District management

Neighborhood management or district management is a procedure in urban development . It is used for planning and control in city ​​or districts .

theory

Starting position

Due to multiple causes such as B. regional economic weaknesses, high immigration of socially disadvantaged classes or obsolescence in the housing stock deteriorate the social structures in some parts of the city. The social differences between the districts are increasing. Displacement effects occur: gentrification and socio-spatial segregation .

Against this background, earlier strategies of urban renewal, with primarily structural, spatial and investment objectives , were not optimally effective.

The complex problem situation in the emerging overburdened neighborhoods and quarters, characterized by low incomes, high unemployment, poor building fabric, a lack of neighborhood help, can - so the assumption - only be solved with an integrative approach. A solution strategy requires the interaction of social work , economic development , urban planning , educational and cultural work.

Core idea

Integration of actors and goals

The district management instrument is characterized on the one hand by bringing together the actors from the various areas of administration, local politics, private business, local associations and non-organized residents. On the other hand, the objective is to integrate the different aspects of economic development, social qualification and urban development.

Empowerment instead of supervision

A further task of the district management should lead to the fact that the residents of the districts actively participate in the improvement process. It is about encouraging people to help themselves ( empowerment ). The development of responsibility for one's own urban district should be strengthened in the long term and self-supporting resident organizations created.

practice

Development in the Federal Republic of Germany

In the Federal Republic of Germany already from the 1970s to 1990s in parts of the city in z. B. Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen in the context of urban development in particularly affected city quarters or districts, a neighborhood management application. In some other European countries, these forms of integrated district development have also existed since the 1980s, for example in the Netherlands (district funds since 1985) or in Great Britain ( New Deal since 1997).

Inspired by the idea of ​​social sustainability from Agenda 21 , there was a further development of the funding practice in urban development, in which the instrument of district management was used more frequently. In the federal states, especially in the city-states, these funding strategies emerged as early as the early 1990s. In Bremen there had been the Housing in Neighborhood (Win) program since 1992 , in Hamburg a new approach was taken with the poverty reduction program in a comparable way, in North Rhine-Westphalia a program for districts with special development needs was launched in 1996 ; other federal states (Hessen, Berlin) followed. At the same time, at the ministerial conference of ARGEBAU on October 20, 1996, the nationwide Social City initiative was launched. In 1999, this resulted in the federal-state program (funding possibility according to Art. 104a Para. 4 GG (recently Art. 104b GG)) under the title Districts with Special Development Needs - The Social City , or Social City for short . In 2001, the funding volume totaled 220 million euros.

According to gentrification researcher Andrej Holm , educated middle classes in particular use the committees and participation instruments. By focusing on the creative industries and service providers, the quarter managers actively support the displacement of small businesses and economic structures such as sex shops that are undesirable for the bourgeoisie. Overall, the instrument can largely be identified as the engine of general gentrification.

medium

District office of the Berlin district management Reuterplatz

In order to do justice to the integrative objective and the change from supervision to qualification, different means are part of the district management concept.

• Central control is carried out by a district manager appointed by the municipality. This takes care of the implementation in the planning and implementation and, if necessary. the funding, unless this is done by a redevelopment officer or redevelopment agency. But it also has the task of opening up local funding opportunities.
• Usually there is a district or district office , which on the one hand provides the administrative infrastructure for the district management, but on the other hand can also be the contact point and meeting point for citizen organizations.
• An important component is a so-called neighborhood fund, a funding pot from which short-term and small-scale measures in the city district can be financed (beautification campaigns, courtyard festivals, playground construction). A citizen jury composed of residents under the direction of the commissioned district management usually decides on the distribution of this money.

literature

• Monika Alisch: District Management . Requirements and opportunities for the social city . Opladen 1998, ISBN 3-8100-32174 .
• German Institute for Urban Studies (ed.): Strategies for the social city. Experiences and perspectives - Implementation of the federal-state program "Districts with special development needs - the social city" on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Transport, Building and Housing, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-88118-344-2 ( PDF; 7.8 MB ).
• Gaby Grimm, Wolfgang Hinte, Gerhard Litges, Johannes Groppe: Neighborhood management - a municipal strategy for disadvantaged residential areas . ISBN 3-89404-743-7 .
• Philipp Mühlberg: District Management. Specialized Lexicon of Social Work, 7th ed . Baden-Baden 2011, ISBN 978-3-8329-5153-5 .
• Herbert Schubert, Holger Spieckermann: Standards of neighborhood management, principles of action for the control of an integrated district development . Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-938038-01-2 .
• O. Schnur: Local social capital for the 'social' city. Political geographies of social district development using the example of Berlin-Moabit . Opladen 2003.
• Wüstenrot Foundation (Ed.): Stadtsurfer, Quartierfans & Co - Urban constructions of young people and the network of urban public spaces . JOVIS Verlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-939633-65-5 .

See also

• Redevelopment agencies or development agencies or other agents to fulfill the tasks of the municipalities for the planning and implementation of overall urban development measures .
• Urban development funding | Urban renewal | Urban monument protection | Social City | City | Historic city center | Building Code | Area with special development needs

Web links

• Federal and State Program Social City
• stadtteilarbeit.de
• Neighborhood management in NRW (article)
• Berlin neighborhood management
• Frankfurt program Active Neighborhood

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Interview with Holm. In: gentrificationblog.wordpress.com , March 29, 2010
2. ↑ The dirty quarter is changing its face. In: welt.de , July 12, 2007