The Re-railed Metropolis - Rail Station Megaprojects & Urban Restructuring in Europe and the United States

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Deike Peters, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Urbanism, Spatial Planning, Transportation and Infrastructure Planning, Landscape Planning
• Term: from 2011 to 2013
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 210792785

The applicant’s main objective for the next two years is the successful compilation of a major book‐length monograph on rail station mega‐projects and rail‐based urban restructuring. The related study proposes to comparatively investigate recent initiatives towards the development of new highspeed rail hubs in large, globalizing metropolitan regions. The overall aim is to improve our transatlantic understanding of the anticipated and likely effects of new high‐speed passenger railway hubs on their surrounding metro regions and of related decision‐making processes. As already noted in the original research proposal three years ago, a key aim of contemporary urban scholarship is the development of a more sophisticated understanding of the complex dynamics of urbanization under present conditions of a globalized capitalism and the emergence of a "Network Society", variously referred to as postindustrial, postmodern, post‐Fordist, or also, more derogatively, neoliberal urban restructuring. In the second half of the 20th century, we have witnessed a complex interplay of simultaneous processes of de‐ and reterritorialization decisively altering cities’ spatial configurations, roles, functions and regulatory environments. At the same time, new normative visions and discourses on "good" or "sustainable" urban forms are emerging. Whereas modernist urbanism was strongly tied to a vision of a functionally segregated, car‐oriented city, the emerging postmodern urbanism of the 21st century is strongly linked to a vision of multi‐nodal, polycentric urban regions featuring vibrant, attractive, walkable cores where commercial, residential and leisure uses are not separated but mixed. A new consensus is emerging among transport planners, human settlements experts and many political decision‐makers that in order to be sustainable, efficient and successful in the future, cities and their surrounding regions should to be structured around solid, high capacity transit networks and that transport and land use planning should be better integrated. Even car‐dominated North America, the notion of the "end of the automobile city" is now steadily gaining momentum. The notion that an over‐reliance on private automobiles and biased investments in road‐based infrastructures ultimately had overwhelmingly negative consequences for the environmental and social sustainability of urban settlements is now almost universally acknowledged by planners and politicians. Mass motorization led to congestion and other negative externalities, and car dependency is now further doomed by rising energy prices and the realization that recent changes in the global climate will be further exacerbated by increasing automobile‐related tailpipe emissions.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: USA
• Host: Professor Tridib Banerjee, Ph.D.