housing in French Quarter, Südstadt, Tübingen, by passage.co |
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| Planned urban space in French Quarter, Südstadt, Tübingen, by passage.co |
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