Author(s)

U. Weiland, M. Richter & H. D. Kasperidus

Abstract

The question is whether the different processes in the development of growing and shrinking urban regions implicate the necessity to adjust and to differentiate between traditional environmental management and planning concepts. It is argued that urban planning in growing and shrinking urban regions does not require completely different planning procedures but locally adjusted solutions with better integration of sustainability issues. This paper briefly presents a conceptual approach that proposes a better integration of sustainability principles in planning processes by the categories space management, resource management, spatio-temporal management and process management. These categories will allow for complementing existing formal planning instruments with strategic, economic, and participatory approaches. Keywords: urban shrinkage, urban growth, environmental management, environmental planning. 1 Introduction At the beginning of the 21st century more than half of the global population is living in cities and urban regions, many of them in agglomerations. This major trend of global urbanisation is expected to continue during the next decades [1]. Urbanisation is related with multiple other issues of global change like changes in economic structures as well as in social and political structures and of cause with changes in environmental conditions. Facing the structural change from industrialized to service-oriented and information-based society, current urban functions are in continuous process of decline and reorganisation and/or revitalisation. International finance transfers and modified price building

Keywords

urban shrinkage, urban growth, environmental management, environmental planning.