Spatial planning amid crisis. The deepening of neoliberal logic in Germany

ABSTRACT

The paper shows why German spatial planning is neoliberalized after the 2007 global economic crisis. Drawing on historical materialist theory the paper provides a conceptual framework for the analysis of spatial planning in Germany and gives an empirical insight into German spatial planning on the national scale in the aftermath of the crisis. It shows that the crisis affected Germany only for a short time. Hence, the crisis deepened existing patterns of spatial development and as the analysis of the spatial planning discourse in the German parliament shows, spatial planners and politicians perceived the crisis as an intensifier of existing spatial developments. Thus, they saw no reason to change the previous neoliberal spatial planning strategies of endogenous development and supporting metropolitan regions. Therefore, German national spatial planning discourse was neoliberalized after the global crisis.

KEYWORDS:

• Spatial planning
• historical materialist theory
• state spatial process
• uneven development
• crisis
• Germany

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Michael Miessner http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8996-3721

Notes

1 This interpretation was shared in scientific spatial planning discourse (e.g. Schwengler and Hecht 2011; Zarth 2011). Since then, spatial effects of economic development were not discussed in German spatial planning discourse. Even the Spatial Planning Report 2017, which was not analysed for this paper, discussed spatial developments mainly in terms of demographic developments (BBSR 2017).