Regional Planning and Projects in the Ruhr Region (Germany)

Abstract

This chapter gives an outline on the development of regional planning and important contemporary regional projects in the Ruhr region. In the 1920s, when Germany first became a democracy within the Weimar Republic, regional planning was established in the Ruhr region (Siedlungsverband Ruhrkohlenbezirk (SVR)) to organize traffic as well as urban and economic development and to protect greenbelts on a supralocal level. After World War II, SVR underwent several changes, which led to new terminologies. SVR was replaced by KVR (Kommunalverband Ruhrgebiet (Association of Local Authorities of the Ruhr Region) in 1979. Since 2004 the same organization has been called RVR (Regionalverband Ruhr (Regional Association of Ruhr)). New legislation at the federal state level has extended the competencies of RVR in the field of regional planning in 2009. Despite of the chances for the Ruhr region, which are linked with the responsibility for regional planning in one authority, there have been many benefits for the region in recent decades, emerging from informal planning instruments, processes or events, such as the International Building Exhibition (IBA) Emscher Park in 1989, which was succeeded by a huge number of further projects contributing to implementation of major goals of IBA Emscher Park. The efforts that have been undertaken in the Ruhr region in recent decades have contributed not only to structural change in terms of economics but also to mental changes in how people perceive the region.