Dieter Rink

Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung | UFZ · Department of Urban and Environmental Sociology

"What do you think about resilience?" The study aims to provide an overview of the current state of discussion, knowledge and planning of urban resilience in municipal practice in Germany based on interviews we conducted in eight cities in Germany. The report also to structure the debates on urban resilience by providing orientation a long a set of...

Zusammenfassung Das Konzept bzw. Leitbild der resilienten Stadt wird in Deutschland seit etwas mehr als zehn Jahren in den urbanistischen Wissenschaften diskutiert. Es handelt sich dabei um ein relativ neues Stadtkonzept, das noch nicht besonders elaboriert ist. In der Stadtentwicklung, der Planung und der Politik wurde das Konzept bislang kaum ang...

Der Ansatz der grünen Gentrifizierung hat sich seit den 2000er-Jahren zu einem Forschungsstrang an der Schnittstelle von kritischer Wohnungsmarkt- und Stadtgrünforschung entwickelt. Im Kern geht es dabei die Analyse und Erklärung von direkter und indirekter Verdrängung als Folge grüner Aufwertung im Quartier oder grüner Wohnungsbauprojekte, was zu...

The background of this conceptual paper constitutes the manifold efforts in Germany to establish and continue to develop municipal ESD landscapes. Related research is directed toward identifying factors which are either favorable or unfavorable for ESD implementation. Against this background, we outline the process of deriving research questions fo...

In recent years, an emerging strand of research has focused on the role arrival neighbourhoods play for newcomers finding their footing in a new urban context. However, little is known about the underlying factors and drivers influencing their function(ing). This concerns in particular the role of the local housing market and its players in shaping...

Ongoing urbanization leads to problems such as densification, loss of biodiversity, and social injustice in cities. For increasing urban populations, green–blue infrastructure (GBI) is an important element in compact cities contributing to human health, well-being, and the provision of important ecosystem services. We analyzed responses from two op...

The structural anchoring of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) can be considered as a process of collective action. From a network theory perspective, the question arises as to which network structures promote the implementation of ESD in municipalities. Although network analysis has gained some attention in the research on ESD at a transr...

Deutschlandkarten zeigen veränderte Wanderungsmuster und markante Stadt-Umland-Kontraste. Während sich das Städtewachstum rapide verlangsamte und zahlreiche kreisfreie Städte Wanderungsverluste verzeichneten, erzielten die meisten Stadtumlandkreise Wanderungsgewinne. http://aktuell.nationalatlas.de/bevoelkerungsentwicklung-1_01_2022-0-html/

Wohnungsversorgung wird seit Ende des Ersten Weltkriegs in Deutschland nicht mehr nur als Aufgabe des Marktes, sondern auch als Aufgabe des Staates aufgefasst, seitdem werden Wohnungspolitiken verfolgt. Diese hatten und haben unterschiedliche Ziele, wie etwa die Verhinderung von Wohnungslosigkeit, die Beseitigung von Wohnungsmangel, die Bereitstell...

Die jüngsten Ereignisse verdeutlichen es drastisch: Wetter-Ausschläge werden extremer. Im Juli 2021 waren es extreme Niederschläge in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Bayern und Sachsen, 2018 und 2019 litt Deutschland unter einer langanhaltenden Trockenheit und Hitze. Jüngere Klimastudien zeigen, dass die Wahrscheinlichkeit für beide Extreme z...

In Leipzig, despite strong growth, reurbanization and re-densification, in the last decade it has still been possible for the city to green brownfields with a new type of green space: urban forests. The background to this was of course the city’s decades of shrinkage and the emergence of numerous brownfields. The city of Leipzig started urban redev...

Over the last decade, the housing markets in major German cities have experienced major problems such as large increases in rental prices, decreases in affordable housing, housing shortage etc. As the reasons for those problems are common (strong demand due to dynamic immigration to the big cities, too little and too expensive new construction, and...

Die COVID-19-Pandemie hat gravierende Auswirkungen auf viele Bereiche des gesellschaftlichen Lebens. Aktuelle Deutschlandkarten verdeutlichen den Einfluss der Pandemie auf die Bevölkerungsentwicklung für alle Kreise und kreisfreien Städte im ersten Corona-Jahr 2020. Im ersten Corona-Jahr 2020 stagnierte die Bevölkerungsentwicklung in Deutschland. I...

The relationship between urban green spaces (UGS) and residential development is complex: UGS have positive and negative immediate impacts on residents' well-being, residential location choice, housing, and land markets. Property owners and real estate agents might consider how prospective clients perceive UGS and act accordingly, while urban plann...

This paper undertakes a comparison of two regrowing and two shrinking European cities in order to identify the factors driving demographic regrowth and economic recovery of cities and how and why those factors are at work in some cities that turned from population decline towards new growth while others did not. Our objectives are to systematically...

Department Stadt- und Umweltsoziologie, 3/2021, ISSN 1436-140X. URL: https://www.ufz.de/export/data/global/254276_DP_2021_3_Rink_etal.pdf

Mit Fridays for Future haben die Klimaproteste eine zuvor nie erreichte gesellschaftliche Breite und politische Aufmerksamkeit erlangt. Doch wer beteiligt sich eigentlich an dieser sozialen Bewegung, was motiviert die Menschen zu protestieren und welche Einstellungen haben die Beteiligten? Mehrere Umfragen unter Protestierenden aus dem Jahr 2019 bi...

Mit Fridays for Future haben die Klimaproteste eine zuvor nie erreichte gesellschaftliche Breite und politische Aufmerksamkeit erlangt. Doch wer beteiligt sich eigentlich an dieser sozialen Bewegung, was motiviert die Menschen zu protestieren und welche Einstellungen haben die Beteiligten? Mehrere Umfragen unter Protestierenden aus dem Jahr 2019 bi...

Ostdeutschland beziehungsweise ostdeutsche Städte sind kein „Nischenthema“ „ohne weitere Relevanz“. Ostdeutsche Städte haben immer wieder die Aufmerksamkeit der Stadtforschung auf sich gezogen - davon zeugen die Diskurse zur postsozialistischen Transformation der 1990er Jahre und die zu Schrumpfung und Stadtumbau seit den 2000er Jahren. Diese fande...

This paper undertakes a comparison of two regrowing and two shrinking European cities in order to identify the factors driving demographic regrowth and economic recovery of cities and how and why those factors are at work in some cities that turned from population decline towards new growth while others did not. Our objectives are to systematically...

The article analyses and discusses the development of Leipzig and especially its inner east as an ‘urban space of arrival’ since 1990. It represents a study about arrival in the post-socialist context that is fairly rare in the international debate so far, since most of the arrival debate builds on western European evidence. Leipzig’s inner east wa...

Faced with a new housing problem, cities are becoming more important in solving it, and a communalisation of housing policy can be observed. On the basis of case studies from 14 cities, this book comparatively analyses the limits and varieties of local housing policy in Germany and the opportunities it offers. In presenting the cities, the book loo...

Faced with a new housing problem, cities are becoming more important in solving it, and a communalisation of housing policy can be observed. On the basis of case studies from 14 cities, this book comparatively analyses the limits and varieties of local housing policy in Germany and the opportunities it offers. In presenting the cities, the book loo...

Faced with a new housing problem, cities are becoming more important in solving it, and a communalisation of housing policy can be observed. On the basis of case studies from 14 cities, this book comparatively analyses the limits and varieties of local housing policy in Germany and the opportunities it offers. In presenting the cities, the book loo...

Der Artikel beschreibt die Entwicklung des Wohnens in Ost- und Westdeutschland von 1945 bis 2019.

Der Artikel beschreibt die Entwicklung der Umwelt in Ost- und Westdeutschland von 1945 bis 2019.

Faced with a new housing problem, cities are becoming more important in solving it, and a communalisation of housing policy can be observed. On the basis of case studies from 14 cities, this book comparatively analyses the limits and varieties of local housing policy in Germany and the opportunities it offers. In presenting the cities, the book loo...

Das Handbuch bietet erstmals einen Überblick über aktuelle und historische städtische Entwicklungen unter fünf zentralen Kategorien: Stadtentwicklung in intermediären Aushandlungsprozessen; Urbanität im Spannungsfeld von Heterogenisierung und Integration; Identitätskonstrukte und kulturelle Praktiken in Stadtkulturen; Städte als Akteure von Zukunft...

The transformation to a post-fossil city is one of the central urban challenges of the 21st century, with heat transition representing an important part of this process. In Germany, a structural change commission has proposed a complete phase-out of coal by 2038. For the city of Leipzig, which is located in a mining region, this opens up the possib...

Zusammenfassung Die Wohnungsfrage ist in Deutschland zurück auf der politischen Agenda, ihre gestiegene Bedeutung und Politisierung zeigt sich auch in der Zunahme von Protesten. Mietenpolitische Proteste sind in den letzten Jahren zahlreicher geworden und haben deutlich an Zulauf gewonnen. Es lassen sich lokale und bundesweite Zyklen beobachten, di...

Kurzfassung Zwischennutzungen spielen seit 15 bis 20 Jahren eine wichtige Rolle in Forschung und Planung. Zwischennutzungen wurden früher negiert oder als Randerscheinung abgetan, heute wird ihnen eine zentrale Rolle im Umgang mit den Folgen von Schrumpfung zugesprochen. Im Beitrag wird anhand eines kontrastierenden Vergleichs der Frage nachgegange...

Zusammenfassung Die Leerstandsquote ist ein zentraler Indikator der Wohnungsmarktbeobachtung und wird zur Beurteilung von Wohnungsmarktsituationen herangezogen. In Deutschland variieren die Leerstandsquoten der Städte und Gemeinden stark, was unter anderem durch die Merkmale unterschiedlicher Bestände des Wohnungsmarktes bedingt ist, wie z. B. Baua...

Which ecosystem services are addressed? Air filtration, air cooling, physical and mental recreation, food production, flood regulation.

The article examines how the German city of Leipzig governs the housing of asylum seekers. Leipzig was a frontrunner in organizing the decentralized accommodation of asylum seekers when adopting its accommodation concept in 2012. This concept aimed at integrating asylum-seeking persons in the regular housing market at an early stage of arrival. How...

With cities acknowledged as key players for active involvement towards more sustainability (Parnell 2016), the city – or the urban scale – is seen as a, or even the, decisive field that can make transformations towards sustainability work (WBGU 2011; UBA 2015b). And, there is “general agreement that effective and integrated solutions can only be fo...

Urban shrinkage, commonly understood as population loss of an urban area, and post-shrinkage regrowth have become prominent pathways of urban development across Europe. While many cities, mostly in Eastern Europe, are still shrinking today, other cities that shrunk in the past now see new growth. Numerous cities have undergone this transformation f...

Crises are a frequent companion of global urbanization; within the last decades, a wide range of crises has influenced the fates of cities and their inhabitants. When reviewing the first two decades of this century, we might feel that we are living in a “time of constant crises”; starting with the real estate and financial crisis in 2007/2008, a wi...

In the face of highly dynamic urbanisation patterns and 6.3 billion people living in cities by 2050, more sustainable forms of urban development are urgently needed. This can only be achieved if fundamental changes in the way cities work, so-called urban transformations towards sustainability, are implemented. The importance of these changes is als...

Greening cities, namely installing new parks, rooftop gardens or planting trees along the streets, undoubtedly contributes to an increase in wellbeing and enhances the attractiveness of open spaces in cities. At the same time, we observe an increasing use of greening strategies as ingredients of urban renewal, upgrading and urban revitalization as...

Interest in urban shrinkage has steadily grown among scholars worldwide and Germany has received great attention in shrinkage-related research. Little has been written, however, about how the discussion of urban shrinkage has shaped policy responses and vice versa. This paper seeks to fill this gap with respect to the German experience by examining...

We state that land use is under constant pressure, no matter if land-use changes take place in growing or shrinking cities. Land-use changes witness multiple interdependencies between environmental, social and economic factors. In urban areas land is highly exposed to accelerating consumption which makes it a scarce and precious resource. Therefore...

Ausgehend von der Annahme, dass die Transformation nationaler wohlfahrtsstaatlicher Wohnungspolitik zu einer „Kommunalisierung von Wohnungspolitik“ geführt hat, fragt der Beitrag nach den spezifischen Bedingungen und Ausprägungen lokaler Wohnungspolitiken. Infrage steht nicht nur, welche Variationen lokaler Wohnungspolitik sich entdecken lassen, so...

In the final decades of the twentieth century, the post‐industrial regions of western Europe and the US were hot‐spots of urban shrinkage, and this also affected large areas in post‐socialist countries. Despite ongoing calls for a better integration of diverse global urban experiences into theorization, post‐socialist cities and their trajectories,...

Urban brownfields are found in all parts of the world. They suffer from a negative image, generally being viewed as problem areas. However, urban brownfields also offer potentials for new uses as well as for the ecological regeneration of cities. Especially urban brownfields with spontaneous vegetation can contribute to biodiversity and ecosystem s...

The term “perforation” refers to the dissolution of urban structures as a result of the successive and unplanned emergence of brownfields due to shrinkage. The debate on perforation in Eastern Germany is located within the shift of planning paradigms – from cautious urban regeneration to urban restructuring – that occurred at the turn of the millen...

The afforestation of urban brownfields represents a new urban redevelopment strategy that is currently being used by various shrinking or shrunken cities like Detroit (U.S.), Halle, Leipzig, Schwedt or Weißwasser (Germany). This paper deals with the perception of both, successional brownfields and their afforestation, they were compared to one anot...

Zusammenfassung Der Wohnungsmarkt in Deutschland ist derzeit von gegensätzlichen Tendenzen geprägt: Angespannten Märkten mit zum Teil ausgeprägter Wohnungsknappheit stehen entspannte Märkte mit hohen, zum Teil sogar sehr hohen Wohnungsleerständen gegenüber. Für beide Situationen ist die Leerstandsquote eine maßgebliche Bezugs- und Messgröße, sie fu...

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...

Der Wissenschaftliche Beirat der Bundesregierung Globale Umweltveränderungen empfiehlt in seinem Hauptgutachten zur ,,Großen Transformation“ eine Stadtplanung, die auf klimaverträgliche und nachhaltige Entwicklungen abzielt. Angesichts der heterogenen Urbanisierungsprozesse erscheint es angemessen, statt von einer großen Transformation besser im Pl...

After the beginning of the post-socialist transformation, the eastern German city of Leipzig underwent various changes within a short time span. These changes have been especially dynamic in its inner city. Whereas it was hit by the loss of large parts of its population and increasing housing vacancies in the 1990s, the 2000s brought about a revita...

This paper presents results of an international comparative research project ‘Smart governance of shrinking cities in a European context’. In recent years, many European cities have experienced urban shrinkage (population decline). Whereas there has been a wealth of research into the governance of growing cities, little consideration has been given...

Urban shrinkage as a phenomenon has globalized during the last years: worldwide, including also the global South, cities have faced population decline and its manifold consequences for urban space, fabric and society. In terms of urban theory, shrinkage as a phenomenon or way of urbanization was disregarded for a long time, or shrinkage was looked...

Housing and built environment in shrinking cities: the role of housing vacancies Dieter Rink1, Annegret Haase1, Chris Couch2, Robert Krzysztofik3, Katrin Großmann1 Contact: dieter.rink@ufz.de 1 Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Leipzig (Germany) 2 John-Moores-University, Liverpool (UK) 3 Silesian University, Katowice (Pol...

Since the second half of the 20th century, urban shrinkage has become a common pathway of transformation for many large cities across the globe. Although the appearance of shrinkage is fairly universal-typically manifested in dwindling population, emerging vacant spaces, and the underuse of existing urban infrastructure, ranging from schools and pa...

Sozialräumliche Segregation – die Frage nach der ungleichen Verteilung sozialer Gruppen im Stadtraum – ist ein klassisches Thema der Stadtsoziologie. Die umfangreiche Literatur dazu entstand vor dem Hintergrund wachsender Städte: von der Einwandererstadt Chicago, vor deren Hintergrund die sozialökologische Chicago School entstand, bis hin zu den im...

The issue of urban shrinkage has become the new ‘normal’ across Europe: a large number of urban areas find themselves amongst the cities losing population. According to recent studies, almost 42 per cent of all large European cities are currently shrinking. In eastern Europe, shrinking cities have formed the overwhelming majority – here, three out...

Across Europe, urban shrinkage has become an important phenomenon. According to recent studies, almost 42 % of all large European cities are currently shrinking, the largest number of them being situated in Eastern Europe. Across Europe, shrinkage affects all types of regions; in a way, Europe has become a shrinking continent. Shrinkage is not only...

Both modelers and social scientists attempt to find better explanations of complex urban systems. They include development paths, underlying driving forces and their expected impacts. So far, land-use research has predominantly focused on urban growth. However, new challenges have arisen since urban shrinkage entered the research agenda of the soci...

Whereas many cities in Europe experience a continuous process of urban growth, a considerable number of others have experienced long periods of urban shrinkage over recent decades. In many such cities this process is ongoing. However, in between these two poles of growth or shrinkage, there are cities with less pronounced trajectories. One such typ...

IntroductionUrban wilderness – some attempts at defining the termWastelands as a source of urban wildernessUrban wilderness in planningOn the ecology of urban wildernessUrban wilderness in a social contextEducational value of urban wildernessConclusions References

This Workpackage 7 Report „Governance of Shrinkage – Lessons learnt from the Analysis for Urban Planning and Policy“ consists of three main parts, the deliverables D13 „Transferable set of strategies“, D14 „The oolbox“ and D15 „Set of policy recommendations“.

This report describes the process of shrinkage as it has occurred within the city of Leipzig. It examines the reasons, dynamics and patterns of change as well as the consequences for different fields of urban development and planning. The period covered in the report runs from the 1980s to the present day; in particular cases, longer or shorter tim...

Die ständig wachsende Wohn-, Siedlungs- und Verkehrsfläche ist Ausdruck der geseilschaftlichen Lebensweise. Sie macht einen Teil des gesellschaftlichen Naturverhältnisses aus und stellt eine Belastung für das ökologische System der Erde dar. Dies wurde aber erst relativ spät erkannt bzw. entsprechend thematisiert. Lange Zeit haben vielmehr Themen d...

This article follows the shrinkage phenomenon into the Eastern German cities, as a post socialist transformation that has occurred during mostly during the 1990s. Furthermore the case of East Germany is particular since different shrinkage processes already occurred here in GDR times. The shrinkage after 1990 linked to those already existing, shrin...

This essay provides insights into the crisis unfolding in the ‘backyards’ of globalization, that is, in regions that are largely abandoned in terms of capital and are characterized by de-industrialization and depopulation. We take Eastern Germany as an example to examine how the crisis manifests itself in this context. We look at the turmoil around...

Dimensions of shrinking cities in EuropeShrinking cities – new chances for biodiversityInvestigations about acceptance of urban wastelands by residentsPlanning aspects for urban wastelandsConclusions References

The article examines the existing research on gentrification in east-German cities and outlines a number of theoretical and methodological problems which characterize this strand of urban scholarship since its start in the early 1990s. Although numerous studies have been accomplished, the explanatory power of research contributions often remained l...

Since about the 1980s shrinkage has become a new normality especially for European cities and urban regions. As a consequence of the shrinking process, new dimensions of wastelands appear in the affected cities. Urban planners have to find solutions for these “holes” in the urban fabric and new visions are needed for open spaces. In the last few ye...