Partnerships for Demolition: The Governance of Urban Renewal in East Germany's Shrinking Cities

Matthias Bernt

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2009, vol. 33, issue 3, pages 754-769

Abstract: Recent discussions of urban governance have emphasized a trend towards the 'entrepreneurialization' of local politics. This model has been intensively discussed and well documented. However, although this concept has been well tested in economically prosperous locations, less attention has been paid to the situation in marginalized regions characterized by a weak economy and a declining population. Taking eastern Germany as an example of a socio-economic context marked by deindustrialization and population decline, the article discusses three main aspects of local governance arrangements under such conditions. First 'coping with decline' has become a more important issue in local politics than 'entrepreneurial' growth-strategies. Second, successful public-private coalition-building is severely complicated. Third, local politics are more dependent on resources from the national government than on private investment, lending greater significance to the national level and resulting in 'grant coalitions' rather than 'growth coalitions'. The article focuses on these different experiences and discusses their implications for the analysis of urban governance. Copyright (c) 2009 The Author. Journal Compilation (c) 2009 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Date: 2009

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2009.00856.x link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:33:y:2009:i:3:p:754-769

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0309-1317

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research is edited by Alan Harding, Roger Keil and Jeremy Seekings

More articles in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research from Blackwell Publishing
Series data maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().