Volume 74 (2016): Edition 2 (April 2016)

With the demonstration project “Preventive Risk Management and Regional Planning” the exemplary development, implementation and documentation of an integrated concept for risk prevention embedded within regional planning was elaborated. The project was based on the concept of risk governance. It was implemented in the case study region of the District of Cologne, which was represented by its departments for regional development, immission control and water management. Within a broader scope of analysis, special attention was paid to critical infrastructures.

For regional planning those risks and hazards are most important that require a cross-sectoral, regional response (see Art. 1 § 1 and Art. 8 § 6 Federal Regional Planning Act), as their impacts or related response strategies are of regional character. Therefore, the following four hazards were selected: river flooding, earthquakes, major accident hazards and heat.

For these four potential dangers hazard and susceptibility classes were defined in accordance with a concept of risk analysis developed by the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Crisis Prevention. Hazard and susceptibility were merged into an integrated risk index. The categorization into hazard classes was the result of a consensus-building process among the project team and the participating experts of the District of Cologne. Furthermore, the team collaboratively defined specific susceptibilities for each land-use function (e. g. residential areas, transport infrastructure etc.) regarding each of the four selected types of hazards.

On this conceptual basis, a GIS-based analysis of the risks that are caused by the selected hazards was conducted. Main results are hazard, susceptibility and risk maps for river floods, earthquakes and major accident hazards—both for the entire region and (with a finer resolution) for selected hot spots. Moreover, the project developed recommendations for regulations on risk management as a basis for the necessary weighting up of risk prevention against other planning concerns. Finally, a roadmap for spatial risk management as an integrated part of a comprehensive regional plan was derived.

The District of Cologne will use the project’s results as an evidence basis for the forthcoming update of the regional plan. This is of particular importance in view of the recent amendment of the EU Environmental Impact Assessment Directive (2014/52/EU) that widened the scope of this assessment to climate change and catastrophic risks.

The number of persons commuting to and from work is steadily increasing. In this paper, commuting patterns in the city of Hamburg, Germany, are examined over a period of 13 years. Drawing on unique career data of 730,000 persons who were employed or lived in Hamburg in the year 2000, (1), in-, out-, and non-commuters are compared with regard to labor market outcomes such as employment and unemployment. (2), the rationales for decisions of commuters to relocate their place of residence nearby the workplace are analyzed. It becomes apparent that those who commute to Hamburg are more often employed than those who do not commute. Non-commuters, however, are more successful on the labor market than those who commute from Hamburg to workplaces outside the city so that the benefits of commuting do not outweigh its costs for all types of mobility between residence and workplace. Finally, moving to the workplace region is depending on several personal characteristics. The findings mainly verify the results of existing mobility studies.

The paper studies commute distances and commute duration in the context of suburbanisation and gender relations in the surroundings of Hagen, Westphalia. The results show that intraregional migration is often motivated by workplace-related reasons. The genderspecific changes in commuting following the moves suggest that residential location choice tends to be driven by the male partner’s workplace, while women hold a “trailing wife” position. Additionally, the moves are associated with attempts to limit or reduce commuting trip lengths on the household level. This is not only reflected in trip duration, but also in the spatial configuration of housing and work among employed couples. This is represented here by the relative location of the residence and workplaces. In a ring of 20–30 km around Hagen the residential choices are associated with considerably longer commuting distances, compared to municipalities located closer to Hagen (< 20 km). This supports typical results of suburbanisation studies. Taken overall, the findings demonstrate very complex relationships between gender, social status, residential location choice and commuting. This is discussed against the backdrop of the polycentric structure of the region. Conclusions for further research can be drawn from the novel methods used in the study. The relevance of the results for planning is briefly discussed as well.

Soccer—the world’s most important triviality—is not only the most popular sport in Europe, but has furthermore become an increasingly important research subject for various scientific disciplines. For regional economists and policy advisers, especially the estimation of regional economic impacts of soccer clubs and their regular major sport events are of high importance and interest. Whereas athletic success and challenges are achieved within the stadium, along with the popularity of the soccer club and its athletes, significant economic benefits can arise for the cities and regions hosting a soccer club. The purpose of this article is to analyze and estimate the impact, the German national league soccer club Borussia VfL 1900 Mönchengladbach exerts on its surrounding region, the Middle Lower Rhine Region in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The analysis differentiates expenditure-based and supply side effects. On one hand, the value added effect for the hosting region is estimated at nearly 100 mio. € annually. In addition, employment effects arise from the 1.075 employees working for the club. On the other hand, the results indicate that the club’s effects on the region’s perception, awareness and public image—which are mostly not included in comparable scientific studies, as it is difficult to quantify and measure these effects—are significant and should no longer be neglected in costbenefit analysis of large sporting events. The results also suggest the existence of a positive influence on the local identity and sense of belonging of the population that is characterized in this study as “psychological income”. Summarized, a soccer club is identified as a significant and valuable location factor.

Stationary retail and inner cities have a tight interconnection on the spatial level. Due to the increasing importance of Internet and online trading in everyday life, however, the physical space as a constant link currently becomes less important. Against the background of general lack of time and the benefits, which online trading provides, more and more products are purchased online. This is also reflected in the trading volume. While counter retail has made almost stagnant sales in recent years, the growth rates in online commerce are immense. The online share of total retail sales is expected to grow to around 15 % by 2025. This is not without consequences for urban retail locations. There will be—depending on their localization in cities that are favored or disadvantaged in spatial-structural terms—both winners and losers. To keep the impact on affected areas as low as possible, the opportunities offered by the increasing digitization should be used as an opportunity for increasing the attractiveness of inner-city retail locations.