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Average monthly basic rent per square metre (m 2 ) in Leipzig 1994-2010 (new rental arrangements only). Note: The figure displays average monthly rents (excluding heating costs) per square metre in the case of re-rentals. The price relates to a good-quality flat with three bedrooms (ca. 70 m 2 ). After 2008, the prices for flats built between 1949 and 1990 are no longer provided, for unspecified "methodological reasons". Values for the period after 2010 are provided again in various categories. Source: City of Leipzig, MR.
Source publication
In this article, we contribute to a better understanding of contextual differences related to residential segregation. We illuminate one specific contextual factor—housing oversupply—and how it intersects with historically inherited patterns of socio-spatial differentiation and other drivers of residential segregation. The study is based on an anal...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... of population decline (e.g., between 1981 and 1990) or declined to a much smaller degree, compared with total population numbers (in the 1990s). By the early 1990s, there was a strong mismatch between the number of households and the number of accessible dwellings: 232,000 inhabitable dwellings were inhabited by 239,000 statistical households (e.g., parents with their adult children), thus suggesting a considerable demand surplus. The path to oversupply was paved by heavy state subsidies and tax incentives to private investors in order to encourage urban renewal. Privatization of the municipal housing stock to earlier heirs (restitution) and to non-local investors (sales) was the first step on this path. Within just a short period of time, over 10,000 newly built and refurbished dwellings were added to the market. Housing vacancy thus increased from approximately 25,000 apartments (10% of the total housing stock) in 1990 to 69,000 in 2000 (Table 1). Behind these numbers, various forms of vacancies existed: old housing stock in bad condition (non-market-active vacancies) as a legacy of the socialist period as well as vacancies in market-active stocks (oversupply) even in mid- and high-price segments (Spieker, 2005, p. 28); this latter phenomenon was also common to cities with a housing bubble. This situation led to a fall in prices and to increasing housing mobility. In 2002, the basic rent of a newly built flat was 33% lower than in 1994, whilst, in the old housing stock, it was 31% lower; both percentages relate to new rental contracts. In the 2000s, prices generally stagnated but increased slightly after 2008 (Figure 2). In order to provide a holistic picture of the housing situation, the tenure structure must be further explained. The Leipzig housing market still is predominantly a rental market. This is both a legacy of the socialist city and the German housing market model: in 1992, about 92% of the households were renting their apartment or house and in 2010 it was still 86% (City of Leipzig (MR), 2010). The 2011 census revealed that just 13% of the city ’ s housing stock is occupied by its owners. In Frankfurt/Main, for example, this share is 21% (Destatis, 2013). Owner-occupiers ’ housing mobility is lower than that of renters. Renting in Germany is thus an option for a wide range of social groups. The relative flexibility of the rental status thus enabled oversupply, together with low prices and the modernization of the housing stock, to cause a strong increase in intra- urban mobility that by far exceeded the levels in comparable cities in western Germany (Figure 3). This mobility is the driver of many changes that occurred in segregation ...
Citations
... The third thematic area has been centred on urban housing. Much attention has been paid to housing vacancy (Newman et al. 2019;Park et al. 2021b) and its consequences, such as crime, property devaluation, and market (Morckel and Hanlon 2022;Yin et al. 2020), and segregation (Endsley, Brown, and Bruch 2018;Großmann et al. 2015). ...
... While economic and physical-ecological aspects of shrinking cities have long been the focus of research, the fourth group focused on social factors such as segregation (Großmann et al. 2015), participation Markus and Krings 2020), spatial and social inequality (Pourahmad, Khavarian-garmsir, and Hataminejad 2016;Xie et al. 2018), resident satisfaction , quality of life (Amado et al. 2019), human capital (Yang and Pan 2020), vitality (Park, Kim, and Seong 2021a), and sense of place (Lee 2021). Affected by the Paris Agreement in 2015 and increased concerns regarding climate change and environmental degradation, the fifth group of studies dealt with environmental issues such as climate change-induced migration (Khavarian-Garmsir et al. 2019), CO2 patterns (Xiao et al. 2019), environmental sustainability strategies (Campos-Sánchez, Abarca-álvarez, and Reinoso-Bellido 2019), walkability (Yin et al. 2020), and urban vegetation (Berland et al. 2020). ...
This study sheds light on the state of knowledge on shrinking cities over the past four decades by identifying major thematic clusters, conceptual evolutions, and key players. The bibliometric analysis tools of VOSviewer and SciMAT were used to analyze 562 documents indexed in the Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) databases. The publication trend was divided into three subperiods: the genesis period (1978–2004), the growth period (2004–2015), and the rapid growth period (2015–2021). The most significant conceptual evolution in the field occurred between 2004 and 2015. Three thematic clusters were identified: (1) urban policy and planning, (2) physical and ecological planning, and (3) demographic and regional development. This review highlights that issues related to governance and regional, physical, and ecological planning have attracted more attention. Moving beyond past research, we provide four promising areas for further research in shrinking city studies.
... This is because more affluent and mobile households tend to comprise the bulk of out-migrants from shrinking cities, leaving behind larger shares of lower-income and minority households. Given that such population groups are generally less mobile, these dynamics can lead to growing concentrations of socio-economically vulnerable and otherwise marginalised households in the least attractive corners of a city (Großmann et al., 2013(Großmann et al., , 2015. ...
... While all shrinking cities have their own specific characteristics, in many cases intra-urban patterns of depopulation and concentrations of lower-income households appear to go hand-in-hand. This dynamic is caused by both the generally lower levels of mobility among worse-off population groups in shrinking cities and the tendency for the least desirable areas of cities to serve as niches for the poor (Fol, 2012;Glock and Häussermann, 2004;Großmann et al., 2013Großmann et al., , 2015Petsimeris, 1998). Bernt (2016) argued that residential segregation should not be regarded as a phenomenon inherent to shrinking cities, but that urban shrinkage should instead be understood as one of a number of contextual factors that influence the dynamics, levels and patterns of socio-spatial change and inequality. ...
... Großmann et al. (2013) concluded that although the link between shrinkage and segregation appears to largely depend on the local context and the drivers and the scope of shrinkage, as well as on the scale at which the phenomena are analysed, there is strong evidence that urban shrinkage has a catalysing effect on the (rapid) emergence of pockets of poverty and affluence within specific types of residential areas. Großmann et al. (2015) further investigated the influence of housing oversupply on socio-spatial change and differentiation in Leipzig; a case that provided the researchers with the rare chance to investigate the impact of a city-wide housing surplus on the dynamics and the patterns of residential segregation, as opposed to a glut of vacancies confined to a specific area. The authors found that as the city's population declined during the 1990s, levels of residential mobility peaked and certain districts experienced a thorough reshuffling of residents. ...
A nascent body of scholarship suggests that the depopulation of urban areas may catalyse residential segregation between different population groups and spatial concentrations of vulnerable groups. Based on a systematic literature review, this article summarises peer-reviewed articles and case studies on the role of urban shrinkage in shaping residential segregation in the context of European cities, and highlights methodological shortcomings and empirical knowledge gaps, thereby contributing to our understanding of the mechanisms through which population dynamics influence urban inequalities and their relevance for planning and policy. In sum, studies verifying the frequently assumed positive relationship between urban population loss and widening segregation remain few and far between. Moreover, mismatches between spatial and temporal scales, in addition to the indicators and metrics used in past studies, have hampered not only comparisons of how these dynamics play out in different contexts, but also the integration of spatial justice perspectives into urban planning.
... We can see that green regeneration underwent a functional change when we compare the periods of post-shrinkage and regrowth (since 2010). Though green regeneration led to the involvement of many residents and more distributional and procedural justice in terms of access and opportunities to benefit from UGS, after 2010 greening was increasingly seen and exploited as an element of upgrading in times of growth and supply shortage (in contrast to supply surplus before, Grossmann et al., 2015). Housing market processes, and mechanisms of unequal access and distribution, are clearly the main drivers behind the growing inequalities, levels of segregation, and displacement that are evident since 2010 in the context of post-shrinkage regrowth and related policies (Haase, 2019). ...
Greening and green regeneration have been developed as a major strategy for improving quality of life in cities and neighbourhoods. Greening policies and projects are being applied at both the citywide and the neighbourhood level for various reasons, such as adaptation to climate change and the improvement of housing and living conditions as well as wellbeing and health. Urban policies, plans, and programmes have increasingly employed greening strategies to make urban neighbourhoods more attractive, to improve quality of life, and to provide residents with recreational space. At the same time, greening is increasingly “exploited” by market-oriented regeneration and construction strategies. The new critical debates on eco-gentrification—or distributional, procedural, and interactional injustices—are discussing emerging conflicts or trade-offs between green regeneration and the social or housing market impacts, as well as analysing the role of greening and green regeneration with respect to the (re)production of socio-spatial inequalities and injustices.
Set against this background, our paper provides a comparative analysis of two cases—Łódź Stare Polesie (Poland) and Leipzig’s inner east (Germany)—and has a threefold purpose: first, it seeks to analyse interconnections between greening policies and justice concerns. To operationalise the aforementioned interconnections, we will, second, develop an operational model that looks at interconnections as a process and applies a justice perspective that focuses on a multidimensional, intersectional, relational, and context- and policy-sensitive understanding of justice. Third, the paper seeks to detect how a contrasting comparison can help us to come to a better and more comprehensive understanding of the interconnections between green regeneration and justice. The study itself builds on primary research about the two cases from earlier projects.
... Conceptual framework to study policy integration around energy poverty. Großmann et al., 2015). Existing studies on policies linked to energy poverty show that broader and multidisciplinary approaches to addressing energy poverty are considered more viable and effective (Bajomi et al., 2021;Gouveia et al., 2021;Kyprianou et al., 2019). ...
This paper evaluates whether, how, and why policy documents in six diverse European countries (Spain, France, Portugal, the UK, North Macedonia, and Slovenia) link energy poverty to other related policy areas. Our exploratory study suggests that the most explicit links to energy poverty are made in energy efficiency policies rather than in energy price and income policies, due to the dominant techno-economic approach to addressing energy poverty. As countries with a long tradition of addressing energy poverty, France and the UK integrate energy poverty to a greater extent in linked policies. Policy integration is reflected in EU efforts to include energy poverty in climate and energy policies. Emerging debates linked to energy poverty include good governance, citizens' agency, new energy services, and new threats from the energy transition. We argue that the spatial divide of energy poverty across Europe is more than a physical (infrastructural) divide. It is a policy (political) divide embedded in the economic and political space co-shaped by national path dependencies, such as the social welfare system, the energy market, the level of experience of dealing with energy poverty, and the influence of EU policies. These conditions determine the national policy integration efforts linked to energy poverty.
... For some time now, housing has been an important area of geographical research (Adams 1984;Bourne 1981). Thereby, housing policy is one issue complementary to others, such as location, markets -their financialization (Aalbers 2017;Heeg 2013) and regulation (Raco et al. 2020) -segregation, gentrification, or displacement (Beran et al. 2019Großmann et al. 2015;Helbrecht 2018). Housing research, then again, has become a fertile ground for interdisciplinary approaches. ...
In response to the recurring housing question, municipal decision-makers in German cities developed a variety of local housing policies. In recent years, we correspondingly witness an increase in comparative perspectives which analyze the variation and changes in German urban housing policies and planning instruments. This article, first, reviews research on housing policies in German cities with a particular focus on conceptual debates, comparative methodologies, and case selection. Therefore, the review categorizes academic contributions from geography, policy analysis, and planning studies. The article’s second part revisits approaches from comparative housing studies, comparative urbanism, and policy mobility studies in order to explore the extent to which these perspectives offer complementary lenses for analyz- ing the geographies of urban housing policies. Thereby, the article proposes new directions for research on inter-urban policy mobility and sites of learning from elsewhere. This entails framing urban policy arenas not as static or isolated, but as embedded in inter-urban processes and networks which contribute to learning processes through knowledge acquisition and best practices.
... This brings us to another interesting link between the results of our mental mapping exercise, the place rejection that was revealed in Halle-Newtown, and the phenomenon of public ignorance of entire neighborhoods in cities (Grossmann et al. 2017, for Halle-Newtown's twin city Leipzig-Grünau). Based on our interpretation of the mental maps from above for Halle, we find a mixed kind of trauma that merges the post-socialist past with a rapid and strong social segregation (by income, education, and reputation) after 1990 (Großmann et al. 2015). In this sense, Halle-Newtown includes both built remnants of the wall fall/ reunification trauma, prefabricated housing stock, and the social decline trauma (see again Draus et al. 2019) that is the result of rapid mass-unemployment and being forced to move or stay in the built socialist past. ...
In comparison to the study of green space use, the study of its non-use or rejection is greatly understudied. Neighborhood managers and members of local gardening initiatives of Halle-Newtown, Germany, state that residents ignore local green-blue infrastructure (GBI) for recreational use. Halle-Newtown is a former showcase, large prefabricated socialist housing estate that is now facing an increase of households deprived in multiple ways. We are interested in the question of why people of Halle-Newtown refuse to use local GBI. In order to uncover potential barriers to the enjoyment of the ecosystem service benefits of local GBI, we have chosen the method of mental mapping to explore place attachment in Halle-Newtown. In summer 2018, about 100 residents of Halle-Newtown described the places they prefer when relaxing from a stressful and hot summer day. The results were surprising. Local GBI, be it created in socialist times or recently, was completely absent from their mental maps. Instead, people would overcome longer distances and cover higher costs to reach central green spaces. Tacit knowledge, namely the untold general rejection of the entire neighborhood by the residents, was found to be the deeper reason behind non-use of GBI and missing place attachment. The results uncovered that both neighborhood neglect and the multi-scalar character of urban recreational ideas/behavior are factors that help us to understand non-use of urban GBI, two key insights for urban planning.
... This brings us to another interesting link between the results of our mental mapping exercise, the place rejection that was revealed in Halle-Newtown, and the phenomenon of public ignorance of entire neighborhoods in cities (Grossmann et al. 2017, for Halle-Newtown's twin city Leipzig-Grünau). Based on our interpretation of the mental maps from above for Halle, we find a mixed kind of trauma that merges the post-socialist past with a rapid and strong social segregation (by income, education, and reputation) after 1990 (Großmann et al. 2015). In this sense, Halle-Newtown includes both built remnants of the wall fall/ reunification trauma, prefabricated housing stock, and the social decline trauma (see again Draus et al. 2019) that is the result of rapid mass-unemployment and being forced to move or stay in the built socialist past. ...
In comparison to the study of green space use, the study of its non-use or rejection is greatly understudied. Neighborhood managers and members of local gardening initiatives of Halle-Newtown, Germany, state that residents ignore local green-blue infrastructure (GBI) for recreational use. Halle-Newtown is a former showcase, large prefabricated socialist housing estate that is now facing an increase of households deprived in multiple ways. We are interested in the question of why people of Halle-Newtown refuse to use local GBI. In order to uncover potential barriers to the enjoyment of the ecosystem service benefits of local GBI, we have chosen the method of mental mapping to explore place attachment in Halle-Newtown. In summer 2018, about 100 residents of Halle-Newtown described the places they prefer when relaxing from a stressful and hot summer day. The results were surprising. Local GBI, be it created in socialist times or recently, was completely absent from their mental maps. Instead, people would overcome longer distances and cover higher costs to reach central green spaces. Tacit knowledge, namely the untold general rejection of the entire neighborhood by the residents, was found to be the deeper reason behind non-use of GBI and missing place attachment. The results uncovered that both neighborhood neglect and the multi-scalar character of urban recreational ideas/behavior are factors that help us to understand non-use of urban GBI, two key insights for urban planning.
... Yet these associations did not halt segregation within the city (Großmann et al., 2015). Together with the vacancy-induced tenants' market, the fragmentation and parallel co-existence of experiences and their affective mediations rendered any sort of collective tenants' movement, advocacy, or bottom-up involvement in housing politics implausible. ...
This thesis untangles the influence of neoliberal urban restructuring on political polarization in Leipzig, East Germany, and demonstrates how in turn the local, politicized relations of tenants marked by solidarities, fragmentation and authoritarianism, impact urban restructuring. Uncovering the interrelation of housing privatization and financialization driven urban change since the end of state socialism with tenants’ political subjectivation, it offers an interdisciplinary contribution to urban political economy and the political, sociological, and geographical study of the formation of political subjectivities. Through retroductive research based on a qualitative and ethnographic empirical case study, it proposes a relational lens to inquire the interdependence of neoliberal urban restructuring and emergent relations of, among and between tenants.
After illustrating the affectively mediated patterns of housing financialization at the base of the neoliberal restructuring of an exceptional, East German boomtown, the thesis then shows how this structural process is reproduced through the stratified effects of residential alienation. Therewith, a multi-scalar theorization of residential alienation is developed in its dialectical counterpart with appropriation. The analysis of its structural, stratified psychosocial, and meso-relational aspects reveals that neoliberal urban restructuring reproduces hierarchical class divisions among tenants. These interplay with tenants’ spatialized (dis)identification and temporalities of belonging and constitute a context favourable for the emergence of fragmentations between tenants and groups of tenants. Introducing this concept as a pivotal part of residential alienation, it is demonstrated how fragmentations (a) shape the politically polarized climate of Leipzig by limiting solidarities and nurturing authoritarian divisions, and (b) tendentially reproduce neoliberal urban restructuring.
... An unbalanced job market and rising unemployment may, in turn, damage a city's reputation and attractiveness to potential newcomers or investors. That the proliferation of vacant buildings and abandoned land tends to fuel outmigration as well as the stigmatisation of shrinking cities-or particular areas of cities-adds another layer to the socio-spatial challenges of urban shrinkage (Großmann et al. 2015). Ultimately, if left unchecked, continuous urban shrinkage and rising vacancies may spur a vicious cycle of socio-economic inequalities and spatial polarisation (Hoekstra et al. 2020). ...
... Yet, although more than one-third of Europe's population reside in small and medium-sized cities with fewer than 100,000 residents (European Commission 2011), and despite the particular vulnerability of such cities to the negative effects of urban shrinkage given their alienation or resource-constraints (Wolff, Wiechmann 2018), existing investigations of how local experiences with shrinkage affect segregation are almost exclusively set in the context of capitals or large metropolitan areas (Großmann et al. 2015;Marcińczak et al. 2012;Petsimeris 1998;Valatka et al. 2016). The knowledge gap concerning the relationship between urban shrinkage and socio-economic segregation extends to lower-tier cities in the region of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the epicentre of urban shrinkage and location of some of the highest rates of population decline since the beginning of the post-socialist transition. ...
... In the case of Genoa, shrinkage triggered increasing concentrations of migrants in the historic city centre; in Leipzig, concentrations of unemployed residents and ethnic minorities in older working-class neighbourhoods characterised by high vacancy rates; and in Ostrava, increasing exclusion of the Roma minority population. Regarding Leipzig, Großmann et al. (2015) found that as the city declined in population during the 1990s, levels of residential mobility peaked and certain districts experienced a nearly complete reshuffling of residents. Here, city-wide housing oversupply and falling property values opened up niches for vulnerable population groups and minorities, above all in substandard housing in the least desirable neighbourhoods. ...
Although past studies have found that processes of urban shrinkage may act as a catalyst for socio-economic segregation, these relationships remain underexplored outside the context of large cities and capitals. Moreover, cities at lower-tiers of the urban hierarchy in post-socialist Europe have been doubly excluded from the critical discourse on the socio-spatial effects of shrinkage. Hence, this article examines how shrinkage affects socio-economic segregation in the medium-sized post-socialist city of Schwerin, employing segregation indices to assess levels of spatial unevenness and location quotients to map intra-urban patterns of vulnerable population groups over time. Results indicate processes of shrinkage may exacerbate socio-economic segregation in medium-sized cities and that the spatial heterogeneity of shrinkage intersects with uneven distributions of affluence and poverty. However, suggesting that legacies of state socialism shape contemporary socio-spatial change, segregation in Schwerin is strongly conditioned by its socialist-era housing estates, which are generally characterised by the highest rates of population decline, vacancy, and vulnerable groups.
... Much less attention is being paid to the wider energy system and, even more fundamentally, how energy is situated as a social, political, economic, and cultural issue in society. 74 Policies in this vein would challenge ''upstream'' factors, such as contending with the right to household energy or the practices of energy companies and markets, as well as issues relating to housing market segregation, 75 low wages, and unequal divisions of labor. 76,77 Nevertheless, these fundamental factors are seldom put forward in policy or even discussed in academic literature on fuel or energy poverty. ...
The Energy Justice framework provides an opportunity to reveal and reduce injustices related to unaffordable household energy and lack of residential energy access. However, little consensus exists among academic researchers, practitioners, and decision makers on the terminology to present and conceptualize problems relating to inadequate residential energy access and affordability, with terms including “fuel poverty,” “energy burden,” “energy poverty,” “energy vulnerability,” and “energy insecurity.” This diversity of concepts and their varied applications poses a miscommunication risk between researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers who seek to identify injustices along the energy continuum and achieve a just transition to a low carbon future. In an effort to offer clarity, this article compares and defines five common terms used to describe unaffordable or inaccessible domestic energy based on a robust review of existing literature. It then analyses and evaluates each concept in terms of its capacity to achieve distributional, procedural, and recognition forms of energy justice. It concludes by reviewing the benefits, limitations, and nuances of these concepts while highlighting some achievements toward energy justice.
