Dissertations

Digitalization in local governments or put differently “smart cities” are nothing new. Digitization in cities, often discussed under the slogan "smart cities," is not a new phenomenon. Coinciding with the emergence of the debate, strands of critical academic literature evolved in order to address multifaceted perils of smart cities, such as the promotion of neoliberalism, deepening injustices, problems with data ethics and privacy, commodification and social control (Hollands 2008, Coletta et al., 2018). In contrast to this dystopian outlook for digital futures, the trend of local governments striving for digital sovereignty originated in Barcelona and entered the
scientific discourse on digital futures of local governments. The emerging research field on digital/technological or data sovereignty as a sociotechnical imaginary outlines normative pathways or opportunities towards a more inclusive, bottom-up oriented and democratic digital urban future opposing the neoliberal smart city (Lynch 2020, Calzada 2021). Yet, various understandings of the term exist (Couture and Toupin 2018). Underlying reasons and justifications highly vary, depending on the actors and networks using the concept to promote their normative views on future technological developments, also within the European context.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate digital sovereignty as a socio-spatial normative construct in relation to digital urban futures in Europe and to contribute to the academic discourse of socio-spatial construction under the influence of normative understandings of digital sovereignty.

The first step of the research project is to disentangle and systematize the multiple understandings of digital sovereignty in the context of digital urban development in Europe.

Guiding questions are:

• What are the conceptualizations of digital sovereignty?
• What are the underlying rationales or justifications for the different conceptualizations?
• Who are the actors using the different conceptualizations?
• What are the implications of digital sovereignty for different dimensions of the digital urban future such as policy, technology design, and civil society?

To this end, a Policy Delphi study (Turoff 1970) will be used to survey a broad range of experts from politics, administration, academia, and social initiatives in the European region. In a second step, these results will be examined in depth using a case study in Hamburg as a field approach to deepen the understanding of the different perspectives of digital sovereignty. Expert interviews with local politicians and administrators as well as focus group discussions with local initiatives and social movements will be conducted. These will then be analyzed with the help of qualitative content analysis according to Mayring (2010).

Against the backdrop of a multidimensional understanding of space and digital sovereignty, Jessop, Brenner, and Jones' (2008) TPSN approach is applied to understand understandings of digital sovereignty more deeply through a socio-spatial lens. By synthesizing the findings from the Delphi and case study analysis from a critical realist perspective, the spatialities of territories, places, scales, and networks (TPSN) according to Jessop Brenner and Jones (2008) of digital sovereignty will be elaborated and highlighted.

The guiding question for this step is:

What are the spatialities of different social constructions of digital sovereignty?

The synthesis of the findings aims to contribute to the academic discourse of socio-spatial construction under the influence of normative understandings of digital sovereignty.

Literature

Calzada, I. (2021). Data Co-Operatives through Data Sovereignty. Smart Cities, 4(3), 1158–1172.

Coletta, C., Evans, L., Heaphy, L., & Kitchin, R. (2018). Creating Smart Cities. Routledge.

Couture, S., & Toupin, S. (2019). What does the notion of “sovereignty” mean when referring to the digital? New Media & Society, 21(10), 2305–2322.

Hollands, R. G. (2008). Will the real smart city please stand up? City, 12(3), 303–320.

Jessop, B., Brenner, N., & Jones, M. (2008). Theorizing Sociospatial Relations. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 26(3), 389–401.

Mayring, P. (2010). Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse. In: Mey, G., Mruck, K. (eds) Handbuch Qualitative Forschung in der Psychologie. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

Turoff, M. (1970). The design of a policy Delphi. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2(2), 149–171.

Traffic and mobility change - now a constant companion to all traffic-related debates, fueled by impending driving bans, the diesel scandal or, most recently, rising fuel prices and the 9-euro ticket. As with the issue of sustainability, controversial points of view also clash on the subject of sustainable transport development.  No wonder, because transport has an enormous scope. Since it affects almost every area of social life, it has a strong economic and social significance and therefore contains a high potential for conflict. (cf. Holz-Rau and Reichert 2018: 311; Beckmann 2000).

Regardless, however, the negative consequences of transport call for change. And although the demand for change has existed for more than 30 years, in 2018 Hesse speaks of a stagnation of transport policy developments since the turn of the millennium (cf. Hesse 2018: 17f.). Until today, the transport sector is one of the main emitters and at the same time the sector with the lowest or no emission reductions (cf. Umweltbundesamt 2017). in the 1990s, politics and society were already faced with the decision for or against a transport trend reversal (cf. Hesse 1993: 3). The lack of solutions to implement such a trend reversal (cf. Hesse 1993: 3) and the lack of political will to prevail against parts of society and against the economy (cf. Rogge 1999: 14f.) favored the decision for further transport growth. But why is change in the transport sector so sluggish and protracted, while on the other hand it has been possible within the past 40 years to "scientifically substantiate the term Energiewende, to practically fill it out and to propose socially accepted solutions for a sustainable use of energy" (Ökoinstitut e.V. o.J.)?

The current state of research shows that research has only few answers to the overall problem of the lack of success of sustainable transport development (Bratzel 1999 and Kindhäuser 2001). In the few available research approaches, the municipal level always plays a significant role. Due to the principle of subsidiarity (cf. Art. 28 para. 2 GG), the municipal level has the greatest influence on an actual change in the transport sector. Spatial and transport planning are therefore the responsibility of the municipal level, so that a transformation in the transport sector is also primarily the responsibility of the municipalities as the implementation level. (cf. Holz-Rau and Reichert 2018: 315; Agora Verkehrswende 2017: 32).

A look at the implementation of sustainable change in the transport sector at the municipal level is thus of particular interest. Which instruments and strategy approaches exist, which are actually used, and which are successful or unsuccessful? The municipal plan documents should be able to provide a lot of information on this. In this way, previous objectives and strategic approaches can be collected, changes can be identified and, if data are available, the successes or effects can be recorded.

Planning culture is a growing field in the spatial sciences, arguing that differences in styles and outcomes of planning cannot be fully explained by existing theories. The concept of planning culture, however, is often merely used as a residual variable, which is held responsible for a lack of predictability of planning processes, without coming to terms with its covert and complex modus operandi. Methodologies of planning culture and the corresponding outcomes of empirical research, therefore, are often disappointing. The main goal of this study, is to address prevailing methodological weaknesses in the field of planning culture by means of a practice-theoretical methodology, as well as to conduct an international comparative case study of planning culture in smart city implementation processes in the cities of Vienna and Amsterdam. First empirical results from the field have revealed a remarkable resemblance of the smart city implementation to a recognizable stereotypical planning culture in both cases, and suggest a deeper rooting of the phenomenon in the underlying historical background of the cities, which provides legitimacy for corresponding practices of planning.

Keywords: Urban Planning, Smart City, Planning Culture, Practice Theory

The centralized financial system in Argentina has both their advantages and disadvantages. As for the proper, being a centralized country, its territorial control and its homogeneity makes it an easier place to manage despise being a big country. by the other hand, this also means an uneven economic distribution of the wealth of the country. The city of Buenos Aires holds the second highest PBI of all the provinces despite not producing more than just services, but as the official regulations and laws of the country where the distribution of the accumulated capital for the production of the country is distributed according by its population, it leaves little to non-financial contribution for local municipalities. In addition to that, local municipalities also face their own challenges and their lack of governance by their territorial, jurisdictional limitations and bureaucratic order of powers. That leaves for most of them to rely essentially on their own funds, which are the budgets that they accumulate after the distribution from the cycle of financial distribution.

Preliminary questions: What type of economic urban tools and strategies middle-sized and small-sized towns could achieve to invest in their territories without depending jurisdictionally from the most centralized states in the "Napoleonic" planning context?

How can those strategies improve the quality of the popular sectors' public spaces, virtually their spaces of economic centrality and finance projects that could also strengthen their population's economic mobility?

How can those newly urban tools that seek the gain of the urban surplusses of the urban land mitigate speculation without losing the private sector's attractiveness, whose role in the city's development still attracts economic capital?

How can these newly acquired monetary resources be used to weave new institutions dependent on the local municipality and, therefore, for social organizations and civil society in the city?

Main objectives of the research: To study alternative financial strategies for middle-sized towns in Latin-America independently from the centralized State's resources, such as the economic capture of urban surpluses.

The growing recognition of temporary use (TU) in urban planning practice is not fully expressed by the number of TU host countries and communities, nor number of projects touting its regenerative capacity in the urban landscape. Relevance of this trending significance is also signaled by the plethora of new terms that suggest a non-traditional, adaptable, ephemeral, and civic-based planning approach that often tactically activates long-term changes (Glick, 2012; Lydon et al., 2012; Elisei, 2014). Variations of TU range from ‘performative planning,’ ‘flexible urbanism,’ ‘DIY urbanism,’ ‘pop-up urbanism,’ to ‘temporary’ and ‘tactical urbanism’ and hint at the various contexts through which planning practice and theory are evolving from the fissure breaks in stoic urban development frameworks. As a positive ‘floating signifier’ that many proclaim as a pragmatic, and cost-effective stop-gap measure, TU can be implemented with a range of formal and informal actors, through open and iterative processes (Blumner, 2006; Schlegelmilch, 2008; Rall and Haase, 2011; Lehtovuori and Ruoppila, 2012; Németh and Langhorst, 2014; Patti and Polyak, 2015; Ferreri, 2015). TU is often contextualized by complex socio-economic restructuring, and emerges as initiatives at the micro level with lofty aims to mitigate complex challenges such as loss of employment and industries, urban shrinkage, and urban decay. However, this planning phenomenon is not without weaknesses as macro level unpredictability and uncertainty hinder its implementation, while institutional and procedural hindrances further exacerbate challenges (Bishop and Williams, 2012).
Constructive optimism and critique feature TU in urban planning and public administration research and attempt to better understand TU phenomena and also resolve institutional barriers. This is evident in the scholarly, professional and civic documentation on TU typologies, models and contexts (Blumner, 2006; Andres, 2013; Oswalt et al., 2013; Ferreri, 2015; Lydon and Garcia, 2015; Patti and Polyak, 2015). While such work does shed light on the diversity of TU practices and models, not much research has provided insight as to the complex development that results in stable and institutionalized TU. Complementing the wealth of knowledge on this emerging urban planning approach, this research aims to determine configurational conditions of TU initiatives that help practices crystallize into long-term ventures. By taking a Critical Realist position, this research examines the specific self-organizational and routinized interactions that manage and codify values, to compel commitment to tactical practices. Comparative case studies from the Dutch city of Rotterdam and the German city of Bremen help narrate the TU phenomena and inform the complex and contingent nature of the organizational and social learning processes necessary to strategize the temporary.

Keywords: temporary use, complexity, self-organizing, contingency

The research investigates public space in a transitional context, specifically in relation to its provision and management. Teheran-ro in Seoul and Mediaspree area in Berlin were selected for an empirical study as they have a history of rapid change. The research findings suggest that even though the drivers of transformation in Teheran-ro and Mediaspree area are different, common challenges arise, especially the public sector’s lack of capability to provide and manage public space alone. In response, in both cases, the public sector has engaged private sector entities – in the form of privately owned public space/s (POPS) – to share costs, rights and responsibilities regarding public space provision and management. Planning instruments used for the provision and management of POPS in both cases were identified and analysed. In addition, a number of POPS in Teheran-ro and Mediaspree area were visited, analysed and evaluated to better understand these planning instruments as well as their outcomes. The results were compared to identify the uniqueness of planning instruments in each case as well as their strengths and weaknesses. Based on the results, the research makes a number of policy recommendations for cities undergoing radical change and facing high development pressure, which are therefore seeking effective ways to engage other stakeholders in public space provision and management.

This dissertation deals with municipal action at the interface between health promotion and spatial planning. In addition to the explicit handling of health, e.g. the protection against health risks or the promotion of physical activity, it deals with the municipal handling of active mobility and healthy ageing. Health is thus illuminated as a cross-cutting issue that has many interfaces with other municipal fields of action - in this case mobility and ageing. In doing so, a political science perspective on municipal action is adopted, which, based on the social construction of policy problems and the framing approach, places processes of problem definition in the foreground. The focus of the work is the empirical investigation of municipal action at the interface between health promotion and spatial planning in the metropolitan region of Bremen-Oldenburg in the Northwest. Based on an interview-based case study analysis and a real laboratory, the work presents (1) which problem understandings underlie municipal action related to active mobility, ageing and health, (2) which roles municipal actors assume in dealing with active mobility, ageing and health, and (3) which forms of interaction shape the handling of active mobility, ageing and health. The empirical analysis provides information on the extent to which existing ways of thinking and acting in municipal action at the interface between health promotion and spatial planning favour or impede the recognition of health as an object of municipal action and the consideration of health concerns in municipal decision-making and planning processes and thus support or oppose health-promoting municipal development.

This research focuses on the European Union (EU) regional policy and presents a critical analysis of its influence on the urban regeneration process of the Portuguese city of Porto. A particular attention is drawn to the historic centre area which in 1996 was formally recognised by the UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The old town’s social, cultural and historic heritage has been dealing with a diverse range of challenges and consequently has been the stage of different urban interventions. Among the actions that have been implemented during the last 50 years to steer the area’s development, two area-based interventions linked to the EU Cohesion Policy have notably contributed to the processes of urban change—1990 Urban Pilot Project (UPP) and 2006 Programa de Reabilitação Urbana (URP).

In order to make sense of the intricate relationship between the urban dimension of the EU regional policy and the processes of urban regeneration we started by tracing the development of the EU urban agenda. As a second step we contextualised the historic Bairro da Sé do Porto area within national and local urban policies and development patterns. Finally, it was possible to put forward a series of considerations regarding the influence of EU initiatives in this southwestern European city. Hopefully, the insights resulting from this research will not only help to understand local effects of EU instruments and their specificities at the level of implementation, but allow future EU policy making to capitalise on its urban agenda in order to promote a better future.

Children and young people are in a phase of growth and learning, and sometimes take on priority social roles in public urban and regional planning, especially in view of socio-spatial and infrastructural conditions. Preventing emigration or creating motivation to return is possible if young people build up such a strong connection to their home that they want to stay there or come back if they leave their place of residence after finishing school for training or study purposes. An influential factor for positive attitudes is experiencing a pleasant youth time in the home community, for which it is essential, among other things, that municipal administrations involve children and youth in public planning processes. The following research shows that there are advantages of child and youth participation on their part and on the part of public actors. Children and young people prove to be experts on their topics, because they are aware of trends and current events that affect their age groups. Statements by experts are confirmed by this work in the point that when children and young people help to shape their home, they increasingly accept planning by the public authorities. But approaching the younger generation, motivating them to participate and convincing them to do so is a difficult undertaking. Young people are so different, they have diverse interests, different stages of development and different time budgets. Online participation may be the key to success, at first glance. But this paper shows what difficulties lie behind online and offline participation methods, what opportunities exist and how young people can be won over to participation processes, or what keeps them away.

Policy-relevant knowledge is generated by a variety of organisations and introduced into advisory processes: they range from administrative knowledge infrastructures to expert bodies, scientific research and advisory institutions, think tanks and for-profit providers.

In a comprehensive stocktaking, the policy advisory institutions in the policy field of spatial planning are typified and described for three countries with similar planning systems and expert cultures - Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland - in order to reflect on the specifics of the policy field as well as change processes and role shifts.

Using the departmental research institution BBSR as an example, it is shown how border organisations at the interface between science and politics succeed in dealing with diverging demands and guaranteeing both policy relevance and scientific quality of their expertise.

The dissertation has been published by Rohn-Verlag.

Feiertag, Patricia (2018) Politikrelevantes Wissen in der Raumplanung. Grenzarbeit zwischen Wissenschaft und Politik in Deutschland, den Niederlanden und der Schweiz. Rohn: Lemgo.

First supervisor: Prof. Karina Pallagst, TU Kaiserslautern

Topic of the thesis

One of the fundamental goals of the European Union (EU) is economic, social and territorial cohesion. To this end, both intra-European border barriers should be dismantled and European integration strengthened. Important factors for the territorial cohesion of the member states are efficient cross-border transport infrastructures and public transport services. To date, however, various obstacles hamper the smooth cross-border movement of people and goods within the EU on a daily basis. Two EU policies, the European Territorial Cooperation (ETC) and the Trans-European Transport Networks (TEN-T), aim at enhancing cross-border transport through cooperation in so-called 'soft spaces'. The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the influence of these two EU policies on cross-border transport and further European integration. Based on an analysis of European, national and cross-border policy and planning documents, surveys among TEN-T corridor coordinators and INTERREG secretariats and a high number of expert interviews, the dissertation investigates and evaluates how the objectives of the EU policies have been implemented both formally and practically in 'soft spaces' and EU member states. In this way, the potentially initiated processes of Europeanisation and European integration are evaluated. Nine preliminary studies and two in-depth case studies will be undertaken as part of the analysis. The case studies are border regions characterised by different initial situations, which are supported by ETC policy and crossed by a TEN-T corridor. The Saar-Lor-Lux+ Greater Region and the Brandenburg-Lubuskie border region are examined in detail. The study shows that the two EU policies support cross-border transport at different levels. It also makes clear that the two policies need to be more closely interlinked in order to complement each other more optimally. Furthermore, it becomes clear that the EU policies influence the political and planning documents of the different national administrative levels as well as their implementation in practice in a differentiated manner. The final implementation of EU policy objectives and cross-border transport initiatives is strongly influenced by the different starting situations in the member states - especially regional and local transport needs. This dissertation concludes that the two EU policies cannot meet all the challenges of cross-border transport. However, it shows that EU policies emphasise the importance of cross-border transport and promote cooperation as well as learning and exchange processes between EU member states in addition to financial support for concrete projects. These aspects are of high relevance for the autonomous cross-border transport development controlled by the member states as well as for further European integration. The dissertation recommends that the EU's transport planning competences, in addition to the already existing competences in the TEN-T network, should not be further expanded in the future. Instead, further transnational transport development planning should be organised in a decentralised way in transnational transport planning committees, which are more familiar with regional and local transport needs and can steer joint transport development strategies more easily. The implementation of these strategies would benefit from additional EU funding for secondary and tertiary cross-border connections. In addition, the potential complementarities of the transnational cooperation areas and transport corridors as well as the two EU policies need to be more fully exploited through improved communication. This means that both the 'soft spaces' and the TEN-T and ETC policies as well as the transport ministries of the EU Member States and the national administrations responsible for the implementation of the two EU policies need to intensify their cooperation. It is also recommended that instead of investing in small-scale, expensive infrastructure or public transport projects that only have added value for a small sub-area, future ETC projects should focus on topics that are either beneficial for the entire border region or that can be applied in different spatial contexts. The 'tools' and results developed in this context - even if they are not directly measurable in figures - should be made visible through improved public relations within the EU and its member states and made available to other potential users. Finally, the present study points to another success factor for more concrete gains: Transport and spatial planners should be involved more often in transnational projects to increase the relation of the projects to planning practice. Furthermore, barriers to cooperation could be reduced through further training in planning culture.

The paper was published here.

First Supervisor: Prof. Uwe Altrock, Universität Kassel

Abstract

Over the last two decades, China has undergone urban regeneration at an unprecedented scale and speed, and property-led redevelopment has been widely deployed as dominant urban regeneration strategy in many Chinese cities. Meanwhile, more and more attention has been paid to the protest and resistance by parts of the civil society to the tremendous demolition and eviction during urban regeneration in China. Urban regeneration during the transformation period has been a fertile ground for the governance debate, especially with regard to the existing regulatory practices and institutional settings. This research aims to examine the governance of urban regeneration in China in an integrated manner by taking into account structural context, institutions, actors, and practices. It adapts the analytical research framework by DiGaetano and Strom (2003). It examines the epistemological dynamics of how different forms of knowledge are utilized, shared and produced by various actors according to their respective knowledge, behavioral logics, and interests. It also explores the interplay of institutions, actors’ practices, and knowledge in the spatial restructuring and social innovation processes of urban regeneration, as well as the collective social learning process through experimental pioneer projects and learning from international good practice. Thus this study tries to explain how formal and informal institutions are shaped by knowledge, and further proves that social learning contributes to policymaking and institutional innovation in China. Technical, institutional and local knowledge are activated and utilized to construct storylines by the government, planners, scholars, journalists, residents and NGOs, which contribute to the complex processes of framing and reframing problems and strategies in urban regeneration, and also of continuous experimentation on various adaptive strategies. The utilization, production, and transfer of knowledge enable actors to change their positions and influence the existing power structures. Knowledge has been viewed as a resource and as invisible capital. Three types of knowledge are complexly intertwined in the process of knowledge utilization, production and sharing. Knowledge utilization and production through networking and interacting of various actors enables social learning. Through learning from other projects and cities, problem and strategy framing becomes more structured and certain during a continuously experimental practice, and thus facilitates the production of practice-based and research-based knowledge. Knowledge production is very dynamic and active in the last decade, especially due to a shift towards urban entrepreneurialism. The increasing participation demand of market and society are accompanied by the knowledge dynamics driven by non-state actors. Urban regeneration creates a great demand for knowledge concerning the coordination and balancing of plural actors’ interests and relationships. Institutional innovation in urban regeneration is realized through translating accumulated practice- based implicit knowledge into explicit research results or codified policy-related knowledge. Social learning is inextricably tied to problem framing, as the practice of problem framing and problem solving through pilot projects at the micro-level enables incremental “policy patching” through continuous policy revision. The close relationship among discourse, knowledge and social learning proves the necessity of undertaking discourse analysis as research approach in this study. The institutional framework of urban regeneration in the Pearl River Delta area in South China indicates dynamic innovations especially in the last decade. Three pioneer and experimental urban regeneration projects in Guangzhou and Shenzhen in the Pearl River Delta area in South China will therefore serve as case studies in this research.

Find the Dissertation here.

First Supervisor: Prof. Enrico Gualini, TU Berlin

The political relationship between the European Union (EU) and metropolitan regions is presently changing. Metropolitan policies at the national and subnational scale recurrently refer to Europe and to EU policies in various ways. Meanwhile, metropolitan regions appear as political actors in the European multilevel polity and as implicit issues in EU policies. Both are interdependent processes and contribute to the Europeanisation of metropolitan policies. The thesis addresses the appear- ance of a European dimension in metropolitan policies by deconstructing Europeanisation processes at three scales of policymaking which are relevant for metropolitan regions, namely the nation state, subnational entities and supranational EU institutions. Previous studies shed light on the European dimension of metropolitan policies by largely focusing on specific processes at one particular scale. Meanwhile, current developments highlight the need to explore the Europeanisation of metropolitan policies as a circular political process in a more comprehensive perspective. Three analytical steps contribute to understanding the appearance of a European dimension in metropolitan policies. The first step considers what is being Europeanised by identifying shifts in the definition of metropolitan regions and key spatial concepts in subnational, national and supra- national metropolitan policies. The second step addresses the question of how the Europeanisation of metropolitan policies takes place in vertical and horizontal channels. Third, the analysis identifies forms of policy learning between contexts, reframing processes and policy controversies influencing the change of metropolitan policies. In order to understand the subliminal emergence of a European dimension in metropolitan policies, the book combines a multilevel comparison with an interpretive methodology, based on qualitative methods such as interviews and document analysis. The comparison juxtaposes European strategies in two metropolitan regions—Lyon and Stuttgart—located in two national contexts —France and Germany. In light of diverging understandings of ‘the metropolitan’ the comparison focuses on the European dimension of metropolitan policies, which involve implicit and explicit references to Europe. To understanding the coining of European concepts of metropolitan regions in the EU context, the interpretive analysis carves out the references to metropolitan regions in selected EU policies, such as spatial planning, regional funding and the urban agenda. The book explores the Europeanisation of metropolitan regions as an ongoing, selective and implicit process. It reveals that the European dimension of metropolitan policies cannot be attributed to the top-down influence of EU policies only, but also involves the engagement of metropolitan regions ‘from below’ in transnational networks, which contributes to the emergence of metropolitan regions as political actors in the European multi-scalar polity.

Carola Fricke (2020) European Dimension of Metropolitan Policies. Policy Learning and Reframing of Metropolitan Regions. Springer Geography. 

First supervisor: Prof. H.-J. Linke, TU Darmstadt

Summary

Climate change is a central challenge of the 21st century and urban planning can also play a supporting role in coping with the associated tasks. Climate goals, strategies and concepts have been formulated at all planning levels, and the regulatory content of planning law is also opening up an increasingly expanded scope for action. But how are these requirements taken up at the operative level of action in urban land use planning?

The author traces the development of the legal regulatory content and its interdependence and evaluates the extent to which the possibilities of urban land use planning are being exploited. The empirical investigation of the measures and motivations is carried out on the basis of the cities of Frankfurt am Main, Munich and Stuttgart, which can be described as pioneers in their municipal commitment to climate change. Based on an analysis of the extensive database, the work contributes to increasing the level of knowledge and opens up approaches for optimising the anchoring of climate issues in urban planning.

The dissertation was published by Rohn-Verlag.

Christoph Diepes (2018) Klimaschutz und Klimaanpassung in der verbindlichen Bauleitplanung. Eine vergleichende Analyse ausgewählter Städte. Rohn Verlag: Detmold.