Maturity, Resilience & Lifecycles in Suburban Residential Areas

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/302565858 Maturity, resilience & lifecycles in suburban residential areas Article · January 2016 DOI: 10.17877/DE290R-16888 CITATION READS 1 83 1 author: Jan Polivka RWTH Aachen University & ILS Research Institute for regional and Urban Development 12 PUBLICATIONS 6 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Kolleg Mittelstadt (gefördert von der Robert-Bosch-Stiftung) View project GROWING BAD? The Regional Sub-Urban Housing Challenge. International Research Perspectives: International Scientific Symposium on Built Environment and Urban Design. View project All content following this page was uploaded by Jan Polivka on 02 July 2018. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. MATURITY, RESILIENCE & LIFECYCLES IN SUBURBAN RESIDENTIAL AREAS Jan Polívka city @ region Cover illustration: Stylized alternatives of evolutionary paths (adapted from Martin 2010, 10) MATURITY, RESILIENCE & LIFECYCLES IN SUBURBAN RESIDENTIAL AREAS Submitted As Dissertation to the Faculty of Spatial Planning at TU Dortmund University Supervised by: Prof. Christa Reicher, TU Dortmund University Prof. Dr. Markus Hesse, Université du Luxembourg Examiner: PD Dr.-Ing. Frank Roost, Research Institute for Regional and Urban Development city @ region, Dortmund 2016 Maturity, Resilience & Lifecycles in Suburban Residential Areas Jan Polívka “Most change occurs outside of (…) critical junctures, in gradual and incremental but nonetheless potentially transformative processes in which endogenous factors may be just as important as exogenous ones.” (Thelen 2004, paraphrased by Sorensen 2011, 716) Maturity, Resilience & Lifecycles in Suburban Residential Areas Jan Polívka ABSTRACT Most of the suburban residential areas in Germany have been built during the sec ond half of the 20th century. Growing interest among practitioners and scientists is thus paid to the future development of maturing settlement areas characterized by old housing stock and aging inhabitants. This dissertation analyzes processes of change and adaption of suburban residential areas under the conditions of the maturation process. The analysis aims on contributing to the systemic notion of processes changing maturing systems within their natural lifecycle and its inter dependence with deliberate adaption under particular stakeholders’ constella tions. On the theoretically conceptual level it seeks to explore the key attributes of the development path for evolutionary lifecycles within the context of resilience, discussing the phenomena of stable maturity and continuous adjustment and on the concept of settlement space. By deconstructing the lifecycle concept, the book analyzes the canonical view on mature suburbia based in the traditional growthmaturitydecline pattern and introduces a pluralistic concept of path dependent evolution based on a multileveled interdependence between particular levels of space, stakeholders‘ panar chy and adaptive action. On behalf of outcomes based in theory and the results from two empirical studies conducted in German mature suburban residential areas, a concept of multileveled ‘systemic space’ as both interpretative and analytic tool for understanding development paths of mature suburban systems is introduced. The results of its application on the case studies show that, especially in terms of homogeneity and diversity, lifecycles of suburban residential areas underlie different conditions for change and adaption during the early and the maturity phases, and defines interpretative frames for conceptualizing both theiretical and research approaches. Hereby, it issue the locally based stakeholders’ panarchy as the central adaptionsteering potential, putting it at the core of strategic planning interest in mature suburban residential areas. Maturity, Resilience & Lifecycles in Suburban Residential Areas Jan Polívka ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This text would have never been accomplished without the help and support of several people. My thanks and deepest gratitude goes to my advisors, Prof. Christa Reicher and Prof. Dr. Markus Hesse, for the repeated encouragement, patience, ad vises and constructive critics and discussions on my thoughts and drafts. A special thank is due to Christa Reicher also for keeping me away from many other duties at the university department and thus enabling me to concentrate on this text. To Markus Hesse I especially thank for the extremely valuable advices on literature and for the help of sorting it. I also owe deep thanks to Dr. Frank Roost for critical suggestions and advices to the draft. During the survey and writing process of my thesis I have been priviledged by the support of several colleagues through common discussions on the topic. These motivating talks enabled me to to draw contures of my arguments and gave me the access to a variety of fresh views on suburban maturity, based on rich and nourish ing experiences and knowledge. For this support I would especially like to thank Prof. Dr. Tomokazu Arita, Prof. Dr. Ludger Basten, Andreas Beilein, Prof. Dr. Yukihiro Kadono, Frank Osterhage, Prof. Thomas Sieverts, Petra SoikaBracht, Jutta Vet terlein and many others for highly valuable insights. A special and extraordinary thanks I owe to all interview partners in the case study areas as well as to related experts for their precious time taken for answering my questions and for providing me with additional information as well as the credits of trust I have been honored with by getting insights into their professional and partly also private lives. My deepest thanks go to all my colleagues in the Department of Urban Design and Land use planning for helping me to manage time and tasks during the everyday work in order to enable me to work on this thesis. My special thanks I owe to my colleague Andrea Wagner for critical reviews and questions and to Dr. Mais Jafari for the technical support. Kenneth Gildner and Claudia Becker I owe very special thanks for the intensive, attentive and quick review of my English. Many thanks go to Thomas Wucherpfennnig and Laura Born from Labor b designbüro for the final graphical support. My family, especially Saori, and my friends I would like to thank for having patience and giving me the necessary support which enabled me to start and finally also to finish this task. Dortmund, March 2016 CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION 14 1. 1 Development of suburban residential areas in the context of maturation 14 1. 2 Paths of adaption within mature suburban settlements 22 1. 3 Structure of the dissertation 26 2. SUBURBANIZATION DISCOURSE 30 2. 1 Conceptualizing suburbia within an urban- suburban dichotomy 30 2. 2 Suburbia and the urbanization cycles within a diversifying metropolitan development 38 3. SUBURBAN MATURATION AND LIFECYCLES 52 3. 1 The growth-maturity-decline pattern in the maturation context 52 3. 2 Components of a canonical view on suburban maturation 54 3. 3 Approaches to neighborhood change 63 3. 4 Critique of the suburban maturation discourse 68 3. 5 Life-cycles in ecological and social-ecological systems 70 3. 6 Path dependence— Approaching maturity and adaption within evolutionary concept 76 3. 7 Adaptive cycles, hierararchy and panarchy 87 3. 8 Implications of the pluralistic concept of lifecycles and the path dependent evolution 88 Jan Polívka 4. EMPIRICAL APPROACH 96 4. 1 Methodology and method 96 4. 2 Pre-study reflections 109 4. 3 Grimma Süd and Gelsenkirchen Resser Mark mature residential areas 124 5. INTERPRETING THE CASE-STUDY FINDINGS 138 5. 1 Diversification and path-dependent development 138 5. 2 Shock or ‘break’, lock-in and equilibrium in the context of a diversification process 153 5. 3 Human agency and human intent 160 5. 4 Leadership and hierarchy within the stakeholder panarchy 176 5. 5 Panarchy networks 182 5. 6 Systemic space and adaption-making 185 5. 7 Conclusive remarks on the case studies 190 6. LIFECYCLES AND ADAPTION: DISCUSSION, CONCLUSIONS AND PERSPECTIVES 198 6. 1 Approaching mature suburban residential areas 198 6. 2 Towards adaptive strategies 210 REFERENCES 218 LIST OF FIGURES 240 INTRODUCTION 1 Maturity, Resilience & Lifecycles in Suburban Residential Areas Introduction 1. INTRODUCTION 1. 1 Development of suburban residential areas in the context of maturation Mature suburbia and its connotations Most suburban residential areas of both family houses1 as well as suburban apart ment multistorey housing that exist today in Germany were constructed between the 1950s and the 1980s. They accommodated both the population growth of the postwar era and the grown demands of living space per capita, at the same time being stimulated by the growing mobility, economic wealth and state subsidy pro grams (Brake et al. 2001; Burdack & Hesse 2007). Economic development, societal trends and postindustrial demographic change influence the conditions not only of further suburban residential growth, but also of the existence and perspectives for the further development of the areas that already exist. On the one hand, de mographic change accounts for the general drop in population numbers, the aging of the society as well as its internationalization (Deutscher Bundestag 2002; Kröh nert et al. 2004). The demographic effects and the lower share of families together with changed lifestyles and circumstances (Brake 2012) are most likely to be res ponsible for a slow but steady decline in demand

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