Everyday Ecology, Energy, Consumption
Project:
Demand-Driven Life-Cycle Management: Developing Urban Neighborhoods
Project head:
Prof. Dr. Jörg Knieling, HafenCity Universität Hamburg
Project team in ISOE:
Dr. Immanuel Stieß (Leadership)
Dr. Jutta Deffner
Project partner:
HafenCity Universität Hamburg, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, team ewen
Duration :
04/2006 bis 03/2009
finished
Funding:
Federal Ministry of Education and Research
REFINA is a funding priority by the BMBF in coaction with the BMVBS and the BMU:
Publications:
Dappen, Claudia /
Stieß, Immanuel / Jutta Deffner (2007): Rediscovering Urban Neighbourhoods - Residential Mobility Motivations of Urban Dwellers in Settlements of the 1950s - 1960s. Paper presented at the Workshop Migration, Residential Mobility, and Housing Policy, ENHR 2007 International Conference "Sustainable Urban Areas", Rotterdam, 25.-28. June 2007
Demand-Driven Life-Cycle Management: Developing Urban Neighborhoods
Cities are changing. They grow through new development projects; shrink when residents move away; their neighbourhoods age. In the past these processes ran their course without problems: established neighbourhoods were filled with new users and functions. Today, under the circumstances of demographic and structural changes these areas face economic and ecological problems through under-utilization and vacancies of buildings.
With the demand driven life-cycle-management municipalities get a set of instruments, which helps them to weigh revitalising respectively renewing urban neighbourhoods against new developments at the city's edge.
In many European cities housing post-war settlements of the 1950ies to the early 1970ies form a large part of urban housing stock. Therefore their development plays a key role in urban development. In a qualitative empirical study the ISOE investigated housing mobility decisions and desires how to live of urban dwellers, who recently moved in neighbourhoods of the 1950ies to early 1970ies. The developed target group model (Charts, pdf-file, 1.2 mb) gives important indicators for needs, motivations and attitudes of potential customer groups in this segment of residential market.
Demand Driven Life-cycle-management to Revitalise Cities
A growth in suburbs and exurbs increasingly occurs at the expense of inner-city neighbourhoods. In particular, neighbourhoods deriving from the 1950's and the 1960's have been losing important groups of residents. As a result, their technical and social infrastructures are no longer adequate to the needs of the remaining residents, with neighbourhoods suffering a consequent loss of image. On the other hand, the demand for land around cities results in high costs being barely (if at all) included in traditional economic cost-benefit analysis.
Life cycle concepts are familiar in ecology as well as in economy in the context of facil-ity management, and have also a rich history in demography and urban sociology. In our research project, we use a life cycle perspective as an integrative conceptual framework. The concept of "life-cycle" links the constructional with the social dimensions of neighbourhoods. It designates a periodically occurring process, during which the characteristics of buildings and technical infrastructure as well as the residential population structure change, only to return once again to a condition similar to what was found at the start (see figure). This process of change can display the following four aspects:
- Change in habitat or open land
- Change in (or to) individual residential buildings
- Change in infrastructure
- Change in population size or structure – Change in (or development of) use of residencies
A main objective of the project "demand-driven life-cycle management" is to develop an array of tools that can be used by municipalities to evaluate the advantages of implementing urban revitalization or renewal projects rather than using open land for construction. In this way, the constructional and social development of neighbourhoods can be observed over time by following a life-cycle that begins with the preparation of land for building and its consequent first-time use, with the infrastructural and follow-up costs being thereby aggregated. From such a demand-driven perspective the needs and requirements of residents can be taken into account.
The integrative approach to life-cycle management links planning, economic and communicative tools, and serves municipalities as a tool for analysis, communication and management by including actors such as housing development companies, tenants and investors. With this set of tools, possibilities for renovating, modernizing and further developing existing residential stock can be clearly articulated. The development of these tools, and the first steps in their implementation, are undertaken in close coopera-tion with the partner municipalities.
The completed analyses, concepts and tools are reviewed in a close dialogue with the partners involved. The research group uses this approach with, among others, the German municipalities of Goettingen, Kiel, Braunschweig, Hamburg, and Darmstadt.