Tom 62 (2004): Zeszyt 1 (January 2004)

If the value judgements of East German firms on the quality of the economic policy of their municipality (which can be interpreted as ”customer satisfaction“) are reflected in figures on the economic policy activities of the municipalities that have been obtained partly from original surveys and partly from official statistics with the aid of multivariate statistical procedures, it becomes clear that the recipe for success in municipal economic policy in East Germany in the period after 1995 was no purely competition-oriented economic policy based on entrepreneurial competition, but rather a balanced mix of traditional (consulting, realestate policy, infrastructure investments) and modern bundles of measures (city marketing, administrative modernisation, inter-municipal co-operation, public-private partnership). Together these successful activities of municipal economic policy make a noticeable contribution to the local growth of employment (”local policies matter“).

The pattern of loose coupling is understood as an instrument to avoid the joint decision trap. But how loose a coupling can be without loosing its linkage function? The article follows this question by analysing the case of European Spatial Development Policy which has been developed in the course of the 90s. This new policy field deals with the complex subject of a balanced and sustainable development of the European territory. In spite of the ambitious objectives a respective competence at community level shall not be established. Common goals shall be achieved by voluntary co-operation. The institutional context in the field is marked by a permanent risk of high and unilateral costs of transaction and this in turn presses even actors willingly to co-operate to choose the exit option. The framework of co-operation turns into a new trap, which can block the co-operation process. This can be avoided if actors accept a stronger coupling of their co-operation.

The present use of sustainability indicator systems in local communities in practice remains far behind the potentials claimed for them. As main reasons for that have been identified: many existing local sustainability indicator systems are designed to meet a variety of targets. Any specific requirements are neglected. Second, most local sustainability indicator systems are designed and applied outside the political and administrative structures and processes of a local community. Their integration into the local context until now has not received enough attention. Third, the differentiation of modern societies makes the implementation of integrated approaches difficult. As a reaction, in this paper a modular design for indicator systems, is suggested and outlined in its main features.

Next to the quantitative reduction of land consumption, the control of the territorial setting of newly urbanised areas must be acknowledged as a key task of sustainable urban development. Therefore policies against urban sprawl require precise land-use data to inform politicians on the spatial patterns of urbanisation. This article presents an approach for analysing land-use change based on municipality data. For the first time a municipality data base on land-use for the whole territory of Germany has been adopted. The usage of municipality data allows a more sophisticated picture of the patterns of land consumption compared to traditional county-data approaches. The analysis focuses on the spatial concentration of land consumption as well as the distribution of newly urbanised areas among about 13 000 German municipalities.

German town planners are increasingly involved in development projects outside Germany. These projects comprise town planning ventures in the developing countries of the ‘Third World’. German universities have taken steps to contribute to this development manifold. In this context online courses are considered particularly suitable for advancing and intensifying the North-South Dialog. The University of Oldenburg has been offering such online-courses during the last 8 years. The questions that arise in a spatial context are: What lessons can be learned from town planners in developing countries and which of the experiences gained in Europe will advance North-South cooperation. The evaluation and experience of an online course carried out with young professionals of 15 Developing Countries allow the identification of both common features and differences.

Far-reaching regional reforms have already been carried out in the Stuttgart and Hanover regions that have proved to be effective. For the Rhine-Main area, on the other hand, a regional structure has been introduced with the Conurbation Act that has been less successful since its introduction in 2001. Instead the debate on how the Rhine-Main region should be structured and which kind of regulation such a polycentric urban agglomeration needs has broken out again. This article attempts to outline current regionalisation processes taking the theoretical approach of action-theoretical social geography as a point of departure and to identify constellations of actors who are currently occupied with developing suggestions for a future- and policy-oriented regional structure in the Rhine-Main area or with asserting their influence in the corresponding debate. In order to do this, different examples of regional initiatives and organisations are presented and questioned critically in terms of their significance and effectiveness.