CEU Conference in Sundern

I went to the German CEU (Congress for European Urbanism, the counterpart of CNU) conference last weekend. The theme of the conference was “Zwischenstadt,” a book by professor Thomas Sievens (one of the people in attendance), that is celebrating its 10^th birthday. The conference opened with remarks about the book – that after 10 years the book is still relevant today.

Zwischstadt
Since I was at the conference without having read the book, I wasn’t entirely sure what they were referring to (also, it was all in German so I’m never exactly sure what people mean). Now that I’m reading the book (in English), I have a better understanding of the Zwischenstadt concept. As the book states, “The term Zwischenstadt signifies that today’s city is in an ‘in between’ state, a state between place and world, space and time, city and country.” There is no equivalent word to Zwischenstadt in English and the closest one can come is “in-between city” although intermediate- and meta-city were also considered, so the word Zwischenstadt was used through the English edition.

The book describes the natural tendency for human settlements to disperse once the walls of the medieval cities were no longer needed for protection. No one wanted to live in such cramped quarters with little fresh air and dirty streets. Over time, density in Europe has declined from levels currently found in second and third world cities as incomes have risen. The advent of public transit and then the automobile has made this dispersal possible since one can travel farther throughout an entire metropolitan region.

This book is also somewhat controversial since it calls into question the actions of planners trying to resist this natural dispersion by encouraging higher density and more compact places – basically replicating the old city in new areas. I think part of the controversy is that many people had not acknowledged the reality of suburban dispersal before this book. However, the book continued to call for some new “third way” that was not replicating the old city or continuing with suburban sprawl toward an American pattern of development. Yet little was specified about this third way – it remains this fuzzy concept that is better but doesn’t exist yet. And the overtly academic language also tends to abstract ideas to the point of no relevant meaning.

Looking back at my notes from the conference, Harald Kegler, in his presentation of the book’s history also noted that it is “an idea without a clear message.” So in retrospect, my reaction was the same as others and I can see a clearer purpose of the book as something that provokes questions but does not answer them.

Sundern
Other conference highlights included a tour of Sundern, a small town of 29,000 people in western Germany. It has a small downtown and many single-family houses, which is why I think it was noted to be ‘one of the areas most similar to the U.S.’ And it felt like it too: driving through some of the hills of Sundern to get to the conference reminded me of driving through the hills around Lake Minnetonka. It also has the problem of automobile dependence, given its relatively low density and lack of a clear center. In some respects the region functions together as a series of connected towns. Like good planners, we though we might take a bus from the train station one town over to our hotel but when the schedule showed the next bus would be departing in 4 hours at 9 pm, we caught a cab so we could make it to the start of the conference at 5 pm.

Our tour focused on the charrette they had in early 2007 for downtown improvements. Like many small towns, it’s redevelopment potential lie in converting existing parking lots to new buildings. Not so different from your typical project in the U.S.

Sundern Town Hall

The back side of the pedestrian street, with plenty of parking. In the background is the hillside with single-family houses.

Downtown Sundern: a pedestrian street with some shops.

Discussing Planning in the US and Europe
When I was talking informally with people at the conference, we also talked about some differences between the U.S and Europe. One is that American cities have a stronger sense of “community,” which can even become an overused word. But the idea of public participation in their local community politics – including development planning (for better or for worse) – is a part of our culture handed down from the time of the New England local town hall meeting. In Germany, as well as many other European cities, the idea of self-rule is not part of their historical development; for a long time the local kings, lords or other nobles had ruled their turf. With the monarchy system was present until after WWI and a western style democracy not established until after WWII, people were not accustomed to speaking up for how they would to see their community grow. That was something that came from the top, not the bottom.