How do towns, cities and municipalities develop in terms of space, social affairs, economy and culture? What framework conditions and what influencing factors are relevant? How can municipalities react to current complex challenges, such as demographic change, social division, climate change and digitalisation, and how can they actively address and manage these challenges? What stakeholders should be brought on board? And how are the corresponding processes to be organised? These questions are at the core of integrated urban development. Its task is to future proof urban areas in cooperation with interest groups and urban communities using a perspective that is inter-community, pan-city and local as well as based on the neighbourhood.
Representatives of different disciplines of social sciences, urban planning and town and country planning, geography and law address the afore-mentioned matters in interdisciplinary research projects. The topics of these research projects are based on the specific challenges of cities and municipalities and the demands of a diverse and mobile urban society. Alongside work on case studies, surveys and expert meetings, another focus is the academic support and evaluation of municipal processes. We develop academically well-founded strategies, concepts and practice-based recommendations for action and give impulses for the further development of political, economic and legal framework conditions and instruments of the federal states and the German government.
Our research focuses are:
Integrated city and neighbourhood development
Housing and housing construction
Social solidarity and integration
Child and youth welfare
Health-promoting urban development
Environmental justice
Development of open spaces and Urban Green
Construction culture and protection of historic buildings and monuments
Urban development and urban redevelopment
Land policy
Local supply and retail
Governance and citizen participation
Inter-municipality cooperation
Planning, land, construction and environmental law
The Research Department Urban Development, Law and Social Affairs has three teams:
