The Planning Panel of the Housing Committee (ARGEBAU) Guidelines for Implementation of the Joint Socially Integrative City Initiative contains relatively precise statements on activation and participation. Important aims include "harnessing local potential", "helping people to help themselves" and "creating self-reliant civic organizations and stable neighbourhood social networks".(1) In underprivileged neighbourhoods, "a central concern of urban district developers will be rebuilding autonomous district activity, restoring the social fabric, augmenting existing potential and motivating inhabitants to participate in initiatives and associations and organize themselves on a permanent basis. The intention is that city districts gradually learn to function as independent communities once again. "Typical measures" include establishing district management programmes and offices, "supporting various ways to get citizens to participate in districts' urban development" and "furnishing district councils with small contingency funds". The section on housing also presents some ideas for activation and participation. Proposals include "offering tenants activation and identification options" and "forming or supporting neighbourhood networks, initiating neighbourhood assistance schemes and offering tailored projects for specific groups."
One of the general principles of the programme's interdisciplinary implementation is "citizen cooperation in conjunction with citizen participation". Information on "decisive action in city and borough councils" states that "municipalities are obliged to ensure comprehensive citizen cooperation." Moreover, during the special support period, processes must be set in motion to ensure that neighbourhood participation schemes can outlive the set time frame and flourish in the long term. The Länder should "insist that municipalities provide evidence of action being taken to ensure adequate civic involvement." The legal bases for participation are Building Code (BauGB) regulations on urban rehabilitation measures: "Citizen activation according to Article 137 of the BauGB, and the participation and cooperation of public service providers according to Article 139 of the BauGB are primary urban renewal goals. This applies even more to social urban renewal."
The ARGEBAU recommendations on activation and participation have been interpreted differently and adopted with varying intensity in the various Länder guidelines or information on the implementation of Socially Integrative City. Unlike neighbourhood management, activation and participation are at least mentioned in all guidelines.
However, the programme information and guidelines in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Brandenburg, Lower Saxony and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania are mainly limited to expressing a desire for the activation and participation of neighbourhood inhabitants and other local players so that they can be involved in setting targets, devising integrated action plans and implementing measures. In Hamburg, on the other hand, "organizing development and participation processes, activating residents, supporting and strengthening local initiatives, and designing self-help schemes" are also explicitly listed (2) as local neighbourhood management tasks.(3)
Other Länder emphasize other aspects. Berlin's approach, for example, stresses the importance of activation and participation as a way to enhance the self-help potential of residents, schemes and other local players.(4) It advocates the promotion of existing civic involvement methods and district committees. Another focus is the integration of immigrant families. In Berlin, resident activation is seen as the task of local neighbourhood management programmes. They are responsible for developing an "appropriate form of resident activation", "supporting citizens' interest groups, activities and initiatives, self-help groups and project sponsors" and for "activating and winning the backing of local small businesses."
In Bremen "local management"(5) tasks include: "in particular the activation of citizens" by "initiating and supporting participation processes"; "running public forums such as 'district groups' to provide information and publicize projects"; "assisting initiatives, sponsors, organizations, institutions, etc. to design schemes and projects and apply for programme funding"; and "promoting local partnerships and networks.(6)
One of the four basic principles in Hesse's strategic approach to social urban renewal is "involvement of local players and citizens". To achieve this, the Land has not only set up district management systems but is also "promoting self-supporting citizens' organizations and secure neighbourhood social networks", "encouraging civic involvement by getting citizens to participate in and codetermine measures which contribute towards positive identification with their neighbourhood", and "promoting community initiatives, self-help projects and the activities of local societies."(7)
In North Rhine-Westphalia district offices organize "district conferences which include a large section of those affected: residents, associations, societies, initiatives, businesses and trade unions", in order to facilitate "citizen participation and the networking of all local activities", as one of the three most important hallmarks of the integrated action plan concept. Local neighbourhood management offices are also in charge of "activation measures in the district". In any case, North Rhine-Westphalia guidelines state that "a committee of key personalities and other district players" should be set up. These do not have to take the form of a district conference. They can be round tables or district forums, for example. "It is important that local government (district representatives) are involved, in order to ensure the crucial political acceptance of the project."(8)
The government of Saarland is calling for "structures which guarantee cooperation in devising development concepts and setting priorities for the implementation of individual projects" (there is a similar passage in the guidelines on Saxony-Anhalt's URBAN 21 initiative (9)). Measures eligible for support include those which "improve the flow of information to citizens in underprivileged areas and encourage them to get involved" and those which "promote dialogue on a range of different issues among district players." Integration and development concepts submitted by municipalities must contain details on "types of citizen participation and public relations activities and their scope."(10)
Guidelines for drafting integrated action plans, published by Saxony's Ministry of the Interior, state that "district residents should be involved from the design phase. The appropriate tools and procedures must be developed for implementing plans. They must be able to guarantee the participation of citizens, private players and investors and business and social partners."(11)The appendix to the guidelines states that "citizen participation that goes beyond the legal stipulations in Article 3 of the BauGB" is the key to "successfully tackling complex problems in urban development policy."
Schleswig-Holstein's Socially Integrative City programme design formulates the objective of neighbourhood management as the creation of organizational, decision-making and participatory structures for promoting and securing residents' willingness to cooperate. Part of this is "activating self-help potential and citizen involvement." Municipalities wanting to take part in the programme must provide evidence that they have made "preparations for a participatory model linked to district management systems."(12)
In general, all the German Länder stress the importance of activation, participation, player networking and support of local initiatives in implementing Socially Integrative City. However, only a few of the Länder provide concrete information on programme implementation. Examples of implementation include "local forums" in Bremen, and district conferences, round tables and district forums in North Rhine-Westphalia. In most cases the participating municipalities are merely urged to create suitable structures, establish procedures and introduce appropriate measures. All this is usually considered a local neighbourhood management task.
(1) On this topic see: ARGEBAU, p. 4 f. and p. 8 ff.
(2) Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg, Stadtentwicklungsbehörde, p. 2 ff.
(3) On this cf. Stadtteilmanagement, Chapter 7.1.
(4) On this topic see: Bericht über die Entwicklung einer gesamtstädtischen Strategie, Part A p. 4 f. and Part B p. 30 ff.
(5) Cf. Chapter 7.1.
(6) Freie Hansestadt Bremen, Senator für Bau und Umwelt, Senator für Arbeit, Frauen, Gesundheit, Jugend und Soziales, action plan "Wohnen in Nachbarschaften (WiN) – Stadtteile für die Zukunft entwickeln", Bremen 1999, p. 4 f.
(7) Hessisches Ministerium für Wirtschaft, Verkehr und Landesentwicklung, Hessische Gemeinschaftsinitiative Soziale Stadt, Wiesbaden 2000, p. 11 f. and p. 16.
(8) Ministerium für Arbeit, Soziales und Stadtentwicklung, Kultur und Sport des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, Interdepartmental action programme of the North Rhine-Westphalia Land government "Stadtteile mit besonderem Erneuerungsbedarf" and the federal-Länder programme for "Stadtteile mit besonderem Entwicklungsbedarf – die soziale Stadt", Düsseldorf 2000, p. 2 f. and p. 6.
(9) Ministerium für Wohnungswesen, Städtebau und Verkehr des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt, p. 1 f. and p. 6 f. These guidelines only apply to the Socially Integrative City programme districts which are also part of URBAN 21. The remaining programme districts have received no special guidelines.
(10) Ministerium für Umwelt des Saarlandes, „Stadt-Vision-Saar“, p. 1 f. and p. 8 f.
(11) On this topic see: Sächsisches Staatsministerium des Innern, p. 1 ff. and p. 5.
(12) Ministerium für Frauen, Jugend, Wohnungs- und Städtebau des Landes Schleswig-Holstein, p. 2, p. 10 f. and p. 17.
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
