Format-Oriented Regional Development as a Strategy for Proactive Transformation in the Rhenish Mining Area

disP - The Planning Review, vol. 58, pp. 50–59

Abstract

Proactive state-led transformations of post-industrial regions have a significant tradition in Germany. The federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia alone hosted the International Building Exhibition (Internationale Bauausstellung – IBA) Emscher Park regional format in the Ruhr mining region between 1989 and 1999. Since then, it has implemented a format-oriented REGIONALE programme that is still ongoing. Nevertheless, the current transformation of the Rhenish Mining Area (RMA) poses its own challenges: Not only the massive landscape transformation of the opencast mining areas but also the formulation and negotiation of corresponding development goals remain a largely untested approach to regional development. There is also the organisation and maintenance of sustainable governance structures in a plethora of sub-regional approaches, interdependencies and time perspectives. The planned launch of the International Building and Technology Exhibition (Internationale Bau- und Technologieausstellung – IBTA) in the RMA, like that of the IBA Emscher Park, is aimed at bridging these challenges and thus creating significant potential for format-oriented regional development. This article highlights essential temporal-spatial dependencies and conflicts in regional structural change as a characteristic of the RMA. Further, it discusses the advantages and limitations of format-oriented regional development carried out by the IBTA as a means of synchronisation of timely and spatially disconnected intraregional developments.

Authors 1

1. Jan Polívka corresponding Aachen Junior Professor

   RWTH Aachen University · ILS – Research Institute for Regional and Urban Development · ILS Research

   Affiliation as printed

   ILS Research Institute for Regional and Urban Development, Brüderweg 22–24, 44135 Dortmund, Germany

   Junior Professor, RWTH Aachen University, Faculty of Architecture, Wüllnerstr. 5B, 52062 Aachen, Germany