Suburbanisation in East Germany

Matthias Bernt and Anne Volkmann
Additional contact information
Matthias Bernt: Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space (IRS), Germany
Anne Volkmann: B.B.S.M. Brandenburgische Beratungsgesellschaft für Stadterneuerung und Modernisierung mbH, Germany

Urban Studies, 2024, vol. 61, issue 9, 1789-1805

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: East Germany; post-socialism; roll-out neoliberalism; suburbanisation; transformation; 东德; å Žç¤¾ä¼šä¸»ä¹‰; æ”¿åºœæ‰©å¼ åž‹æ–°è‡ªç”±ä¸»ä¹‰; 郊区化; æ”¹é © (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00420980231218612 (text/html)

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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:61:y:2024:i:9:p:1789-1805

DOI: 10.1177/00420980231218612

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Urban Studies from Urban Studies Journal Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().