Shrinking Cities and Urban Regeneration in Switzerland
April 2011 - March 2013
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Urban Regeneration in Zurich Affoltern, Switzerland (Photo: City of Zurich)
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Background
The urban
landscape of Europe is undergoing its most fundamental transformations since
post-war reconstruction. The explosion in research output on urban regeneration
and renewal in recent years can be explained by three trends: a) the fact that cities and urban
areas are currently experiencing tremendous structural changes (number and
diversity of urban policy initiatives); b) the decline in traditional
industries and the associated loss of employment, and populations, to the
suburbs and beyond is no longer the one and only cause for decay and
deterioration of cities as well as resulting urban regeneration; c) approaches
to urban regeneration and renewal have changed drawing on notions of
public-private partnership, growth coalitions, local alliances and community
mobilization, place marketing, the culture economy and the creative class.
In
Switzerland there is not much research work on shrinkage up to now. This is due
to the fact that the phenomenon is only recently (and locally) surging and the
perception and awareness of shrinking processes is just rising. A second reason
might be the spatial dimension of the phenomenon: shrinking in Switzerland is
either related to an urban agglomeration, to a region or city network (rather
that a single city) – or, when related to a city, it is not a global but a
local phenomenon, i.e. related to a neighbourhood. Some exception (where whole
cities are hit by shrinkage) might be found in the Jura (a Canton that suffered
a strong economic transformation caused by the decrease of the watch industry)
and around Lake Constance: this region suffers from being rather isolated
from the strengthening economic networks nearby, especially the Zurich
Metropolitan Area. Generally it can be stated that shrinkage in Switzerland is
rather related to quality than to quantity.
Funding
The project is funded by a research grant from the Swiss State Secretariat for Education and Research (SER) in the frame of COST Action TU0803 "Cities Regrowing Smaller (CIRES): Fostering Knowledge on Regeneration Strategies in Shrinking Cities across Europe".
Research Questions
The
proposed analysis of urban regeneration processes in Switzerland addresses the
following research questions:
- What do Swiss cities do in order to cope with
structural change (caused by demographic, economic or other factors)?
- Why do
Swiss cities get involved in urban regeneration?
- What are starting points or
windows of opportunities for urban regeneration (initiative by developers,
initiative by cities to increase tax income,)?
- What kind of trajectories and
path dependencies characterize urban regeneration (lock-ins/barriers)?
- What
types of urban regeneration strategies can be identified (e.g. housing,
economic development, green spaces)?
- What types of urban regeneration projects
can be identified (private, public, PPP)?
- To what extent and why do urban
regeneration strategies differ between Swiss regions (e.g. between
French-speaking and German-speaking Switzerland)?
Goals
The
project analyses the governance of urban regeneration in Switzerland.
The main goal of the project is to identify and typify governance processes of
urban regeneration in Switzerland in order to set up a data base with
regeneration strategies in Switzerland and develop criteria for good
governance of urban regeneration.
The
sub-goals are:
- to develop a conceptual framework for the analysis and
evaluation of urban shrinkage and urban regeneration strategies in
Switzerland;
- to conceptualize urban regeneration strategies as local adaptation
to (global/regional) demographic, social, economic or environmental change;
- to
develop criteria and indicators to identify and measure urban regeneration in
Switzerland;
- to identify transformation processes and regeneration strategies
in urban Switzerland;
- to set up a data base of a) transformation processes and
b) urban regeneration strategies in Switzerland;
- to analyse path dependencies
of urban transformations (caused by demographic, economic or other factors)
- to
analyse regeneration strategies for urban (re-)development in Switzerland (as
coping strategies to deal with urban structural change);
- to develop criteria
for good governance of urban regeneration;
- to develop policy recommendations
for national, cantonal and city planning authorities about how to deal with
shrinkage and other fundamental transformations in Switzerland;
- to contribute
to the scholarly network of COST TU0803 by conceptual and empirical work on
shrinking cities and urban regeneration strategies in Switzerland.
Our work
should thus help to better understand shrinkage, regeneration and transformation processes in urban areas and at the local scale.
Team
Contact
