Disurbanisierung und Reurbanisierung

Abstract

Spatial development in eastern Germany in the '90s was marked to a very significant degree by processes of relatively small-scale suburbanisation; there are now clear signs of a change towards processes of large-scale disurbanisation with occasional tendencies towards reurbanisation. At the same time, new polarised development patterns are emerging. If we disregard a small number of islands of stability in a demographic landscape otherwise characterised by shrinkage, the pattern emerging is one of spatial clusters with above-average levels of population depletion, attributable both to natural wastage (more deaths than births) and to the absence of major migration streams. In the context of current developments, the losers are in particular the towns and cities. In view of the prevailing economic climate in eastern Germany, disurbanisation processes can be expected to continue unabated over large areas of the territory, with exceptions to this trend only in a few islands of reubanisation, such as the Leipzig and Dresden regions and the city-axis found in Thuringia.  Spatial development in eastern Germany in the '90s was marked to a very significant degree by processes of relatively small-scale suburbanisation; there are now clear signs of a change towards processes of large-scale disurbanisation with occasional tendencies towards reurbanisation. At the same time, new polarised development patterns are emerging. If we disregard a small number of islands of stability in a demographic landscape otherwise characterised by shrinkage, the pattern emerging is one of spatial clusters with above-average levels of population depletion, attributable both to natural wastage (more deaths than births) and to the absence of major migration streams. In the context of current developments, the losers are in particular the towns and cities. In view of the prevailing economic climate in eastern Germany, disurbanisation processes can be expected to continue unabated over large areas of the territory, with exceptions to this trend only in a few islands of reubanisation, such as the Leipzig and Dresden regions and the city-axis found in Thuringia.