Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Stadt- und Regionalsoziologie

Montag, 11.05.2015

Dr. Matthias Bernt, Leibniz Institut für Regionalentwicklung und Strukturplanung

Shrinkage, financialisation and welfare-cuts – the linkages in Halle-Neustadt

Using a mix of survey data, results from a study on local planning politics and fieldwork, the presentation discusses the interplay of planning and welfare policies with global financial markets in the “making” of social segregation in Halle-Neustadt, a shrinking New Town in Eastern Germany.

Here, different developments come together. First, Neustadt has experienced dramatic population loss in the last two decades. These brought about large-scale demolition programmes, as well as planning policies which aim to transform parts of the neighbourhood into green space. Second, Neustadt has experienced two waves of privatisation in the last two decades, leading to a complete change of ownership structures. Municipal and cooperative owners have been largely displaced by national and international financial investors which hold their stock as an asset and aim for short-term gains, rather than long-term development. Third, cuts regarding the “reimbursement of housing costs” (“Kosten der Unterkunft”) have put more pressure on welfare recipients to live in the cheapest housing available on the local market and have led to a “business-model” based on low, but state-subsidized, rents in peripheral estates. Together, these developments have brought about an increased impoverishment of an already difficult neighbourhood and fostered processes of socio-spatial polarization.