Guidelines for the “Perfect Inner City”. Discussing the Appropriateness of Monitoring Approaches for Reurbanization

Abstract

In this paper, we analyse the appropriateness of monitoring approaches for the observation of inner-city reurbanization processes. Reurbanization is conceptualized here as a process of long-term stabilization of inner-city areas by both a readiness of present residents to stay and an influx of new residents. It has been recently re-set on the top of the European urban research agenda since non-growth has proved to be a major path of future development for many European cities. Recent research evidence across Europe underscores the fact that reurbanization depends much on local settings of institutional, socio-economic and infrastructural factors. To foster a clearer understanding of the nature and dynamics of local reurbanization, to assess its extent and progress and, what is more, to help practitioners to shape sustainable policy initiatives appropriate to the respective context, reurbanization needs to be observed over the long term. The complex character of reurbanization sets new challenges for monitoring approaches and indicator-based tools. Due to the genuine relation of the present debate on reurbanization to the phenomenon of non-growth or the return of the compact city, the focus in this paper is set on demographic development trends and their impact on inner-city change. In this vein, our paper presents a monitoring design and a respective newly developed indicator set for reurbanization which focuses more on the initial recognition of reurbanization than on its long-term stability. Methodically, chances and limits of the integration of household-related indicators and qualitative knowledge on reurbanization into monitoring tools are highlighted. Empirical and statistical evidence is taken from a recently completed EU FP 5 research project and from municipal surveys.

Urban Ecology of Shrinking Cities: An Unrecognized Opportunity?

“…The experiences from eastern German cities tell us that shrinkage leads to considerable vivid spatial and visual effects: a "perforation" of growing and shrinking urban clusters, patchy patterns of wealth (islands of upgrading), and poverty at the local level (Haase et al , 2008. Furthermore, we find a small-scale fragmentation of the urban population (in the form of a fragmented "housing geography") or splintering of the urban population (Buzar et al 2007), a high number of residential vacancies in many housing estates, commercial vacancies in inner-city shopping malls, and large-scale brownfields in both the inner city and suburbia.…”

Reurbanisation: A long‐term process or a short‐term stage?

“…Thus, the selected indicators for reurbanisation can be prone for artefacts in data interpretation and explanation. In order to better identify and follow reurbanisation in Leipzig, we propose continuous and distinct monitoring that separates between different types of immigration groups. The used initial set of indicators suggested by Haase et al () and applied by Kabisch et al () focuses on “reurbanites” that means people that are in‐migrating or back migrating; however, in the last decade, housing market issues have become increasingly decisive for residential mobility (different from the phase of high vacancies and low housing costs through the second half of the 2000s), and we recommend to include housing market variables and indicators such as rent or selling prices, ownership constellations, speculations, and the share of social housing and consider them together with population/household features. Our methodological approach (indicator‐based cluster analysis) has many advantages; it allows for comparison of the spatial spread of reurbanisation and understanding of who/what drives it. The cluster analysis proved to be a valuable tool to analyse multiple complex process with a spatial component.…”

“…A set of reurbanisation-relevant indicators were used to identify current population and urban development processes. The indicators are based on an interdisciplinary indicator set to observe reurbanisation (developed by Haase, Haase, Kabisch, & Bischoff, 2008). The indicator set includes household number and household size, migration (including net migration), immigration, and outmigration across the city border, in-migration and out-migration across local district borders, percentage of unemployment, percentage of FIGURE 1 Population development in Leipzig from 1990 to 2015, including total population balance, net migration (migration balance), and natural population balance.…”

The reurbanisation concept and its utility for contemporary research on post-socialist cities: The case of the Czech Republic

“…The reurbanisation process is then understood as a process of the long-term stabilisation of central city areas by retaining existing inhabitants and attempting to attract new residents (Haase et al, 2008). For many European cities with a declining number of inhabitants, the reurbanisation process could be the main route and vision for their future development (Turok and Mykhnenko, 2007).…”