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1.2 Response to the programme

The programme embodies a political and financial approach which spotlights developments in disadvantaged urban districts and focuses on cooperation and integrative action. As such it has enjoyed a great public response from the outset. It has reaped broad consensus and wide acceptance, as well as scepticism and (generally constructive) criticism. The surprisingly high and constantly rising numbers of participants in nationwide Socially Integrative City events (1) (1999 kick-off event / around 700 guests, 2000 starter conference / over 900 and 2002 interim appraisal congress / more than 1200), and the steady increase in visitors to the Internet forum www.sozialestadt.de (2) bear witness not only to the keen interest in transferring knowledge and sharing experiences on programme implementation and the great commitment of many protagonists, but also to considerable concern about developments in the neighbourhoods.

One effect of the integrative-integrated approach has been the involvement of a very broad range of professions and institutions in the programme, augmenting established urban renewal and development "specialists". It encompasses the areas of construction and urban planning, community work and crime prevention, family, youth and senior citizen welfare, social services and culture, health and environmental protection, housing industry and economic promotion, etc. Local initiatives, neighbourhood management, administration and politics at municipal, Land and national level, federal associations of private charitable organizations, universities and colleges are also represented. The high levels of interest and commitment are also evidenced by the participation of various organizations (including the Bundesverband deutscher Wohnungsunternehmen e.V . Federal Association of German Housing Enterprises, GdW; Diakonisches Werk; the Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Stadtteilentwicklung und Gemeinwesenarbeit - Federal Association for Urban District Development and Community Work, BAG; Wohnbund; Stiftung Mitarbeit; the Internationale Gesellschaft für erzieherische Hilfen - International Federation of Educative Communities, FICE; and party organs) in a variety of relevant treatises, workshops, seminars and conferences (3) on the integrated district development approach. Academic and popular journals have dedicated entire issues to the topic. (4)

The Socially Integrative City Programme is widely and intensively acclaimed, not only by professional practitioners who are directly or indirectly involved in its implementation, but also by researchers, who are particularly interested in theoretical foundation and evaluation of practice. Academic support and criticism of urban renewal and urban (district) development in circles of urban sociology, political research, administrative science and planning theory enjoys quite a long tradition, (5) which discussions on Socially Integrative City have fuelled.

Criticism of the programme, which we will return to later, (6) concerns details of funding, programme content, the underlying policy approach and the scientific basis. Hot topics include contradictory conditions for action, which can be interpreted as "stumbling blocks and simultaneous opportunities", but which also provide impetus for innovation in practice. (7)

• Dominance of investment strategies: Socially Integrative City's status as an enhancement to urban planning promotion and its roots in Article 104 a, Paragraph 4 of the Basic Law, which restricts the federal government exclusively to providing financial aid for Land investments, is said to explain the predominance of investment measures and projects over non-investment schemes. In view of this, critics argue that "sponsorship reality" in this programme "follows the integrative approach only to a very limited extent" because it is based on the urban planning promotion programme, which relies heavily on investments. "We appreciate that. However, the fact that only sophisticated acquisition by the relevant district management makes sponsorship what it should actually be is the first hurdle to integration and creates a bias towards the investment side of the equation". (8) Traditionally, urban planning promotion has interpreted investment very freely. (9)
• Insufficient resources: In view of the problem complexity and scope, many observers worry that the volume of funding is too low. The German League of Cities criticizes fund expropriation (from the Social Housing Construction budget in 2000) and demands "that sufficient resources be provided additionally and permanently". It fears "that the cities for which the programme was conceived will not be in a position to raise complementary funds". (10)
• Doubts about feasibility and controllability: The lofty ambitions and comprehensive problem-solving claim embedded in the programme have fuelled sceptics' doubts about whether it can be achieved. "The very fact that the joint initiative's underlying concept is laudable and meritorious obliges us to warn against setting unrealistic expectations and objectives, which are doomed to failure and are bound to lead to dwindling enthusiasm ..." (11) Doubts have also been expressed about the capacity of socio-integrative steering tools, specifically because the programme embodies an innovative policy approach, "the procedural significance of which extends far beyond the physical limits of urban district development". (12)
• Problems of neighbourhood-based policy: Many commentators have warned that separating district-based developments from citywide and macrosocial trends could merely shift problems to other areas (13) and tackle symptoms where they are most prominent rather than at their roots. Critics from abroad emphasize the danger of district stigmatization. The Netherlands, for example, has stopped devising programmes for problem areas to avoid this risk. (14) These arguments underline both the problems involved in rigorously delineating programme areas and the necessity of incorporating grassroots policy in citywide concepts. If we do not want to give marginalization of urban districts an "involuntary helping hand", "we must not leave disadvantaged areas to fend for themselves and draw on their own assets, players, economies, milieus, etc. but also help them benefit from outside potential, players, economies, milieus, etc. ..." (15)
• Reduction to simultaneous policy and withdrawal of government support: "Are the paltry means, which more or less comprise a programme within a programme, not paving the way for or actually executing the government's permanent withdrawal from the field of social urban district development?" (16) Some analysts believe that macrosocial problems are being fobbed off to district level and cuts in social services masked by division of responsibilities which puts the onus of solving problems onto local people. Moreover, these critics feel that we are not getting to the root of the problem. "To date the fundamental weakness of Socially Integrative City has been that the tendencies which trigger the formation of disadvantaged and disadvantaging neighbourhoods have not been targeted by policymaking with the goal of a socially just and integrated city." (17)
• Inadequate theoretical basis: Another complaint regarding programme realization is that the new instruments "were not consistently implemented and evaluated". (18) It is claimed that the impact and acceptance of measures have not been systematically investigated. "The subject features only sporadically in academic debate". (19) Critics say that to date the programme has generally been characterized by short-term policy, pragmatic and high-profile approaches.

The new programme has raised the profile of the Socially Integrative City model to the level of the "City in Solidarity". (20) Yet the question, "What makes a city socially integrated? Statistical conformance? Order, cleanliness and harmony? Sufficient green areas? Low crime rates?" (21) usually receives only very general and ambiguous responses. Several attributes are applied to Socially Integrative City: socially just and mutually supportive, economically and ecologically viable, culturally open and dialogue-centred, forward-looking and future-oriented. The lord mayors at the interim appraisal congress were more specific. (22) They declared that Socially Integrative City needed financial security which could not be guaranteed without municipal finance reform. "A socially integrated city ... must be an efficient city. ... Only a financially solvent municipality which is in a position to support all existing cultural and social institutions and schools, and build and staff new childcare facilities in the coming years, is a socially integrated city." (23) All parties agree that the Socially Integrative City model has to pervade the city as a whole.

(1) See Chapter 2.1 Creating a Nationwide Network (German), for more details.

(2) See Figure 4 in Chapter 2 (German).

(3) For details of the many events on the Internet, visit http://www.sozialestadt.de/termine (german).

(4) Special issues on Socially Integrative City (chronologically): Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte. (german) Supplement in the weekly Das Parlament, Vol. 10-11 (2000); Die soziale Stadt, Die alte Stadt, Vol. 2 (2000); Soziale Stadt soll lebenswert für alle sein, German League of Cities, Vol. 8 (2000); deutsche bauzeitung (db), 12-part series published in 2000/2001, compiled in Christian Holl (ed.), Soziale Stadt - ein politisches Programm in der Diskussion, Stuttgart and Munich 2002; Schwerpunkt: Soziale Stadt, vhw Forum Wohneigentum, No. 2 (2001); Im Dickicht der Städte. Soziale Arbeit und Stadtentwicklung, Soziale Praxis, No. 22 (2001) with documentation on the event of the same name; Städtebauförderung - historisch gewachsen und zukunftsfähig, Informationen zur Raumentwicklung, No. 9/10 (2001); Soziale Stadt, Deutsches Architektenblatt, No. 6 (2002); "Soziale Stadt", Stadtbauwelt, No. 12 (2003); Stadtumbau - Soziale Stadt. Auf dem Weg zur integrierten Stadtentwicklung, PlanerIn, No. 2 (2003).

(5) Including Harald Bodenschatz, Erich Konter, Michael Stein and Max Welch Guerra (eds.), "Stadterneuerung im Umbruch", Berlin 1994 (Arbeitshefte des Instituts für Stadt- und Regionalplanung); Klaus Selle, "Bestandspolitik. Zehn Beiträge zur Stadterneuerung und Wohnungspolitik", Darmstadt 1986; Arbeitsgruppe Bestandsverbesserung (ed.), "Bestand verbessern. Forschungen zur sozial und ökologisch orientierten Erneuerung der Stadt." Die Arbeitsgruppe Bestandsverbesserung 1976-2001, Dortmund 2002 (work report of AGB No. 50); Arbeitskreis Stadterneuerung an deutschsprachigen Hochschulen conjunction with the Institute of Urban and Regional Planning of the Technical University Berlin (ed.), Jahrbuch Stadterneuerung, published since 1990/91.

(6) Cf. Chapter 10 (German).

(7) Walther, "Ambitionen und Ambivalenzen", p. 24 and p. 38.

(8) Hans Fürst, "Nassauische Heimstätten Gesellschaft für innovative Projekte im Wohnungsbau mbH, Frankfurt/Main, im Rahmen der Podiums- und Plenumsdiskussion 'Integrierte Handlungskonzepte - Erfahrungen aus der Praxis', German Institute of Urban Affairs (ed.), Impulskongress Integratives Handeln für die soziale Stadtteilentwicklung. Dokumentation, Berlin 2002, p. 53 (Arbeitspapiere zum Programm Soziale Stadt, Vol. 7).

(9) For more details, see Chapter 6.3 on "Resource Pooling" auf kommunaler Ebene (German)

(10) Hartmut Thielen, "Soziale Stadt soll lebenswert für alle sein", der städtetag, No. 8 (2000), p. 11.

(11) Hartmut Häußermann, "'Soziale Stadt' und Integration. Eine realistische Einschätzung der Möglichkeiten", Holl (ed.), p. 53.

(12) Cf. discussion at the Schader colloquium in June 2000. Volker Eichener, "Politische Steuerung am Beispiel des Bund-Länder-Programms 'Die soziale Stadt'. Ergebnisse der Diskussion", Schader Foundation (ed.), Politische Steuerung der Stadtentwicklung. Das Programm "Die Soziale Stadt" in der Diskussion, Darmstadt 2001, p. 103.

(13) For example Jan Vranken, Pascal De Decker and Inge Van Nieuwenhuyze, Social inclusion, urban governance and sustainability. Towards a conceptual framework for the UGIS Research Project, Antwerp - Apeldoorn 2003, p. 64; Häußermann, "Global, lokal, sozial", p. 82.

(14) Eichener, p. 106.

(15) Erika Spiegel, Integrativ, kooperativ, aktivierend und umsetzungsorientiert (german) - Konzepte und Verfahren für die soziale Stadt, German Institute of Urban Affairs (ed.), Impulskongress Integratives Handeln für die soziale Stadtteilentwicklung. Documentation, Berlin 2002, p. 28 (Arbeitspapiere zum Programm Soziale Stadt, Vol. 7).

(16) Uwe Rada, "Zwischenbilanz mit Fragezeichen. Ein bundesweites Quartiermanagement macht noch keine soziale Stadt", Deutsches Architektenblatt, No. 6 (2002), p. 7.

(17) Häußermann, "Global, lokal, sozial", p. 82; in similar vein Klaus Schmals, "Eine neue Politik für 'Die soziale Stadt'?, vhw Forum Wohneigentum, No. 2 (2001), p. 69; Jürgen Friedrichs and Carola Hommerich, EU-Projekt "Urban Development Programmes, Urban Governance, Social Inclusion and Sustainability (UGIS)", Cologne 2002, p. 47 f. (Reports from the Sociology Research Institute at the University of Cologne).

(18) Schmals, p. 69.

(19) From the call for papers for the meeting of the Local Policy Research Task Force and the Schader Foundation, planned for May 2003.

(20) Monika Alisch and Jens Dangschat, "Die solidarische Stadt - Ursachen von Armut und Strategien für einen sozialen Ausgleich", Frankfurt/Main 1993.

(21) Lang, p. 14.

(22) Petra Roth (Frankfurt am Main), Wolfgang Tiefensee (Leipzig), Christian Ude (Munich).

(23) Christian Ude, German Institute of Urban Affairs (ed.), Kongress "Die Soziale Stadt - Zusammenhalt, Sicherheit, Zukunft", Berlin 2002, p. 42 (Arbeitspapiere zum Programm Soziale Stadt, Vol. 8).

  

Translated from: Soziale Stadt - Strategien für die Soziale Stadt, Erfahrungen und Perspektiven – Umsetzung des Bund-Länder-Programms „Stadtteile mit besonderem Entwicklungsbedarf – die soziale Stadt", Deutsches Institut für Urbanistik 2003