Wilderness: The Nature of Urban Shrinkage? The Debate on Urban Restructuring and Restoration in Eastern Germany

Since about the 1980s shrinkage has become a new normality especially for European cities and urban regions. As a consequence of the shrinking process, new dimensions of wastelands appear in the affected cities. Urban planners have to find solutions for these "holes" in the urban fabric an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Nature and culture 2009-12, Vol.4 (3), p.275-292
Main Author:	Rink, Dieter
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Anthropology of landscape Cities City Planning Conservation Debates Demolition Europe Federal Republic of Germany Germany (East) Habitat conservation Landscapes Nature Nature conservation Urban anthropology Urban Areas Urban decline Urban ecology Urban wastelands Wasteland Wilderness
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	Since about the 1980s shrinkage has become a new normality especially for European cities and urban regions. As a consequence of the shrinking process, new dimensions of wastelands appear in the affected cities. Urban planners have to find solutions for these "holes" in the urban fabric and new visions are needed for open spaces. In the last few years, the wilderness concept has emerged in the planning field and it has become a fashionable term, in particular in urban restructuring in eastern Germany. If wilderness is a usable concept for urban restructuring, can wilderness be a new structuring element for urban planning? This article analyzes the mechanisms of formation of wasteland in shrinking cities, and then focuses on related debates in urban planning as well as the debates in urban ecology and nature conservation research. The article concludes by considering different aspects of these debates and the question of which role wilderness can play in shrinking cities is discussed.
ISSN:	1558-6073 1558-5468