Selected Areal Effects of Planning Processes Upon Urban Development in the Federal Republic of Germany

A MERICAN and German planners face similar problems. Increasing percentages of the populations are concentrated in metropolitan areas where regional problems of urban sprawl, haphazard land use, and unbalanced functional development override political boundaries. In both countries valuable agricultural land on the urban fringe is developed each year in varying ways. The German approach to these problems has been different from the American one but little has been written in English on German planning concepts. This is particularly true of the postwar period when planning has become an essential tool for a nation faced with the problems of reconstruction and numerous refugees. However, planning must now take place within a decentralized governmental system since a federal structure has replaced the prewar centralized administration. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to present some generalizations concerning the evolution of the planning framework in the Federal Republic after the war; and, secondly, to examine two planning processes, one regional and the other local, which appear to be affecting German urban development. In the Federal Republic of Germany metropolitan expansion is a predominant characteristic of the population pattern. Using estimated figures for 1955, Davis found that the 38 metropolitan areas of the Federal Republic (including Berlin) included slightly over 25 million people, or approximately half the total population of the country.' Over 13 million lived in the Landkreise (counties) which surround the Kreisfreie Stddte or cities independent of the county. German planners have become particularly concerned with the increase of the metropolitan population because the average population density is already very high and proper use of the rapidly dwindling land resource is especially important for all aspects of the economy. The solution of these problems can be carried out only on a regional basis since rapid geographic changes bear no real relationship to existing community, county, or even state boundaries

Archaeology · Civil engineering · Economic growth · Economics · Environmental protection · Federal republic · Geography · German · Land use · Land-use planning · Metropolitan area · Political science · Politics · Population · Regional planning · Regional science · Sociology · Urban planning · Urban sprawl · World War II · Demography · Engineering · Urbanization and City Planning