Volume 75 (2017): Edition 5 (October 2017)

The topic of “central places” (again) steadily gains relevance in spatial science as well as in regional planning. Emphasising the requirement to verify central-place concepts empirically, corresponding aims of comprehensive regional planning can be justified in a reasonable way. It has so far remained open which methodological demands have to relate to this validation and how in particular these specifications should be fulfilled. These questions form the background for this article. It introduces four optional approaches towards the empirical foundation of central-place concepts as an indispensable prerequisite for legal certainty and proposes in the end an iterative approach as ideal type.

Many employees must cope with long distances between their workplaces and residences. While some employees manage these distances via daily commuting, if distances are very large, employees may be required to relocate permanently (sometimes with their families) or to establish second homes closer to their workplaces. A typical form of the latter multi-local living arrangements is for the employee to live in their second home during the week and return to their primary (family) home for the weekend (weekend commute). Using data from the German Microcensus 1991-2012, this paper first examines changes over time in rates of weekend commuting among employees in Germany. Second, it explores socio-demographic characteristics related to weekend commuting and whether gender differences exist. Results show continuously increasing rates of weekend commuting, rising from 0.34% in 1991 to 1.02% in 2008. Weekend commuting has thus approximately tripled, with a total of 339,000 weekend commuters in 2008. The number of impacted individuals doubles if weekend commuters’ partners and children are also considered. In contrast to the long-term trend, in 2012, reported rates of weekend commuting declined. We discuss how this drop may reflect a methodological bias rather than true decreases in weekend commuting. We observed gender differences in the factors contributing to weekend commuting, most notably the impacts of family living arrangements and occupational status. Compared to previous investigations of weekend commuting, the large sample size of the current analyses permitted identification of more nuanced relations among gender, age, geographic region, and other factors influencing weekend commuting choices.

Urban green space represents a key aspect for the sustainable development of urban areas. The benefit of urban green space can also be reflected in higher property and land prices. Although a high number of international studies prove the impact of urban green on real estate prices, the empirical basis in Germany is still very limited. The overall purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of urban green space on real estate prices in Germany. The data set contains transaction data for single family homes (1996-2012) provided by the Committee of Valuation Experts (GAA, Gutachterausschuss für Grundstückswerte) for the city of Berlin and cross section geo-coded data for urban green drawn from the European Urban Atlas (EUA) of the European Environment Agency. In order to control for additional open space categories we further incorporated geo-coded data on water bodies, forest, farmland and fallow land. The analysis shows a positive impact of urban green on real estate prices. The results provide helpful information on the capitalization of urban green space in real estate prices.

Structural transformation still constitutes one of the major challenges of cities in the Ruhr area. Against this background it is worth asking the question how the Ruhr cities absorbed the recent economic crisis. In this article, we compare the economic resilience of the two cities of Dortmund und Duisburg (Germany). Resilience theory is a promising perspective with regard to the transformation of post-industrial regions. However, measuring resilience is, in terms of methods and indicators, still an evolving task. We use qualitative as well as quantitative approaches to measure the resilience of the two cities. Our study shows that the two cities differ remarkably in the way they coped with the recent crisis. According to our empirical analysis this can be explained by different capacities of resilience that have been built up in the decades before.

Cities are increasingly reliant on innovative ideas to better survive in global competition. These ideas are based on creative potential which can only be revealed by the creative inhabitants of the cities. However, the creativity of single geniuses is less relevant than the collective creativity of the whole milieu. To utilize the resources of these creative-urban milieus further information about their networks is necessary. Creativity is regarded as a form of implicit knowledge which arises and is passed through interaction within the framework of spatially-related network relationships. The article explores to what extend creativity is a resource of cities, which role the collective network-resource has for urban development and how actors can be identified which allows an integration of creative potential in urban development and urban planning. Features and structures of a creative-urban milieu in the city of Braunschweig (Germany) are analysed by ego-centered network-relationships of several actors. Information about different roles, functions and meanings of single actors or groups in the milieu, about different network-layers, about density and centrality are given in order to get a better understanding of the development of creative-urban milieus in medium-sized cities.