Suburbanisation in East Germany Bernt, Matthias; Volkmann, Anne
Urban studies (Edinburgh, Scotland),
07/2024, Volume:
61, Issue:
9
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Rampant suburbanisation is one of the most visible changes evidenced in cities throughout Central and Eastern Europe in the past three decades. In this paper, we analyse how suburbanisation unfolded ...in East Germany after reunification. We do this against the background of ongoing debates about the usefulness and meaning of the term post-socialism that have questioned the self-enclosed spatiality of the concept and suggest giving the concept of neoliberalisation a more central role in analysing the changes experienced in this part of the world. We show that the suburbanisation process in East Germany rested on three neoliberal policy orientations: (1) extensive investment stimuli for the construction of new rental housing, (2) promotion of home ownership and (3) the privileging of suburban locations through planning gaps. Since all these policies are based on neoliberal ideas, we argue that neoliberalisation and post-socialist reform agendas have appeared as two sides of the same coin. Against this background, we advocate putting the developments that came after socialism at the centre of the research and call for a new generation of studies on post-socialist neoliberalisation.
Full text
Available for:
NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Academic discussions often refer to the German urban development program "Stadtumbau Ost" Urban Regeneration East as a showcase example of proactive policies on urban shrinkage. The paper discusses ...how this program came into being. Based on expert interviews and document analysis, it demonstrates that the primary cause for "Stadtumbau Ost" was not so much a new development policy for depopulated cities, but rather an attempt to manage tackle an acute crisis of large housing companies. These exerted enormous influence on policy-making and made sure that new policies were designed in a way that would benefit their interests. At the same time, the new program was based on established federal funding policies which made the integration of planning principles vital. The outcome is a hybrid, combining a market shakeout with visions of sustainable planning.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Given the mitochondrial gene orders and the phylogenetic relationship of a set of unichromosomal taxa, we study the problem of finding a plausible and parsimonious assignment of genomic rearrangement ...events to the edges of the given phylogenetic tree. An algorithm called algorithm TreeREx (tree rearrangement explorer) is proposed for solving this problem heuristically. TreeREx is based on an extended version of algorithm CREx (common interval rearrangement explorer, 4) that heuristically computes pairwise rearrangement scenarios for gene order data. As phylogenetic events in such scenarios reversals, transpositions, reverse transpositions, and tandem duplication random loss (TDRL) operations are considered. CREx can detect such events as patterns in the signed strong interval tree, a data structure representing gene groups that appear consecutively in a set of two gene orders. TreeREx then tries to assign events to the edges of the phylogenetic tree, such that the pairwise scenarios are reflected on the paths of the tree. It is shown that TreeREx can automatically infer the events and the ancestral gene orders for realistic biological examples of mitochondrial gene orders. In an analysis of gene order data for teleosts, algorithm TreeREx is able to identify a yet undocumented TDRL towards species Bregmaceros nectabanus.
In recent years, the question of how urban spaces support the arrival of immigrants has found increased attention among scholars. The emerging discussion uses terms like arrival cities, arrival ...neighbourhoods, arrival spaces, arrival contexts, or arrival infrastructures to refer to local conditions which support immigrant inclusion. This discussion, however, tends to focus empirically and conceptually on neighbourhoods or cities with long-standing migration histories. Connected to this, arrival spaces are often conceptualised as spaces with strong migrant support networks and economies, as well as with high levels of functional diversity and a high fluctuation of residents. Less focus is placed on the question of if and how destinations that lack these characteristics support the arrival of new immigrants. This contribution focuses on this by discussing existent conceptualisations of arrival spaces and contrasting them with empirical illustrations of peripheral estate neighbourhoods in east German cities that have experienced a substantial population loss since the 1990s, resulting in the partial demolition of housing and infrastructure. Since the refugee migration to Germany starting in 2015, the population dynamic in these neighbourhoods has changed substantially. We contrast these developments with the literature on arrival contexts in order to reflect the strengths and weaknesses of the concept, specifically regarding the conditions in new destinations where migrant networks and economies are still emerging, functional diversity is low, and the role of residential fluctuation is unclear. While this article draws on empirical material, its major objective is to point out the blind spots in the current discussion around arrival spaces. It develops questions and offers a research agenda that introduces a wider and more varied set of neighbourhoods into the evolving research agenda on arrival spaces.
Over the last several years, an increasing number of scholarly contributions have questioned the usefulness of the concept of gentrification for cases outside of the context in which the term was ...originally developed. The paper builds on this debate and explores the unfolding of gentrification in two contrasting environments undergoing post-socialist transformations. It analyzes the course of urban upgrading in Prenzlauer Berg in East Berlin as well as in the central city of Saint Petersburg, arguing that while the transformation from a planned economy to a market system generally made gentrification possible, the specific conditions of property transfer, the transformation of inherited social rights, as well as the different setup of planning institutions have produced very different patterns of neighborhood change. In sum, it is suggested that "gentrification" is in fact an umbrella term for fairly disparate socio-spatial formations which result in different dynamics of regeneration and population change.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
This paper discusses the so-called "local turn" in the governance of migration and integration as expressed in the relevant literature. The study focuses on how and to what extent migration-related ...issues have been reflected in urban development strategies in the east German city of Leipzig over the past 20 years. Based on the analysis of planning documents and interviews with experts and decision-makers, the paper shows that urban planning strategies have increasingly recognized the role of and adapted to immigration. However, migration has certainly not yet become the central focus of planning strategies. Moreover, there is a mismatch between the immigration of sought-after "high potentials" and "creative types", and actual migration which is dominated by refugees. Whereas the first group is targeted through marketing campaigns and specific place-based policies, the latter is by and large subject to welfare state policies. The paper discusses three major factors that serve to explain this double orientation and argues that they create massive barriers to making migration a more central issue in urban planning. In sum, the paper takes a somewhat sceptical view of the "local turn" and cautions against using studies with few cases on limited policy fields to generalise about urban governance trends.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
This paper introduces a Special Issue of the Journal of Housing and the Built Environment entitled “Housing estates in the era of marketization – governance practices and urban development”. The ...issue includes 10 European case studies on how marketization has impacted large housing estates (LHEs) across Europe. The collection includes novel contributions from well-studied countries like France or the United Kingdom, cases from Scandinavia and Mediterranean countries, as well as articles from post-socialist cities where the majority of LHEs are situated, and as such presents the diversity of experiences that has emerged in housing estates across Europe in the last two decades. Since the global turn towards neoliberal governance regimes at the end of the 20th century the commodification of housing, accompanied by the financialization of real estate, has not left any housing markets or market segments untouched. All articles focus on the interconnections between problems found in the development of housing estates and the processes of privatization and marketization. We aim to address two main research gaps: (1) we demonstrate that marketization and financialization are preconditions for the development of contemporary housing, incl. housing estate neighborhoods, and (2) we address the need for an up-to-date pan-European overview on contemporary urban governance and planning practices related to LHEs.
Mitochondrial (mt) markers are successfully applied in evolutionary biology and systematics because mt genomes often evolve faster than the nuclear genomes. In addition, they allow robust ...phylogenetic analysis based on conserved proteins of the oxidative phosphorylation system. In the present study we sequenced and annotated the complete mt genome of P. subalpina, a member of the Phialocephala fortinii s.l. - Acephala applanata species complex (PAC). PAC belongs to the Helotiales, which is one of the most diverse groups of ascomycetes including more than 2,000 species. The gene order was compared to deduce the mt genome evolution in the Pezizomycotina. Genetic variation in coding and intergenic regions of the mtDNA was studied for PAC to assess the usefulness of mt DNA for species diagnosis.
The mt genome of P. subalpina is 43,742 bp long and codes for 14 mt genes associated with the oxidative phosphorylation. In addition, a GIY-YIG endonuclease, the ribosomal protein S3 (Rps3) and a putative N-acetyl-transferase were recognized. A complete set of tRNA genes as well as the large and small rRNA genes but no introns were found. All protein-coding genes were confirmed by EST sequences. The gene order in P. subalpina deviated from the gene order in Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, the only other helotialean species with a fully sequenced and annotated mt genome. Gene order analysis within Pezizomycotina suggests that the evolution of gene orders is mostly driven by transpositions. Furthermore, sequence diversity in coding and non-coding mtDNA regions in seven additional PAC species was pronounced and allowed for unequivocal species diagnosis in PAC.
The combination of non-interrupted ORFs and EST sequences resulted in a high quality annotation of the mt genome of P. subalpina, which can be used as a reference for the annotation of other mt genomes in the Helotiales. In addition, our analyses show that mtDNA loci will be the marker of choice for future analysis of PAC communities.
Full text
Available for:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
PDF
