Volume 73 (2015): Issue 4 (August 2015)

Is the inner city an attractive place for the ”young elderly” to live? During decades suburbanization was the dominant pattern of city development in Germany. However, since the 2000s an increasing attraction of urban living and the trend of re-urbanization are discussed in research as well as in public. Due to an increasing average age and life expectancy of the population as a main subprocess of demographic change in Germany, the question arises whether the inner city as a residential area also becomes more attractive for the elderly. Especially ”young elderly” people (ca. 50–70 years old) are getting into focus. Because of a transitional phase of their lives, they might show a greater willingness to change the residential location to adapt to their new needs.

In order to analyze the attractiveness of the inner city as a residential area for the ”young elderly”, residential location decisions, which were realized between 2010 and 2012, were investigated using the city of Bonn as an example. The results of a survey and in-depth interviews show that the inner city cannot be considered as a homogeneous space, but that small-scale differences in the attractiveness as a residential area exist. In summary, the ”young elderly” prefer the fringe of the inner city while the city center is important for their shopping and leisure activities, but not as attractive for them to live. However, also within the fringe of the inner city more and less attractive residential areas can be identified corresponding to lifestyle and income of the ”young elderly”.

An increasing importance of mobile and complex forms of working and living has been noticed in recent mobility research. These developments are closely linked to the socio-economic structural change toward a knowledge economy and to changes in the organization of employment. So far only few empirical results indicate that knowledge workers are more mobile than other employees. However, the relationship between knowledge-intensive activities and job-related—especially the so-called circular—mobility has not been systematically examined in-depth. Merging interdisciplinary mobility research with the spatial innovation and knowledge science seems to be a promising approach for utilizing synergy potentials that allow a more differentiated analysis of the fluid, spatiotemporal connection between knowledge work and its complex implications for the job-related circular mobility.

In Germany, research on the impact of regional policy interventions on real estate prices is rather scarce. Comprising an investment of more than € 4,5 billion over the period from 1991 to 2020, the ecological reconstruction of the Emscher river in the northern part of the Ruhr area is one of the largest infrastructural projects in Europe. This paper investigates on a small scale level whether the Emscher conversion affects real estate prices in the renewal area. The empirical analysis is based on georeferenced data on housing for sale and rent over the period from 2007 to 2011 provided by ImmobilienScout24, which have been enriched by additional georeferenced data. Price trends within the individual towns and cities of the conversion area ”Neues Emschertal” and in reference regions (Emscher region outside of conversion zone, Ruhr valley) are analysed using hedonic price functions. The results suggest that there are no significant effects of the Emscher reconstruction programme on local rents so far, whereas prices of dwellings for sale have performed more stable in parts of the Emscher conversion zone than in the reference regions, where prices have declined.

Central place concepts are an inherent part of all regional plans of the German federal states (the ’Länder’) These concepts have become increasingly important because regional plans need to be adapted to recent and future demographic changes in order to ensure an adequate provision of services of general interest. This paper analyses the current central place concepts of the Länder and gives recommendations for their further development.

The analysis shows that the Länder have developed different approaches in regard to central place concepts, both in terms of definitions, threshold levels of population and accessibility and also their function for guiding future regional development.

The paper gives recommendations on how to improve central place concepts and related plan approval procedures. Policy makers and planning authorities should define and seek political approval for overarching goals, from which key analytical indicators would be derived. These indicators should then be used for an empirical analysis, which would finally allow designating central places and their respective functions. Of course, the underlying methodology should be explained in detail within each regional plan.

A central place should not be designated on the basis of its current facilities and services, but on the basis of the specific demographic and spatial characteristics and requirements of the surrounding region. Thus two cities with similar central facilities could nevertheless be handled differently by a central place concept because their respective hinterlands have different needs for central places.