Die „fünfte Suburbanisierung“ – Perspektiven suburbaner Raumentwicklung in den 2020er-Jahren

Abstract

Germany is currently experiencing a renewed rise of suburbanisation and an associated increase in urban expansion in the peripheries of large cities. How this development—referred to below as the “fifth suburbanisation” in the history of this country—can be characterized in the light of earlier phases of intraregional deconcentration is the topic of this paper. The four historical reference phases are not to be understood as clearly distinguishable and successive developments. Their conceptualization is less temporal than structural-material, socio-spatial, institutional, cultural, economic and political-discursive. The focus is on characteristics of built environments typical of each phase, specific social and economic drivers, dominant housing and planning policies, socio-cultural meanings and values as well as social embedding and negotiation processes. Suburban development of the 2020s will take place in a socio-economically and institutionally changed process field, even though there is still little empirical evidence in this regard. Accordingly, this paper also aims to call for a discussion on new research desiderata and realistic policy designs for suburban spatial development in the 2020s. A historical contextualization of the current development and planning processes is considered essential.