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Berlin: Legacies of Division and Problems of Unification Author(s): Christof Ellger Source: The Geographical Journal, Vol. 158, No. 1 (Mar., 1992), pp. 40-46 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3060015 Accessed: 30/10/2009 14:12 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) and Blackwell Publishing are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Geographical Journal. http://www.jstor.org
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Page 1: Ellger 1992 Berlin

Berlin: Legacies of Division and Problems of UnificationAuthor(s): Christof EllgerSource: The Geographical Journal, Vol. 158, No. 1 (Mar., 1992), pp. 40-46Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The Royal Geographical Society (with theInstitute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3060015Accessed: 30/10/2009 14:12

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) and Blackwell Publishing arecollaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Geographical Journal.

http://www.jstor.org

Page 2: Ellger 1992 Berlin

The Geographical Journal, Vol. 158, No. 1, March 1992, pp. 40-46

Berlin: legacies of division and problems of unification

CHRISTOF ELLGER

Institut fiir Geographische Wissenschaften, Freie Universitdt Berlin, Grunewaldstrasse 35, D-1000 Berlin 41

This paper was acceptedfor publication in October 1991

The city of Berlin has developed over a period of 800 years. It provides a unique location for the study of urban processes under widely different geopolitical and economic conditions. This paper traces the history of urban development in Berlin from 1871 onwards, including the period of division of the city following the Second World War. It examines the spatial consequences of this division, and considers both the similarities and differences in urban development that occurred in East and West Berlin. The need for and problems of economic restructuring following unification are highlighted, as well as the necessity for planning Berlin's growth. It is suggested that as a latecomer in global metropolitan development, the city could benefit from the experiences of other cities.

KEY WORDS: Germany, Berlin, urban development, economic restructuring, unification.

BERLIN IS THE PLACE WHERE German unification becomes most apparent. It is here that the two unequal halves meet, or rather

clash, most strongly within the territory of one city, after forced separation for over 40 years.

In this situation, Berlin is an excellent 'test case' for urban geography. After nearly 800 years of urban development, including its 40 years of divided existence in the midst of a divided Europe, and now in the second year of the rapid merger or rather take-over of the former socialist capital by the West, it serves as a unique location for the observation of urban processes under specific geopolitical and socio-economic conditions.

Intensive research into the current situation of Berlin is, however, rather difficult. In the first place, the collection, management and publication of statistical data in East Germany have differed considerably from the West, so that the material, if it is available at all, is not compatible. Moreover, the evolving economic, demographic and spatial struc- ture of the city and its region as well as behaviour patterns of the population which can be observed and mapped at present are in many respects ephemeral. Finally, in a situation like the one Berlin is experiencing at the moment, experts are asked not to analyse, but rather to advise: strategies, rather than analyses, are required.

The aftermath of the war: Berlin divided The Berlin the Allies dealt with after the Second World War was the result of the grand amal-

0016-7398/92/0001-0040/$00.20/0

gamation of 1920. At this time, the old urban nucleus of Berlin together with its predominantly working-class suburbs to the east (in Prenzlauer Berg and Friedrichshain), north and west (Wedding and Moabit, also including the open space of the Tiergarten), as well as to the south (Tempelhofer Vorstadt, which then became the district of Kreuz- berg) was amalgamated with seven other cities (Spandau, Charlottenburg, Schoneberg, Wilmers- dorf, Neuk6lln, Lichtenberg and Kopenick), 59 villages and 27 manorial estates to form a city of 883 square kilometres and about 3-9 million inhabitants - to become the third largest city in the world, after New York and London.

It is important to note that with the division of the city of Berlin into West Berlin (comprising the French, British and American sectors) and East Berlin, in the late 1940s, the two parts received in many ways similar shares of the urban fabric. In particular, the large belt of pre-World War One housing, the most typical facet of the built-up structure of the city, called the 'Wilhelminian belt' after the two emperors of that era, was divided between the two halves of the city. It consists of densely built blocks of usually 5-storey tenement houses, which often stretch over several courtyards. A hundred years ago, in the enormous boom of Berlin, imperial capital of Germany since Bismarck's unification of 1871, this speculative building brought fortunes for landowners, agencies, devel- opers and landlords and meant often abominable housing conditions for the working-class population,

? 1992 The Royal Geographical Society

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BERLIN: DIVISION AND UNIFICATION

which flowed into the city between 1850 and 1900. The population more than quadrupled, from 450000 to 2 million, reaching nearly 4 million in 1920. The Wilhelminian tenement housing is particularly densely built and poorly equipped in the traditional working-class areas of Moabit, Wedding, Schoneberg, eastern Kreuzberg or Neukolln (West Berlin), and Prenzlauer Berg and Friedrichshain (East Berlin); here, the challenge for urban renewal has always been greatest. It is rather better equipped in the traditionally more fashion- able middle-class areas of Charlottenburg or Wilmersdorf, i.e. the 'West end' parts of nineteenth- century Berlin.

Beyond the 'Wilhelminian belt', urban devel- opment in the inter-war years was largely dominated by communal and cooperative housing schemes under a social-democratic city government. This type of government survived again both in East and West Berlin. These residential premises, the older tenement housing, and the later 'socialist' (in the East) or 'social' housing developments (in the West), make Berlin a city of tenants. Less than ten per cent of the population own the dwelling in which they live.

The industrial districts too, were divided fairly equally between East and West Berlin. They spread along the waterways of the rivers Havel and Spree, the Landwehr-Kanal running parallel to the Spree, and the Teltow-Kanal (in the southern districts), as well as along the railway lines leading either radially to the various stations formerly arranged around the pre-industrial city core or forming the circle line of the 1870s. This circle line generally marks the edge of the Wilhelminian belt.

Finally, there were open spaces for leisure purposes; parks, forests and lakeside areas, in both East and West Berlin, especially around Miiggelsee in the East and Wannsee and Grunewald in the West.

On the other hand, in some respects the dis- tribution of the pre-war urban structure between East and West was rather different. East Berlin contained the district of Berlin-Mitte with the historic town centre. (Note that the Brandenburg Gate used to be the entrance to the city from the west!) While very few relics of medieval Berlin survive, the important architectural heritage of the 'Frederician' Berlin of the eighteenth century, especially along the main east-west axis of Unter den Linden and around the Gendarmen-Markt, fell to the East. It is in this area too, centred on the north-south axis of Friedrichstrasse, that the Cen- tral Business District of Berlin developed, at the turn of the century, with shopping, entertainment, administration, banking and many other service functions.

Apart from the old airport of Tempelhof and the

other airfields of Gatow and Tegel (now the most important of the Berlin airports), West Berlin, was assigned the main upper-class residential areas both within and beyond the Wilhelminian belt, including one of the largest suburban detached villa areas in Europe. West Berlin also encompassed the Tier- garten park, the zoo and the shopping and entertainment areas on Kurfiirstendamm and Tauentzienstrasse, which had become fashionable long before the war and the division of the city.

Spatial consequences of the division The division, needless to say, resulted in the isolation of West Berlin from the Eastern city centre and the surrounding Brandenburg hinterland, as well as in the duplication of various basic urban functions. Most of the top-ranking functional units had been in the city core in the East: the Berlin Town Hall (Rotes Rathaus), university, state library, the main museums on 'museum island', administrative and service areas. West Berlin had to develop them anew: city government and parliament moved to the (district) town hall of Schoneberg; the Free University as well as the official museums were set up in the south-western borough of Dahlem, then already an established 'science site'. Near the Wall, not far from the location of the old Philharmonie concert hall, the new Philharmonie was built, forming the nucleus of the new West Berlin Kulturforum close to Potsdamer Platz. Most important, however, is the fact that the' capitalist West Berlin had to develop its own Central Business District, in the area around the Zoo railway station, which became the focal point of the inner urban transport network of West Berlin. This development of tertiary activities followed the pre-war tradition, when department stores such as Kaufhaus des Westens (department store of the West), theatres (including the communal opera house of Charlottenburg), cinemas, and the numerous and famous cafes, where the Berlin arts world met in the 1920s, already formed a lively communication centre of the metropolis.

West Berlin - the capitalist exclave After establishing the urban functions that had been missing in its part of the city, West Berlin with its population of 2'2 millions learnt to live with its 'island' situation, especially after the four-powers' agreements of 1971, when guarantees of links with and access to and from the rest of West Germany were granted.

Integrated into the political and economic system of the Federal Republic of Germany and the West, West Berlin functioned basically as an exclave of West Germany. This is indicated not only by the fact that the bulk of its trade was undertaken with Western Germany, but also that migration patterns

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Fig. 1. Berlin

were either in line with those of the whole of West Germany (the influx of migrant labour from the Mediterranean) or otherwise dominated by move- ments between Western Germany and West Berlin. People have come to Berlin to study or to work, and also to flee from military recruitment or a rural lifestyle to the alternative 'scene' which was to develop in Kreuzberg and other 'forgotten' parts of Berlin; Berliners retired to (or at least had their second homes in) rural areas in West Germany, a half-day journey through the corridor away from Berlin.

The exclave circumstances are also indicated in the financial aid from the federal government in Bonn, on which West Berlin has depended. In the late 1980s 20 billion DM per year were given to Berlin in order to support the city state's budget, to subsidize manufacturing production in the city and compensate for the transport costs to and from Berlin, to finance an eight per cent tax reduction for everybody employed in West Berlin - as an incentive

for personnel to move to Berlin, to subsidize air travel and to promote urban renewal.

In this 'island', processes of urban development in West Berlin have been far from normal. Special consequences to be noted in particular are the restricted suburbanization process and the latent over-industrialization which was fuelled by the federal aid.

There was, of course, no room for urban expansion beyond the Wall in West Berlin. Despite some new housing developments on the fringe of the city (the most important being Gropiusstadt in the southern district of Neukolln, Markisches Viertel (MV) in the north and Falkenhagener Feld in Spandau to the west) and, as a result of these new building schemes, some migration from the older inner-city residential quarters to the outskirts, suburbanization has been very restricted in West Berlin. Large parts of the city centre had to be retained for residential purposes. This was helped by the comparatively low pressure to provide land for tertiary activities.

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Policies protecting housing - including rent control, which was only abolished in West Berlin just before the fall of the Wall - have been indispensable.

West Berlin's industrial structure is also rather distorted, compared to any 'normal' city of its size. Subsidies for goods transported to and from Berlin meant that largely low-skill mass production was greatly supported, for example, the production of electrical goods, for which Berlin has always been famous, but also special food industries such as tobacco and sweets. New premises have been developed only to a small extent, modernization has occurred mainly in the large pre-war manufacturing districts.

On the other hand, as early as the 1950s, most of the company headquarters in West Berlin - such as AEG or Siemens - left the city, because the location was perceived as 'politically insecure'. These head- quarters moved to other places in West Germany, leaving the factories in West Berlin behind as externally controlled branch plants with little management, marketing, research and other service functions. The notable exception is the pharma- ceuticals firm Schering, which still controls its world-wide operations from its centre in Wedding.

With only a few industrial headquarters located in West Berlin, and lacking a hinterland for services such as banking, insurance, advertising and consult- ancy, producer services have so far played only a minor role in the economic structure of West Berlin.

In contrast, special public services are over- represented in the city. The Berlin headquarters of the German state pension fund (Bundesversicher- ungsanstalt fur Angestellte), of which every em- ployee in Germany is a compulsory member, employs a workforce of over 15000. In addition, there are the vast staffs of the educational, medical and public research and administration institutions located in Berlin.

In the retail trade and other consumer services, tourists in many respects made up for the lack of a hinterland. Undisturbed by 'greenfield' sites, the inner-urban hierarchy of central places in retailing and other consumer services in West Berlin can serve as a text-book model. Beneath the top-ranking CBD on Kurfiirstendamm and Tauentzienstrasse, there are five retail centres of secondary rank (in Charlottenburg, Steglitz, Neukolln, Wedding and Spandau).

Neglected by commercial development, especially in services, which would have happened in any metropolis of more than two million inhabitants in the West, large tracts of the city were left derelict (e.g. the area of Potsdamer Platz near the Wall), or served as niches for alternative experiments, for which - among other phenomena - the name of Kreuzberg has become a symbol. Their protagonists were the leaders (or later the heirs) of the students'

movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Even if many projects have failed, a large number of cooperatives, printers, publishers, newspapers and working groups in other crafts have made their way, quite successfully, into the formal economy.

Under the 'exclave-island' conditions, West Berlin could have developed its own adequate transport system. Having virtually no hinterland commuters, but only inner-urban or long-distance transport, it would have been possible to base urban transport largely on public means of transportation. Unfortunately, the policy in West Berlin has, however, always been not to take away the beloved four-wheeled toys from the West Berliners - who already had to endure so many other hardships of location!

East Berlin - the socialist capital The eastern part of Berlin has over the last 40 years consciously been developed as the capital city of the German Democratic Republic. As the adminis- trative centre of a centralized state, it was in the best position to gain financial and other resources, to house the essential state functions and to increase its population, very much disfavouring the rest of the East German Republic. The preference given to Berlin by the GDR state culminated in the 1980s with the preparation of the 750th anniversary of Berlin in 1987, when all the administrative districts (Bezirke) of the GDR were called upon to help with the building projects in Berlin.

As capital of the GDR, Berlin housed all government institutions (apart from the defence ministry in the small Brandenburg town of Straus- berg), the top party bureaucracy and a large number of headquarters of the industrial conglomer- ates (Kombinate), as well as embassies. Moreover, it served as the main centre for medicine (with the renowned Charite hospital), education (Humboldt- Universitat and most of the institutes of the Academy of Sciences) and media (especially broad- casting). Within East Germany, which between 1950 and 1989 experienced a decrease in its total population from 18-4 to 16-4 million, the capital city district of Berlin was the only district with a net population increase (from 1-189 to 1-279 million), as a result of in-migration from the conurbations in Saxony (Halle-Leipzig and Dresden) and from rural areas in all parts of the country.

The restructuring of the urban core of Berlin under the SED regime of the last 40 years has been a combination of modern redevelopment, like that in other Eastern European capitals, and historic reconstruction of the Prussian heritage. The latter marks a fundamental change in the attitude of the SED state towards German history and the per- ceived position of the GDR in this tradition. In the 1950s, the huge Hohenzollern Palace in the city

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centre was blown up. In the 1970s careful refurbish- ment of the architectural heritage began, for example the mainly eighteenth-century Forum Fridericianum (with arsenal, university, state opera, St Hedwig Cathedral and various other buildings) and the Gendarmen-Markt, under the name of Platz der Akademie, with its twin churches on both sides of the Schauspielhaus (theatre) built by the most important architect of the classicism epoch in Berlin, Karl Friedrich Schinkel. The complete rebuilding of the quarter around St Nicholai Church in a neo- medieval style, in a variation of the widely-used prefabricated concrete panels, is another example. Earlier phases, such as the Stalin era architecture of the 1950s and the high-rise modernist development of the 1960s and 1970s, are represented by Stalin- Allee (today still Karl-Marx-Allee) and by the buildings around Alexanderplatz (including the television tower) and in most of the remaining areas of the city centre, lining the broad roads which filled with cars only after the borders were opened.

Without the pressure of a capitalist land market and the tertiarization dynamics of the West, a high proportion of surface area in the very centre of Berlin has been given over to residential redevel- opment, often combined with shopping facilities which, together with theatres, concert halls and museums, were to make East Berlin a showcase of the East (in some ways similar to the function of West Berlin as the showcase of the West). There is still a population of nearly 80000 in Berlin-Mitte, and residential development is continuing. The population increase in East Berlin, however, could not possibly be housed within the built-up area of pre-war Berlin. There have been three large modern developments on the urban fringe, in Hohen- sch6nhausen, Marzahn and Hellersdorf, which together provide housing for over 450000 in- habitants. Marzahn is the largest single housing development in the whole of Germany.

In manufacturing, most production continued on pre-war sites, producing the traditional goods of Berlin industry such as machinery, cables, light bulbs and beer, or new products which Berlin was to produce within the organized division of labour, e.g. television sets.

East-West similarities in urban development 1949-89 The differing political, economic and social systems of East and West have of course made their impact on urban development in the two halves of Berlin. The most noteworthy aspect is the importance of consumer services, mainly retailing, in the Western Central Business District around Kurfiirstendamm and the minor role they have played in the centre of East Berlin.

More interesting, however, are the striking similarities in urban development between East and

West Berlin, whereby under differing socio-econ- omic circumstances similar spatial consequences have resulted. The most important feature here is the containment of urban sprawl, both in West and East Berlin. For West Berlin, there was of course the Wall beyond which no development was possible (though West Berlin did use the surrounding hinterland for solid waste deposition and waste water management, a most problematic source of hard currency for the GDR). In East Berlin, the building and planning policies, in combination with the lack of funds and building material for individual building, concentrated the suburbanization process in the large new suburbs in the north-east, although there has always been some commuting into East Berlin from areas outside, from as far away as Potsdam.

The other, rather unexpected aspect of similarity in urban processes lies in the conservation of the industrial structure in East and West Berlin. In West Berlin it was the system of financial aid for industry that favoured mass production on a low- skill level, in parts more labour-intensive than elsewhere in West Germany. In East Berlin it was delayed modernization and rationalization in manufacturing which hampered structural change. Both processes resulted in a relative over-industrial- ization of Berlin, which is also reflected in the small proportion of services, above all producer services, in both halves of the city.

Economic restructuring in the unified city The present-day economic situation in Berlin reflects the situation in the whole of Germany: booming manufacturing and services in the West, collapsing enterprises in the East. With the new hinterland in East Berlin and the surrounding Brandenburg, West Berlin's retail trade has shown a remarkable increase in sales over the last 18 months. West Berlin's manufacturing has also profited from the unification. This is because East Germany (and East Berlin) is currently used as a market and not as a production region, given that there are con- siderable overcapacities in the West and that Western (not only West German) marketing is quicker and more efficient.

There are a number of reasons why investment in East German industry in general and East Berlin industry in particular is very low. The first is the enormous workload of the Treuhand, the state trustee holding company which has been set up to turn the public enterprises of the GDR state into workable private companies, currently holding the largest public property in the Western world. In many individual cases of enterprises, it is still not clear who does actually own the property. The unification treaty has generally decided in favour of the former owners (the principle being 'handing back comes

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before compensation'), i.e. in most cases those whose businesses were expropriated by the SED regime. Exceptions are possible, but rarely applied. For management buy-outs, which the Treuhand encourages, there are not sufficient numbers of capable managerial staff in East Germany, and Westerners are unwilling to migrate in the large numbers required. Often, the old Eastern man- agement elite has been either politically discredited or intimidated by the 'culture shock' experienced after the Wall fell.

After the currency switch, in June 1990, the Eastern companies lost most of their traditional outlets in the Eastern European countries, which are incapable or unwilling to pay in hard currency. As far as the West is concerned, the process of economic take-over of the East German economy falls into a period of marked over-production. Moreover, and completely in line with the capitalist logic of economics, Western investors wait for a further fall in prices; bankruptcy relics are cheaper than working companies.

The strongest dynamics can currently be seen in the small-scale private sectors. Interestingly enough, it is not the spaciously laid out shopping streets and precincts of the centre, but rather the nineteenth- century thoroughfares with their small private shops and services, which at the moment show the most signs of modernization and change in the city.

In the long run, at least as far as employment is concerned, Berlin will lose workplaces in manu- facturing, thus catching up with de-industrialization processes elsewhere in Western cities. Producers of rather unspecialized electrical goods, paper-ware or food, for instance, will be leaving the city for suburban or rural locations or for locations in the Third World; with increasing land prices their space can be used much more profitably for office functions, i.e. by producer services. The prospects for re-industrialization on a high-technology level in Berlin are rather difficult, since other conur- bations in Germany, especially Munich and Stutt- gart, are so far advanced in research, development and application in various fields, e.g. micro- electronics, biotechnology. In general, to find employment for the manufacturing workforce will continue to be a problem in Berlin.

Thus, the city bases its hopes for the future on service employment. A rush for retail and office floorspace indicates that this will indeed constitute a dynamic sector for the city, though much of the current boom is over-heated and speculative. Concerning service employment, the question over the capital of unified Germany is of course relevant. As the German Parliament has now formally made Berlin the seat of government and parliament, the political institutions will move from Bonn to Berlin. In turn, Berlin will perhaps have to give away one

or the other of its presently-housed public institu- tions. It still seems that, not only to placate Bonn, there will be a longer period of transition before Berlin will be established as the accepted location of political and administrative control in the united Germany. However, a general relocation of German company headquarters to Berlin cannot be ex- pected. Parties, lobbying associations, pressure groups as well as embassies, however, will set up offices in Berlin and swell the elite service workforce in the city.

The role of acting capital of Germany will certainly give rise to a major source of employment. On the other hand, the still largely speculative boom in office-based advanced services is threat- ening the existence of small-scale production and service distribution for the Berlin population. These production and service industries have traditionally existed side by side with housing in the districts of the Wilhelminian belt (i.e. the typical 'Kreuzberg mixture' of dwellings and workplaces). Particularly in Kreuzberg, bordering Berlin-Mitte, rents for shops and other commercial premises are being raised by up to 600 per cent. In contrast to housing rent legislation and regulations such as those used in Paris to stabilize commercial rents, there is at present no administrative means available in Berlin to stem the price explosion.

Planning Berlin's growth Partly in connection with the above-mentioned 'push' factors in the central areas, Berlin is becoming a normal city in the sense that inhabitants and economic institutions are now looking for new locations on the urban fringe particularly in the sparsely populated Brandenburg hinterland, pre- viously inaccessible to Berliners in the more affluent Western part. In the Berlin region, urban sprawl is setting in again. The pressure for land by various users is striking. Developers expect demand for housing, especially family homes, and they are only too eager to provide it. In addition, there are production, service and leisure users that compete for land. So far, applications for 40 golf courses and 27 Disneyland-type theme parks have been handed in to the planning authorities in Brandenburg.

The danger for Berlin is that suburbanization of the population will be, to a high degree, a socially selective process. The more affluent young will leave the old quarters of the Wilhelminian belt rather than the working-class population. It is the old or foreigners who will remain there. Segregation will be exacerbated by an inflow of poorer migrants from the smaller cities and rural areas of north-east Germany, where the whole region will go through a process of urbanization centred on Berlin with its 'Western' focal point. Moreover, it is expected that with the opening up of the Eastern European

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countries, migration to Berlin will increase, tem- porarily or permanently. This, too, will contribute to a new form of proletariat in the city and increase existing problems with socially-polarized population patterns in the poorer areas of the Wilhelminian belt. The tradition of urban renewal in Berlin, securely established and already celebrated in the 1987 International Building Exhibition in West Berlin, will possibly be able to keep the inner-city quarters attractive for all sections of the population, if helped by housing policies protecting the tenants and offering revenues for the owners at the same time. In the massive new high-rise housing areas on the periphery, especially in the north-east of Berlin, however, it will be much more difficult to improve the building and infrastructure situation and still retain the rather heterogenous social mixture that existed in GDR times.

An agreement between Berlin and the surround- ing federal state of Brandenburg to coordinate planning and development procedures in the Berlin region, and to set up a joint land-use plan is urgently needed. So far, the administrative reaction to investment projects in the hinterland is rather piecemeal, uncoordinated and governed by com- petition rather than cooperation between local authorities. The situation is aggravated by the fact that the methods used by capital investors in buying land and obtaining planning permission are often anything but respectable.

The development pressure and the investments needed to create employment also demand a

planning concept for the central area. Decisions have to be made concerning the land along the former Wall and especially the derelict area around Potsdamer Platz (now in the very centre of the city between the two competing Central Business Dis- tricts). Here Daimler-Benz and Sony Europe, among others, are pushing to gain building per- mission for enormous office developments.

The discussions between experts and among the general public suggest that any planning concept for Berlin will have to encompass the historical (mainly nineteenth century) evolution of the built- up form and will be required to meet social as well as ecological criteria.

As a major European metropolis, Berlin was a latecomer in the nineteenth century, thereby bene- fiting from the experience of other cities. Now, at the end of the twentieth century, Berlin again arrives late on the global metropolitan scene, at a time of new objectives in planning. Berlin has been a place where social and ecological considerations in urban planning have been discussed for a long time, and the city can perhaps avoid the mistakes that other cities have made. As many as possible of the special characteristics of its 'abnormal' de- velopment should be preserved. With the potential of its nineteenth-century urban lay-out, the variety of its multiple centres and the unique traces of its history manifest in the built-up form, it can again become a fascinating and beautiful place worth living in.

REFERENCES

Grundlagen und Zielvorstellungen fir die Entwicklung der Region Berlin. 1. Bericht. Berlin: Provisorischer RegionalausschuB, Planungsgruppe Potsdam, 1990.

Muller, H. 1985 Berlin (West) und Berlin (Ost)-sozial- raumliche Strukturen einer Stadt mit unterschiedlichen Gesellschaftssystemen. Geographische Rundschau 37: 437-41.

Raumliche Entwicklung in der Region Berlin-Planungsgrundlagen. Berlin: Senatsverwaltung fur Stadtentwicklung und Umweltschutz, 1990.

Werner, F. 1990 Ballungsraum Berlin. Raumstrukturen und Planungsvorstellungen. Beitrdge und Materialien zur Region- alen Geographie: 4, Berlin.

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