Cities Berlin Research Articles

Rooftop PV Potential Determined by Backward Ray Tracing: A Case Study for the German Regions of Berlin, Cologne, and Hanover

ABSTRACTPhotovoltaics (PV) on building rooftops is a major contributor to the decarbonization of energy systems. We simulate the PV energy yield potential for 2.5 million individual roofs in three German regions. We cumulate the results for each single roof to calculate the cost‐potential curves for the three cities Berlin, Cologne, and Hanover. These curves give the amount of electricity that can be generated at less than a given cost per kWh. We find that these curves have the shape of a hockey stick. Neglecting the dependence of PV investment on building size and thus on the system sizes causes largely different cost‐potential curves that differ by 11%–18% for flat roofs due to their heterogeneous building size distribution. The cost‐potential curves of the three cities are very similar when appropriately normalized, for example, by the local solar irradiation and the settlement area of the city, despite substantial variations in population density. This allows for an extrapolation of our results. For Germany, we reveal an upper limit for the total electricity generation from rooftop PV of 762 TWh/a with cost as low as 6.9 ct/kWh without accounting for area losses due to chimneys, air conditioning systems, and so forth. We estimate the actual potential to be at least half of that figure.

Reading ideological power representations through space: the tale of two cities Berlin and Ankara

The study explores the entangled relationship between power dynamics and urban spaces particularly governmental spaces. Drawing from Foucault's conceptualization of power as a nuanced interplay of social processes, the research explores Berlin and Ankara's governmental structures and regarding urban plans while unveiling how power is manifested in built environments. However, rather than a comparative analysis, the study presents narratives of these cities since each reflects a unique historical contexts and power dynamics i.e. Berlin, is a historical centre of power, contrasting with Ankara, which presents republic's capital as a modernisation shift. The study uses, descriptive analysis and reveals how power is articulated within urban spaces and societal structures, while crystalising the shifts in political ideologies and their impact on governance structures. Therefore, study aims to investigate the role of urban planning and architecture in shaping power dynamics in relation to ideologies whether represented openly or subtle within the urban realm. The research, following descriptive analysis for the subjected cities, draws on secondary data as its primary source, and interprets the data through the lens of Lefebvre's dialectic of production of space and Dovey's investigations into power dynamics within the built environment, along with other contributions to the urban space and power literature. Ultimately, urban planning and architecture serve as representations of power, shaping societal narratives and identities. The study underscores the significance of understanding these narratives to comprehend the societal impacts of governance structures and power dynamics over time.

Compound events of wet and dry extremes: Identification, variations, and risky patterns

Compound hydrometeorological extremes have been widely examined under climate change, they have significant impacts on ecological and societal well-being. This study sheds light on a new category compound of contrasting extremes, namely compounding wet and dry extremes (CWDEs). The CWDEs are characterized as devastating dry events (EDs) accompanied by wet extremes (EWs) in a given time window. Notably, we first adopt a separate system to identify coinciding events considering the different evolving processes and impacting patterns of EDs and EWs. The peak-over-threshold and standardized index methods are used in a daily and monthly window to identify EWs and EDs respectively. Furthermore, the spatial-temporal changes and risky patterns of CWDEs are revealed by using the Mann-Kendall test, the Ordinary Least Squares, and the Global and Local Moran indices. Germany is the study case. As one major finding, the results indicate a pronounced seasonal effect and spatial clustering pattern of CWDEs. The summer is the most vulnerable period for CWDEs, and the spatial hotspots are mainly located in the southern tip of Germany, as well as in the vicinity of the capital city Berlin. Besides, robust uptrends in CWDEs across all evaluation metrics have been discovered in historical periods, and the moist climate and complex geography collectively contribute to severe CWDEs. Unexpectedly, the study finds that compounding events in dry regions are mainly driven by wet extremes, whereas they show a higher dependency on dry anomalies in wet regions. The research provides new insights into compound extremes which are composed of individual hazards with distinct features. Related findings will aid decision-makers in producing effective risk mitigation plans for prioritizing vulnerable regions. Lastly, the robust framework and open access data allow for extensive exploration of various compounding hazards in different regions.

Compensating for Loss of Nature and Landscape in a Growing City—Berlin Case Study

By 2030, around 194,000 new dwellings will be built in Berlin, including almost 52,000 in 16 new urban districts. These and other interventions will impact the city’s nature and landscape. An important means of compensating for these losses is a land-use planning eco-account adapted to Berlin’s needs. It relies on a whole-city compensation concept consisting of three pillars: flagship projects, thematic programmes, and the integrated enhancement of existing land uses. Impacts can be offset in advance via the eco-account. The institutional and legal backgrounds, as well as the allocation of compensations to interventions and the principle of the loss–gain calculation using value points, are presented. Housing construction and its preponed compensation trigger land-use changes. Critical factors affecting this process were identified and categorised as population development, housing requirement, resulting intervention, land-use change, and preponed compensation. A modified causal loop diagram was created to visualise the interdependencies and link the polarities of the derived key variables. The challenges of compensation without a net loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services, as well as solutions for avoiding impacts to achieve the goal of no net land take, are discussed. The compensatory approach presented here could be transferred to other growing cities.

Contested Caryatids: Architecture, Modernity, and Race around 1900

AbstractIn the nineteenth century, caryatids saw an unprecedented renaissance in European architecture. This article explores the cultural history of these female column-statues in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Europe. The focus is on central Europe, and three cities—Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, and Vienna—play a particularly important role in this exploration. Through a reading of historical, visual, and literary sources, the article probes how these statues came to embody, on both a material and a metaphorical level, the social aspirations and societal rifts that marked the bourgeois age. The nexus, real and imagined, between caryatids and Jews is particularly illustrative here. In tracing antagonistic and largely forgotten discourses, the article seeks to shed light on a larger subject that is still underexplored: the complex entanglement of architecture, religion, and race in the long nineteenth century.

Let's Do It Online?! Challenges and Lessons for Inclusive Virtual Participation

Within the broader framework of the EU-H2020 EdiCitNet project—a large-scale collaborative project with a multi-stakeholder approach—there is the opportunity to observe participatory planning approaches to mainstream nature-based, edible solutions to solve specific social urban problems in an international group of six cities—Berlin (Germany), Carthage (Tunisia), Sant Feliu de Llobregat (Spain), Letchworth (United Kingdom), Šempeter pri Gorici (Slovenia), and Lomé (Togo). One year after the project started, the COVID-19 pandemic made it necessary to transfer most participatory planning processes to online platforms. This new format presented challenges to planning and voluntary stakeholder engagement due to different capacities regarding technical requirements as well as location-specific social circumstances. In this paper, we aim to shed light on the potentials and trade-offs in shifting to online participation and who gets to participate under digital Participatory Action Research (PAR) circumstances. We used a mixed-methods approach to evaluate the planning progress and the transition to working online in the six cities during the first wave of the pandemic. The study identifies critical implications of COVID-19 on participatory planning processes, the challenges for online participation, and the effectiveness of measures applied to tackle those challenges. The transition to online participatory planning described in this paper emphasizes organizational rather than technical remedies. While the planning progress in all cities was delayed, some faced significant challenges in the transition to online due to the lack of technical or community capacities. This was fostered through the diverse and new realities of the stakeholders ranging from meeting existential needs to adapting to alternative forms of working and caring. The reflections in this paper offer learnings from the disruptions caused by COVID-19 to better understand how participatory planning processes can be managed online along the lines of equity, access, and participation. The findings demonstrate how participatory processes in the ongoing crisis can be maintained, with relevance to future waves of this and other pandemics.

Metrobus in separated corridors as an optimal public transport system

One of the factors in the worsening of the quality of transport services is traffic delays which caused by constant and numerous congestion. In this article analyzed need of BRT-Bus Rapid Transit system which is serving in separated corridors for optimizing passenger turnover. Metrobus is a modern type of optimal public transport system, which is developed such cities Berlin, Curitiba, Ahmadabad, Istanbul, Seoul and etc. According to the above researches, the construction of a reliable transport system will allow increasing the level of transport accessibility, reducing the level of transport discrimination of the population, increasing the transport mobility of the population and improving other indicators characterizing the effective work of public transport in the city as a whole.

Views of an Octogenarian on a Path to a Nonagenarian: The Field of General Symmetries and its Applications

I am on the path from my eightieth to my ninetieth birthday, or from an octogenarian to a nonagenarian. It is certainly encouraging to have opportunities on this path to talk about personal recollections and my views on my work and activities towards the development of the field—our field—of understanding and applying models in physical and related sciences based on the infinite set of mathematical notions of symmetries in their most general sense and with all their facets. I plan to talk today about the first part of my path in my native city Berlin, followed by the University of Marburg and jointly at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste.

Green growth? On the relation between population density, land use and vegetation cover fractions in a city using a 30-years Landsat time series

Both compact and dispersed green cities are considered sustainable urban forms, yet some developments accompanied with these planning paradigms seem problematic in times of urban growth. A compact city might lose urban green spaces due to infill and a dispersed-green city might lose green in its outskirts through suburbanisation. To study these storylines, we introduce an operationalised concept of contrasting changes in population density (shrinkage or growth) with vegetation density (sealing or greening) over time. These trends are ascribed to different land use classes and single urban development projects, to quantify threads and pathways for urban green in a densifying city. We mapped the development in vegetation density over 30 years as subpixel fractions based on a Landsat remote sensing time series (for 2015: MAE 0.12). The case study city Berlin, Germany, developed into a city that is both gaining in vegetation–greening–and population–growing–in recent years but featured highly diverse trends for both compact and green city districts before that. Pathways to achieve a greening-growing scenario in a compact city include green roofs, brownfield and industrial revitalisation, and bioswales in predominantly green city districts. A threat for compact cities pose infill developments without greening measures. A threat for dispersed-green cities is microsealing in private residential gardens–gravel gardens–or car parking infrastructure. We conclude that neither a compact nor a dispersed-green city form concept logically leads to a development towards more environmental quality–here vegetation density–in times of densification but rather context specific urban planning.

Metropolis – size, function and symbolism. A quantitative text analysis of German print media for Berlin and Hamburg

As the epitome of the urban, the city type “metropolis” has been experiencing an ongoing boom for two to three decades. With a quantitative text analysis of the leading German national print media, the patterns of linguistic use for the term metropolis and for the two largest cities Berlin and Hamburg are highlighted. They are interpreted as attributions of meaning in mass media communication processes and generate a semantic field whose analysis allows declarations to be made about size, function and imagery of a metropolis over time.

Knowledge proximity and firm innovation: A microgeographic analysis for Berlin

We analyse the geographic proximity of innovative firms to different types of knowledge sources in an urban environment on a microgeographic scale. Based on a comprehensive panel data set of manufacturing and service firms in the German capital city Berlin, we investigate the characteristics of firms’ knowledge environment while differentiating by the type of innovation. Geocoded firm locations at the level of individual addresses allows us to describe the knowledge environment of firms on a very fine microgeographic scale. We find that innovative firms are located in places with higher numbers of same-sector firms, more start-ups and a higher inflow of other firms. They also locate in closer proximity to universities and research institutes. These differences decay rapidly within a few metres (50–250 m), indicating a truly microgeographic scope of knowledge sources in urban environments.

Ideal cardiovascular health among Ghanaian populations in three European countries and rural and urban Ghana: the RODAM study

Cardiovascular health (CVH) is a construct defined by the American Heart Association (AHA) as part of its 2020 Impact Goal definition. CVH has, until now, not been evaluated in Sub-Saharan African populations. The aim of this study was to investigate differences in the prevalence of ideal CVH and its constituent metrics among Ghanaians living in rural and urban Ghana and Ghanaian migrants living in three European countries. The AHA definition of CVH is based on 7 metrics: smoking, body mass index, diet, physical activity, blood pressure, total cholesterol, and fasting plasma glucose. These were evaluated among 3510 Ghanaian adults (aged 25–70 years) residing in rural and urban Ghana and three European cities (Amsterdam, London and Berlin) in the multi-centre RODAM study. Differences between groups were assessed using logistic regression with adjustments for gender, age, and education. Only 0.3% of all participants met all 7 metrics of the AHA’s definition of ideal CVH. Compared to rural Ghana (25.7%), the proportions and adjusted odds ratio (OR) of individuals who had 6–7 CVH metrics in the ideal category were substantially lower in urban Ghana, (7.5%; OR 0.204, 95% CI 0.15–0.29), Amsterdam (4.4%; 0.13, 0.08–0.19), Berlin (2.7%; 0.06, 0.03–0.11), and London (1.7%; 0.04, 0.02–0.09), respectively. The proportion of ideal CVH for the various metrics ranged from 96% for all sites in the smoking metric to below 6% in the diet metric. The proportion of ideal CVH is extremely low in Ghanaians, especially among those living in urban Ghana and Ghanaian migrants in Europe.

Characterization of domestic graywater and graywater solids.

The knowledge of loads and concentrations is fundamental for the design of graywater treatment units, but the data on the characteristics of graywater and in particular graywater solids are weak. As general design values regarding graywater treatment facilities are not available for Germany, the objective of this article is to elaborate the characteristics of graywater and graywater solids. This paper describes the results of six sampling campaigns carried out on graywater systems in the German cities Berlin, Lübeck and Kiel. All graywater samples were collected proportional to the flow and the graywater solids were gathered separately. The collected data include graywater volumes and characteristics regarding the organic pollution (chemical oxygen demand (COD), 5-day biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5)) and nutrients (total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP)). The graywater volume fluctuated depending on the location. The specific average flow was 68 litre per inhabitant per day (L/inh.d). Inhabitant-specific loads of 49.3 gCODt/inh·d, 28 gBOD5/inh.d, 1 gTNt/inh.d and 0.38 gTPt/inh.d (subscript 't' = total) were found. Information about the composition of graywater solids in terms of quantity and quality is seriously lacking. Therefore, graywater solids were examined with respect to organic matter (COD) and nutrients (TN, TP). The contribution of graywater solids with particle sizes over 200 microns in relation to the total inhabitant-specific load was approximately 3-8% depending on the parameter. The qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the investigated graywater fractions may serve as a base for the estimation of design values.

Le rôle de l’oubli dans les pratiques commémoratives à l’exemple des 750 ans de Berlin en RDA en 1987

The archives of the Berliner Haus für kulturelle Arbeit, an institution of the GDR charged in the 1980s to prepare the 750 years commemoration of the birth of the city Berlin, show that a lapse of memory played a significant role in the production of the past which characterized this commemoration, that we analyze, within the meaning of Paul Connerton, as a set of “commemorative practices” which form the social support of the common memory. The typical case of the GDR where the memory is shared with West-Germany is interessant, because these ceremonies are significant by their assertions but also by their silences. We show how a lapse of memory was built in the GDR, and how this lapse of memory prescribed by the Berliner House of cultural work aimed at developping a feeling of common membership, an identification with the east-german State and with the socialist ideology, while overlooking of broad sides of history. Some categories of analysis of the family memory are transposed: whereas in the case of the family memory, the rewriting of history obeys a tacit law which is that of the family unit to preserve, memory construction in the case of the Berliner House of cultural work also rests on a unit to consolidate: a national unit. The corollary of this instrumentalisation of the past is that it was necessary to describe a linear historical evolution, with a direction and a sense of history. The objective was to promote a teleological approach of history, guided by the principles of the historical materialism. However, we also show that marginal critical voices could sometimes appear, in order to denounce the aporias of this speech on the past.

The Urban Text of E.T.A. Hoffmann: the Stories “The Golden Pot”, “The Deserted House” and the Novel “The Devil's Elixirs”

In this article the urban text of the German romanticist E.T.A. Hoffmann in the stories “ The Golden Pot ”, “ The Deserted House ” and the novel “ The Devil's Elixirs ” is analyzed. Three types of the city are noted: the real city in the fantastical environment (Dresden); the real and at the same time mystical city (Berlin); the enlightened city. The images of the city are studied in the connection with genres of the works. The traits of realism in the late German romanticism are noted.

Urban green space availability in European cities

Urban green space (UGS) availability has become an increasingly important aspect of planning and research because of the importance of green spaces for the wellbeing of urban residents. Municipalities across the European Union (EU) use different indicators in this area. Some cities provide per-capita threshold values for urban green space (UGS); some have recommendations regarding the minimum distance to green space while others have no recommendations at all. In this study, we assess green space availability in 299 EU cities according to land use and a population data grid. The results show a diverse picture across the EU. Southern European cities show below-average availability values, which may be explained by their low forest and tree cover and reflect the history of cities in Southern Europe. Comparatively, the above-average availability values in Northern European cities are a result of not only their biophysical conditions and the presence of rich forestland in general but also of Northern European attitudes toward urban living that naturally value having forests close to home.This assessment is complemented by a detailed case study analysis of two European cities ⿿ Berlin, Germany and ſódź, Poland. Results showed that this approach's explanatory power depends on the data used, scale of interest, resolution of data and estimated threshold value. By comparing results using different datasets and threshold values, we discuss opportunities and limitations for developing indicators of green space availability. We conclude that UGS availability is an important indicator to navigate urban complexity to improve human health and wellbeing but is only one component of the intricate social-ecological interactions within cities.

Cities and the politics of immigrant integration: a comparison of Berlin, Amsterdam, New York City, and San Francisco

ABSTRACTThis article examines how the urban context, rather than national or regional context, shapes local immigrant integration policies. We draw on the integration experiences of four large European and American cities—Berlin, Amsterdam, New York City, and San Francisco—to develop a basic inductive framework for explaining when and why city officials enact and implement policies that promote immigrant integration. Our framework highlights the importance for cities to have (1) left-leaning governments, (2) immigrants who constitute a large part of the city electorate and are part of local decision-making structures, and (3) an infrastructure of community-based organisations that actively represent immigrants’ collective interests in local politics and policy-making. We show that when these three factors exist synergistically, cities are more likely to commit themselves to policies that promote immigrant integration even when the national context is not very hospitable to immigrant rights.

Typological surveys on the historic city. Actuality of Townhouse

After the rediscovery of the historical city by the Italian urban analysis of the fifties and sixties and the following European urban projects of critical reconstruction, it arises a new awareness of the historical city as an artifact built over time and the possibility of its continuity. This recovered temporal condition of consolidated contexts defines the margin within which it is defined the architectural design of urban living, here exemplified through some didactic experiments carried out in two cities (Berlin and Milan). Among the ways of interventions, almost in a surgical manner, emerges on often-unresolved urban sites the thematic confrontation with the urban block and the townhouse, intended as the minimum element of the architecture of the city.

Encountering Lateness in Postunification Berlin

Berlin's material past remains obstinately visible despite the predictions of urban theorists about the “overexposed” city. What is “remembering well” in contemporary Berlin: the preservation of a particular form of the city (Berlin's Planwerk Innenstadt) or the remembering of one particular past (e.g., National Socialism or the German Democratic Republic), or can it be understood in terms of a relationship to past time as such? This article argues that the productivity of “lateness” becomes evident in artistic framings of remnants, which interrogate memory in this “late” city. Works by Christian Boltanski, Shimon Attie, Arwed Messmer, and Lars Ramberg interrogate the dynamics of urban memory, viewing acts of memory as technologies in themselves. These works undermine “touristic itineraries” predicated on conventional engagements with urban space and time, enabling an encounter with the city that resonates with Maurice Halbwachs's conception of “place memory.” The works are not specifically addressed to Berlin's inhabitants; their forms of “resistance” relate to “remembering well” in posturban societies.

Application of portable FTIR spectrometers for detecting greenhouse gas emissions of the major city Berlin

Abstract. Five portable Bruker EM27/SUN FTIR (Fourier transform infrared) spectrometers have been used for the accurate and precise observation of column-averaged abundances of CO2 and CH4 around the major city Berlin. In the work by Frey et al. (2015), a calibration procedure is developed and applied to the set of spectrometers used for the Berlin campaign. Here, we describe the observational setup of the campaign and aspects of the data analysis, and we present the recorded time series of XCH4 and XCO2. We demonstrate that the CO2 emissions of Berlin can be clearly identified in the observations. A simple dispersion model is applied which indicates a total strength of the Berlin source of about 0.8 t CO2 s−1. In the Supplement of this work, we provide the measured data set and auxiliary data. We hope that the model community will exploit this unique data set for state-of-the art inversion studies of CO2 and CH4 sources in the Berlin area.