The Baltic German Municipalities´ Inter-Territorial Strategies: a Transition Through City Networks?

Europa Regional 25, 2017 (2018) I 3-4 The Baltic German municipalities´ inter-territorial strategies: a transition through city networks? NICOLAS ESCACH Abstract1 Zusammenfassung Die überstaatlichen Strategien der deutschen Kommu- nen im Ostseeraum: Wandel durch Städtenetzwerke? Since the 1990s, the Baltic region has been undergoing a com- plete reorganization, which is characterized by a type of region- alization often known as “The New Hansa”. The coastline cities Seit den 1990er Jahren befindet sich der Ostseeraum vollständig of Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, im Wandel, der durch eine Art Regionalisierung gekennzeichnet which lie far from the most dynamic German and European ar- ist, die oft als „Die Neue Hanse“ bezeichnet wird. Die Küsten- eas and often suffer from an economic and demographic decline, städte von Schleswig-Holstein und Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, see in this the chance for a new start. The question is whether die weit entfernt von den dynamischsten deutschen und euro- using the supranational scale and in particular cooperating with päischen Regionen liegen und oft unter wirtschaftlichem und the Øresund regions can enable public and private stakeholders demographischem Rückgang leiden, sehen darin die Chance to offer a real prospect of development to the shrinking cities of für einen Neuanfang. Die Frage ist, ob die Nutzung der staaten- Northern Germany. übergreifenden Dimension und insbesondere die Zusammen- Shrinking Cities; Regionalism; Baltic Sea Region; City-Networks; arbeit mit den Öresund-Regionen es öffentlichen und privaten Rescaling Akteuren ermöglichen kann, den schrumpfenden Städten Nord- deutschlands eine echte Entwicklungsperspektive zu bieten. Schrumpfende Städte; Regionalismus; Ostseeraum; Städtenetz- werke; Neuskalierung 1 The author thanks Anne Raynaud for her precious help. 42 Nicolas Escach: The Baltic German municipalities´ inter-territorial strategies: a transition through city networks? Introduction end” of the European Union until 2004. In marginalization in a context of economic The German coastal regions of the Baltic 2017, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania metropolization and a weak influence Sea are, with most of their Polish neigh- has the lowest population density in Ger- within the political Europe. They, howev- bors, special cases among the bordering many (69,2 inhabitants per square kilom- er, are4 located in a border position, on the territories: they present the lowest level of eter, that is to say, more than three times western edge of the Baltic transnational development of their respective states (De less than the national average). space , which has emerged since the be- Rauglaudre 1998). Schleswig-Holstein, ginning of the 1990s thanks to a profu- 5 nicknamed “the Danish peduncle” was, The path of Mecklenburg-Western Pomera- sion of initiatives launched in particular Länder, until 1989 the least developed of the west- nia and Schleswig-Holstein merges with the by local stakeholders (municipalities, ern German while Mecklenburg- one of their larger cities. They often have ports, universities …). The opening of the Länder Western Pomerania was the poorest in welcomed industrial and port activities to- Fehmarn fixed connection scheduled for eastern Germany. The two are still day in crisis and are, for some people, con- 2028 could also contribute to anchoring lagging behind the major infrastructures sidered as models of fragility. The atlas of the north-German coastline to the dy- and transport routes along the northern shrinking cities has identified Kiel, Lübeck, namic urban area of Copenhagen/Malmö shrinking cities European plains and the industrial cent- Rostock and Schwerin among the European (extended Øresund). Likewise, the rela- ers of median Europe. The development of with more than 100 000 in- tive proximity of Polish or Baltic cities can Schleswig-Holstein has long been hindered habitants over the period 1950–2000 (Os- offer, particularly for municipalities such by the proximity of the Iron Curtain and the walt, Rieniets 2006). They are the only as Rostock, the opportunity to remobilize Land overwhelming influence of Hamburg. The cities of this type in northern Germany. old cooperation and a position of “guide” southern part of the belongs to the for the other eastern cities with the Ger- Hamburg metropolitan region. Mecklen- The coastal cities of Mecklenburg-Western man, Nordic or European authorities. burg-Western Pomerania grew more dur- Pomerania and Schleswig-Holstein cer- 4 The term transnational space is here to be understood 3 as an open system of interactions and networks ing the Cold War2 thanks to the dynamism tainly present a demographic and economic established at different geographical levels, in a given space by stakeholders linked through a community of of the harbor of Rostock, open door on the vulnerability , which results in a certain interests. The limits for the Baltic transnational area will 3 In a context of strong perturbations, the difficulty of a be the eligibility area of the INTERREG IV- B program: GDR’s world before becoming a “dead given spatial organization to protect itself, adapt and/ Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, 2 Competing with the Hamburg hub after German reu- or reorganize. Vulnerability is often cumulative: it is Belarus, Norway and a part of the German and Rus- nification, the port of Rostock became a roll-on/roll-off the consequence of a shock that is difficult to cushion sian regions. Site of the program: http://eu.baltic.net. port (4th German port in 2014), mainly oriented to local (through its intensity, its geographical extent) but also 5 The creation of the Union of Baltic Cities (UBC) and (Trelleborg, Gedser) and regional (links with the Gulf of the cause of a lesser capacity to respond to future the Baltic Sea Port Organization (BPO) in 1991 is fairly Finland) traffic, as well as a departure port for cruises. developments. representative. Fig. 1: Population of Baltic Germany’s municipalities in 2014 43 Europa Regional 25, 2017 (2018) I 3-4 seems that the Baltic city networks, which have multiplied since the fall of the Iron Curtain, form a transnational space with vague boundaries and allow the neighbor- ing municipalities, despite their fragility, to be part of several geographical levels, offering bridges between levels that are usually little accessible or poorly con- nected. Would exchanges between cities, because it is a process more flexible that a regional strategy, have become a possible response to urban shrinkage thanks to experience sharing. Can networking be a resource for narrowing cities on the German coast, marginalized on a national scale but possible relays of the northern European networks? The challenge seems to be to mobilize the right networks at the right scale in order to recompose the pa- rameters usually leading to a situation of vulnerability. The municipalities of Baltic Ger- many: a shared fragility? Urban shrinkage is a process that unites demographic decline, loss of duties and Fig. 2: Economic dynamism of the main Baltic metropolitan regions during the decade 2000 employments, rising of unemployment rates and level of poverty (Hannemann 2003; Heineberg 2004; Meyfroidt Pierre Veltz mentions an “archipelago other levels of governance (Tesson 1996). 2011). It can combine up to three forms economy” about the spatial polarization’s The insertion in a city network therefore of vulnerability: a demographic decline, process in favor of the more developed often constitutes an answer to a reaction an economic decline and the possibly a zones, now more interconnected than of elected members, especially in a dif- spatial retraction. This measure implies dependent of their hinterlands (Veltz ficult socio-economic context (Mayntz covering whole regions and consider- 1996). Can the municipalities of the Baltic 1993; Buléon, Baudelle 1999). The ing a minimal temporal extension (Roth Länder coast, although of medium size, redefine development of an inter-territorial strat- 2011). Over the period 1990–2010, the their position within the traditional ter- egy through the geographical levels is all most important Baltic cities in the ritorial and administrative frameworks easier as, since the 1980s, the local stake- of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and through the cities’ networks? The term holders enjoy a greater autonomy in the Schleswig-Holstein have generally met city network is here to be understood as conduct of their international policy be- these criteria (Fig. 1). a voluntarist approach of alliances and cause of a recomposition in the role of the cooperations without borders predeter- state (Escach 2014; Jouve 2007). How- On a demographic side, there is tradi- mination or physical proximity (Piolle ever, when looking at the former GDR, this tionally a line of separation from St Pe- 1993). Frédéric Tesson has shown that process could not be implemented in the tersburg to Hamburg, distinguishing, over 7 8 this tool allows local stakeholders to re- way, because the state remains central- the last decade, the Baltic from urban compose the usual boundaries of their ized for a long6 time. growth and “urban shrinkage” (Hanell, political action, when this political action Neubauer 2005). occurs at a level where the isolation of the Vulnerability is a relative concept ac- territories is obvious and to identify new cording to the scale of observation. It solutions to the increasing challenges the 6 Exposure and sensitivity to damaging an urban space system,

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