This commodification of land is surely one of the greatest problems facing today’s urban production. This problem is a consequence of both the speculation on public property and the knock-on effects it has on the market. Access to space is a prerequisite and foundation for urban formation processes. This can be permanent or only temporary—be it through short-term occupation, interim use, standard rental contracts or long-term leasing. This shows that the use of land and the spatial development that this allows is possible even without owning the land, with the benefit that property speculation is forgone. Thus, a policy is required that creates a framework for such an approach. This framework should allow for some degree of leeway in regard to permissible urban developments and their configurations, and also limit the exclusively economic valuation of property that currently defines our cities.
Various time horizons define the tactical or strategic course of action for an urban practice—from short-term interventionist procedures to long-term planning.5 One approach might not necessarily preclude the others; indeed, they can complement one another through a process of negotiation. The approach depends critically on the particular notion of city, which brings us back to the question we posed at the outset. The quality of a city is measured by its diversity, which develops in the negotiation processes of an urban practice. For Henri Lefebvre, space is a result of social exchange. He differentiates between conceived, perceived and lived space, and promotes a practice that appropriates urban spaces and perceives not only their exchange value, but their practical value as well.6 This practice is central to the perspectives of an urban political economy based not only on land resources, but also on social sustainability.
Urban lab—Berlin
Perhaps more than other cities, Berlin has a pronounced culture of appropriation. This is partly a result of its history as a divided city. Since the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, West Berlin suffered from a continual loss of inhabitants; it became a shrinking city. Yet at the same time, its ‘island’ character stimulated the development of the confined urban space as a biotope for young and creative people. West Berlin was a place where one could be different; a place harbouring the widest range of social, political and artistic ideas; a place where new modes of living could be, and were, tested. The western part of the city—enclosed by the Wall—nurtured the creativity of its subcultures, along with their political resistance and alternative designs for living. Even in East Berlin there were milieus, in opposition to the political climate of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), that sought social and spatial niches within the repressive system. It was not uncommon to find neglected turn-of-the-century blocks of flats in Prenzlauer Berg—an East Berlin district known for its counter-culture—along with abandoned garages and garden colonies, as well as Christian churches offering shelter for dissidents.
The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent reunification of the two German states led to a unique set of conditions that defined the Berlin lifestyle into the late 1990s. The collapse of the GDR economy after the opening of the Wall and the emigration to West Germany of many former East German citizens meant an excess of Freiraum—a word encompassing the ideas of both ‘open space’ and ‘freedom.’ For a brief period during the reunification process, the east of the city found itself in a situation in which the government’s regulative legal stipulations were far from strictly enforced. The potential spaces this atmosphere bore were just the sort that creative types from both East and West Berlin knew how to exploit. This formed the basis for a multi-layered urban practice that would soon become a draw card for people from all over the world. Vacant buildings and properties were reoccupied and reprogrammed. The cost of living was low. Experimentation was in the air; with the fall of the Wall everything seemed possible. This led to countless informal, self-initiated projects such as squatted blocks of flats, illegal bars and clubs, and makeshift galleries. Berlin’s transformative years offered fertile ground for the selfdetermined design of lifestyles, housing and work.
Berlin’s persistent and ongoing appeal has developed without—and perhaps despite—urban planning or urban development policy. The authoritarian gesture by which half-baked façade nostalgia was cemented as the only true urbanist dogma for Berlin recalls the pathological behaviour of parents who furnish their child’s first flat according to their own tastes—which is exactly what the centre of Berlin looks like today, with its dreary sandstone blocks. The opportunity to redefine the city socially, spatially and aesthetically was wasted.7
The unification treaty dictating the dissolution of the GDR and its accession into the Federal Republic of Germany specified that, in lieu of awarding compensation, properties were to be retroceded to their previous owners.8 This covered property holdings that had been expropriated without compensation in the former GDR and transferred to public ownership. Because the GDR had no such regulations, the scope of the law was expanded to include the loss of assets as a consequence of Nazi persecution. This led to considerable turbulence in the real estate market in the east of Berlin and ultimately resulted—in combination with the effect of the funds issued by the state for renovating and modernising existing properties—in massive rent increases in the housing market, such that many districts experienced an almost complete demographic exchange within ten years.
To alleviate some of Berlin’s massive debt, the sale of state-owned land and real estate led to further privatisation of municipal property throughout Berlin. The generated returns were only marginally profitable and the city’s economic gain short-lived. After all, from a long-term perspective the transactions reduced the leeway for policy formulation to mere years, and thus opportunities for sustainable urban development were wasted. In particular, the sale of state-owned housing associations and the privatisation of a great number of social housing units resulted in a lack of affordable dwellings and accelerated the nascent processes of gentrification.
A vision of Tempelhof Freiheit.
© raumlaborberlin
With the turn of the millennium came a gradual change. Berlin’s ethereal and improvised sense of spirit began to vanish. The city’s former embrace of life was replaced by an ever-growing compulsion for security. This trend has accelerated significantly since the 2008 financial crisis. The resistance to this trend expressed itself not only in protests, but also in the ever more strategic formulation of alternative economic models and the establishment of new alliances.
Wir sind hier nicht zum Spass 9
The planned closure of Tempelhof Airport and its replacement on a different site was part of a treaty conceived of at the end of the 1990s—a time when the common belief was that Berlin, as Germany’s restored capital, would undergo rapid growth and increased prosperity. Whilst that transformation would not to take place until almost 20 years later, the decision to close Tempelhof was upheld, and a master plan for its transformation was developed by the city.
A rare instance of vast open space located in the heart of a city, Tempelhof was a tabula rasa on valuable land. The master plan stipulated re-zoning for the entire airport site, mostly as residential. However, prior to its planned closure, it became clear that due to a weakened real estate market, the existing master plan could not be implemented in the short term without private investment from outside the government. This caused concern for the affordability of such housing developments. The pending cessation of operations and a looming election created considerable political pressure against the site being used for commercial development, triggering a desperate search by the sitting government for alternative visions and models for the Tempelhofer Feld, an area roughly 365,000 square metres. In 2006, the Senate Department for Urban Development and Housing commissioned a study by Ideenwerkstatt Tempelhof— Idea Workshop Tempelhof. The group, formed especially for this project, was an agglomeration of spatial activists and practitioners working in Berlin comprised of mbup, Urban Catalyst and raumlaborberlin.
In parallel to the top-down master planning program, the Ideenwerkstatt Tempelhof study seized on Berlin’s existing expertise in informal planning, employing a bottom-up approach of activation