6 Conflicting rationalities and messy actualities of dealing with vacant housing in Halle/Saale, East Germany
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Nina Gribat
Abstract
After German reunification, like many other cities in East Germany, Halle/Saale in the federal state of Saxony Anhalt underwent a period of urban decline. It lost a large share of jobs and around 25 per cent of its population1 between 1990 and 2010. Some people relocated elsewhere for jobs; others moved to a single-family house in the region (something previously impossible due to the German Democratic Republic’s [GDR’s] strict limitations on suburbanisation). As a consequence, the rate of vacant housing in Halle/Saale and many other East German towns and cities intensified. Urban vacancy eventually became one of the main fields of policy intervention on a local, regional and national level in Germany. In recent years, urban vacancy has received increasing scholarly attention in the field of urban studies. Two main points of reference can be distinguished: post-industrial and post-socialist urban decline and depopulation, often subsumed as ‘urban shrinkage’ (Haase et al, 2014); and the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2008, often explored as austerity urbanism (Tonkiss, 2013). It can be argued that despite some important differences, in both contexts, urban vacancy is considered as a symbolic marker of urban crises and change. On the one hand, research focuses on identifying causes for urban vacancy, such as exploring links between population change and vacancy (Couch and Cocks, 2013), or between political-economic change and vacancy (Kitchin et al, 2014). On the other hand, scholars examine how urban vacancy is governed in a variety of contexts.
Abstract
After German reunification, like many other cities in East Germany, Halle/Saale in the federal state of Saxony Anhalt underwent a period of urban decline. It lost a large share of jobs and around 25 per cent of its population1 between 1990 and 2010. Some people relocated elsewhere for jobs; others moved to a single-family house in the region (something previously impossible due to the German Democratic Republic’s [GDR’s] strict limitations on suburbanisation). As a consequence, the rate of vacant housing in Halle/Saale and many other East German towns and cities intensified. Urban vacancy eventually became one of the main fields of policy intervention on a local, regional and national level in Germany. In recent years, urban vacancy has received increasing scholarly attention in the field of urban studies. Two main points of reference can be distinguished: post-industrial and post-socialist urban decline and depopulation, often subsumed as ‘urban shrinkage’ (Haase et al, 2014); and the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2008, often explored as austerity urbanism (Tonkiss, 2013). It can be argued that despite some important differences, in both contexts, urban vacancy is considered as a symbolic marker of urban crises and change. On the one hand, research focuses on identifying causes for urban vacancy, such as exploring links between population change and vacancy (Couch and Cocks, 2013), or between political-economic change and vacancy (Kitchin et al, 2014). On the other hand, scholars examine how urban vacancy is governed in a variety of contexts.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents vii
- List of figures and tables ix
- Notes on contributors xi
- Acknowledgements xiv
- Introduction 1
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Rethinking ruination in the post-crisis context
- Rem(a)inders of loss: a Lacanian approach to new urban ruins 21
- Dignifying the ruins: a former Jewish girls’ school in Berlin 35
- Traversing wastelands: reflections on an abandoned railway yard 53
- Building the new urban ruin: the ghost city of Ordos Kangbashi, Inner Mongolia 73
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The political economy of urban vacant space
- Nullius no more? Valorising vacancy through urban agriculture in the settler-colonial ‘green city’ 91
- Conflicting rationalities and messy actualities of dealing with vacant housing in Halle/Saale, East Germany 109
- Post-disaster ruins: the old, the new and the temporary 125
- The post-crisis properties of demolishing Detroit, Michigan 145
- Guarding presence: absent owners and the labour of managing vacancy 163
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Reappropriating urban vacant spaces
- Politicising vacancy and commoning housing in municipalist Barcelona 181
- Spatio-legal world-making in vacant buildings: property politics and squatting movements in the city of São Paulo 197
- (Im)Material infrastructures and the reproduction of alternative social projects in urban vacant spaces 211
- Tracing the role of material and immaterial infrastructures in imagining diverse urban futures: Dublin’s Bolt Hostel and Apollo House 229
- Conclusion: Centring vacancy – towards a research agenda 243
- Index 251
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents vii
- List of figures and tables ix
- Notes on contributors xi
- Acknowledgements xiv
- Introduction 1
-
Rethinking ruination in the post-crisis context
- Rem(a)inders of loss: a Lacanian approach to new urban ruins 21
- Dignifying the ruins: a former Jewish girls’ school in Berlin 35
- Traversing wastelands: reflections on an abandoned railway yard 53
- Building the new urban ruin: the ghost city of Ordos Kangbashi, Inner Mongolia 73
-
The political economy of urban vacant space
- Nullius no more? Valorising vacancy through urban agriculture in the settler-colonial ‘green city’ 91
- Conflicting rationalities and messy actualities of dealing with vacant housing in Halle/Saale, East Germany 109
- Post-disaster ruins: the old, the new and the temporary 125
- The post-crisis properties of demolishing Detroit, Michigan 145
- Guarding presence: absent owners and the labour of managing vacancy 163
-
Reappropriating urban vacant spaces
- Politicising vacancy and commoning housing in municipalist Barcelona 181
- Spatio-legal world-making in vacant buildings: property politics and squatting movements in the city of São Paulo 197
- (Im)Material infrastructures and the reproduction of alternative social projects in urban vacant spaces 211
- Tracing the role of material and immaterial infrastructures in imagining diverse urban futures: Dublin’s Bolt Hostel and Apollo House 229
- Conclusion: Centring vacancy – towards a research agenda 243
- Index 251
