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Summary
wider urban development context. However, smaller
towns sometimes have problems in managing the complex
set of different financial resources. The financial
settlement from the property owners is one of the most
delicate issues in the management of the regeneration
process. Good examples show that the settlement can
be implemented successfully but with a lot of effort. A
key precondition for success is early, transparent and
comprehensive information of the owners in the redevelopment
area.
Regeneration procedures result in various positive
effects that sometimes come up even before they are
completed and they are often stable thereafter. Among
them are urban development, image and functional
effects and organizational learning that can be used for
other local policies. However, the effects cannot easily
be isolated from overall trends in urban development.
They are threatened by economic and demographic
crises locally. Especially the mega-structures that have
been integrated into the urban fabric in the 1970s are
often very fragile and create reasons for belated rectification
measures.
Urban regeneration measures play a central role in
contributing to making inner cities of all sizes sustainable.
They were partly responsible for allowing for
an adaptation to a car-dominated, service industry
based and life-style oriented society. Thus, they laid
the foundation for an “urban renaissance”. Some of
the essential elements of the careful strategies that
have proved their worth until today are the successful
adaptive reuse of non-residential buildings as a contribution
to vibrant neighbourhoods, a quality-oriented
approach towards the planning of public space, traffic
calming combined with an improvement of access and
the creation of alternative housing options in carefully
integrated new buildings.
Important economic effects besides the promotion
of local craftsmanship and the construction sector
are the stabilization of the traditional retail areas in
downtown, an increase in attractiveness for visitors
and the stimulation of alternative economies in the
service sector. They depend strongly on the size if the
city and the economic environment. Although redevelopment
areas can hardly ever be considered important
job centers, the economic effects of the regeneration
process should not be underestimated. They are not
self-evident, though, and they are highly dependent on
a consistent urban development strategy. Particularly
middle-sized towns have seen reactions to changes in
the retail sector in trying to stabilize the main inner-city
retail centers that have seen major investment during
the regeneration process.
In big cities, urban regeneration could contribute to
social cohesion. Strategies that take social housing
seriously, provide a wide range of housing options and
carefully upgraded the existing housing stock were particularly
successful. However, lately the urban planning
regulations do not provide powerful safeguards against
gentrification anymore when inner cities witness an
overall increase in attractiveness and after the regeneration
process has been completed. However, regeneration
policies are not clearly accountable for symptoms
of gentrification. Sometimes, they rather buffered the
effects of gentrification. Former redevelopment areas
are sometimes surprisingly socially mixed, but the gentrification
accelerates when the social housing policies
come to an end. On the other hand, there are neighbourhoods
with negative image that can only be partly
stabilized by upgrading measures. In middle-sized
towns and less prominent parts of the cities, the regeneration
strategies have to incorporate the contemporary
housing needs and provide the respective supply for
different social strata. In general, gentrification is less
significant than in a few well-known bourgeois-bohemian
neighbourhoods of big cities.
Surprisingly, environmental effects of urban regeneration
are hard to measure. They play a minor role in
self-reporting of the cities. Nevertheless, urban regeneration
contributes significantly to inner-city conversion
and to an acceptance of compact housing not only by
the addressees but also all sorts of stakeholders. High
densities and a mix of functions were key factors in
stabilizing a compact urban fabric, but they are by no
means self-evident.
Organizational learning in public administrations in governance
arrangements would not have been so striking
had it not been for the challenges posed by careful regeneration
with a wide range of stakeholders, owners and
inhabitants. The results were participatory approaches
and a number of interesting instrumental organizational
and management innovations that last until today
and that are now sometimes part of the mainstream.
Langzeitwirkungen und Effektivierung der Städtebauförderung