7.1 Länder stipulations for neighbourhood management
The ARGEBAU guidelines recommend the introduction of a district management team and an onsite district office as a standard approach to meeting the programme targets including "harnessing local potential, helping people to help themselves, developing local civic awareness and creating self-reliant resident organizations and stable neighbourhood social networks."(1) The recommendations on programme implementation are more specific: "Cities and towns are responsible for maintaining efficient district management structures. The extended range of objectives, the relatively open integrated action plan and the high demands on local players and business all conspire to require professional district managers, agencies and development companies to steer the district development process from up close. The selection criteria for facilitators must be continually updated. Organizers should adopt promising new management forms. Cities and towns are also obliged to organize interdepartmental cooperation to enable swift common action. Länder should "insist that municipalities provide evidence of action being taken to coordinate departments and bolster district management and adequate civic involvement.
Länder guidelines and announcements on programme implementation address and adopt these recommendations to varying degrees.
Only five Länder (Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate and Thuringia) have neglected to include references on neighbourhood management in programme guidelines and announcements. In contrast, Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Saarland and Saxony-Anhalt explicitly request participating municipalities to establish neighbourhood management structures. This is also true of the following Länder , which in addition provide guidance on how to shape the structures:
Bremen's programme announcement elaborates on management and organization: "The relevant departments organize structures and manage programme operation levels, which comprise central and local components (local management)."(2) An interdepartmental taskforce and the Living in Neighbourhoods/Socially Integrative City (WiN) management cooperate centrally.
Guidelines for drafting integrated action plans, published by Saxony 's Ministry of the Interior, list as "typical measures" in the "civic involvement/district life" field the "establishment of district management structures which should prioritize the creation of self-reliant civic organizations" and "the formation of a district office."(3)
The URBAN 21 initiative in Saxony-Anhalt envisages the "establishment of district management structures: effective district management should assist or directly implement" urban schemes.(4) "Community centres and district offices which look after neighbourhood resident groups" will be supported. Special importance is attached to "effectively coordinating collaboration between the participating city authorities, locally based firms (including housing companies and cooperatives) and other local players", including private citizens.
Schleswig-Holstein obliges municipalities involved in Socially Integrative City to "provide support ... by establishing professional, participation-oriented neighbourhood/district management structures for coordinating local initiatives, activities and measures. Prerequisites are interdisciplinary cooperation of all participating city departments, broad support through municipal policies and comprehensive opportunities for civic involvement."(5)
Berlin, Hamburg, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia have specified particularly detailed conditions on neighbourhood management structures in their programme announcements and guidelines:
Berlin's approach strongly emphasizes the significance of neighbourhood management structures: "neighbourhood management which initiates and coordinates the local development process helps at grassroots level to meet the programme objectives."(6) It is responsible for intra-district coordination, resident activation and for assisting with performance monitoring. Neighbourhood-level organizational structures must include a forum primarily for local people, and a coordinating committee for building consensus among organizers, resident initiatives, representatives from borough offices and - where necessary - individual city government departments. Comprehensive cooperation between all respective departments and levels must be secured to make integrative district procedures (neighbourhood management structures) work. Boroughs should appoint a neighbourhood coordinator and an interdepartmental taskforce. The senate should also form an interdepartmental taskforce
The senate in Hamburg has adopted policies on district social development. A binding resolution regulates the establishment of district management structures,(7) which should be utilized locally to "strengthen concrete neighbourhood links between official and private activity, organize civic participation and mobilize all locally active forces, such as initiatives, clubs, institutions etc." The bodies assume core responsibilities such as organizing participation processes; mobilizing residents; drafting, steering and expanding neighbourhood development concepts and calendars; introducing and running a district office; managing social, labour market and housing policy projects; and public relations.
The Hesse Ministry of Economy, Transport and Development enforces regulations to safeguard the coherence of the integrative district development procedure: "The success of target-oriented district development depends on whether all available programmes and resources are pooled and participants from the government, private and public service sectors are secured. An overall organizational structure both in municipal government and at neighbourhood level must establish clear paths of communication and responsibilities for all participants. Cities and towns must foster close cooperation between appropriate departments and with local players and residents and found coordination committees to facilitate swift, common action (district management). They must furnish ample personnel and logistics. Formal district management decision-making structures in municipalities are entwined with informal intermediate organizations, namely with roundtables consisting of local and regional participants (welfare organizations, authorities, housing companies, private trade and industry, clubs and associations) and other forms of civic codetermination."(8) The ministry names a district office, a district conference at intermediate level and a government interdepartmental and interagency steering committee as structural components of this form of district management.
North Rhine-Westphalia can look back on nine years of experience in applying integrative district development procedures in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. The recommendations compiled by the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Urban Development, Culture and Sport (9) read much like a "good practice" analysis of management and organizational forms: "At municipal level, at least the design phase of an integrated action plan requires an interagency taskforce, which should naturally also convene to extend the programme. After adoption of the action plan, it is critical that at the very least an administrator acts as chief contact, coordinator and mediator within government. The establishment of a district office has also proved useful. It functions as a port of call and advice centre and carries out tasks relating to publicity, citizen participation and, particularly, activation measures." The recommendations authorize the district offices to run and develop projects, raise funds, conduct image campaigns and manage public relations work in the neighbourhood, depending on the professions of those assigned to the post. A general committee, which could be a conference, roundtable or forum, should also link the key participants and other district players and politicians. The vital importance of a chief contact in local government and an onsite district office or local manager was stressed.
The consensus is that neighbourhood management structures should primarily foster coordination between a variety of different partners and activities. It is apparent from the detailed Länder guidelines and announcements that this must be done both at government level and in the neighbourhood, and also in the intermediate range linking public, private and charitable sectors. The preferred approach is to establish specific committees or organizational units such as interdepartmental taskforces, district conferences and forums, roundtables and district offices.
(1) On this and the following: ARGEBAU, p. 4 f. and p. 11 f.
(2)Wohnen in Nachbarschaften (WiN) – Stadtteile für die Zukunft entwickeln, Handlungsprogramm 1999-2002, Stadtteile mit besonderem Entwicklungsbedarf – die soziale Stadt, Senate publication of 25 September 2002, parliamentary paper 15/621 S, Bremen 2002.
(3)Sächsisches Staatsministerium des Innern, p. 2.
(4) On this and the following: Ministerium für Wohnungswesen, Städtebau und Verkehr des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt, Landesinitiative URBAN 21. Richtlinie zur Stadtentwicklung in Sachsen-Anhalt, 7/14 September 1999, Magdeburg 1999, pp. 1, 2, 6 and 7. These guidelines apply only to Socially Integrative City programme districts also participating in the URBAN 21 initiative. The remaining programme districts have received no specific guidelines.
(5)Ministerium für Frauen, Jugend, Wohnungs- und Städtebau des Landes Schleswig-Holstein, Programmkonzeption Soziale Stadt Schleswig-Holstein, July 1999, Kiel 1999, p. 19.
(6) On this and the following: Bericht über die Entwicklung einer gesamtstädtischen Strategie zur Entschärfung sozialer Konflikte besonders belasteter Stadtquartier – Aktionsprogramm "Urbane Integration", 1. Stufe – und zur Sozialorientierten Stadtentwicklung: Einrichtung von integrierten Stadtteilverfahren – Quartiersmanagement – in Gebieten mit besonderem Entwicklungsbedarf, Drucksache 13/4001 des Abgeordnetenhauses von Berlin , Berlin 1999, p. 32 f.
(7) On this and the following: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg, Stadtentwicklungsbehörde, Das Hamburger Programm zur Sozialen Stadtteilentwicklung. Bericht zur Programmsteuerung und –organisation, 25 August 1999 , Hamburg 1999, p. 2, 4.
(8) Hessisches Ministerium für Wirtschaft, Verkehr und Landesentwicklung, Hessische Gemeinschaftsinitiative ‚Soziale Stadt' – HEGISS. Verstetigung und Ausweitung einer auf Landesebene eingeleiteten Förderpolitik, April 1999, Wiesbaden 1999 , p. 13 f. and ebd., Hessische Gemeinschaftsinitiative Soziale Stadt, Wiesbaden 2000, p. 19 ff.
(9) On this and the following: Ministerium für Arbeit, Soziales und Stadtentwicklung, Kultur und Sport des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen , p. 6.
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
