Citizen protest in local urban planning - patterns, processes and interactions
Final Report Abstract
The research project aimed at a theoretical understanding of planning-related protest. To this end, all planning-related protests between 2007 and 2019 in eight of Germany's largest cities were quantitatively analyzed across almost 40 differentiating characteristics in order to identify different protest trajectories and patterns in the interaction of protest, planning, and other actors. Despite claims to the contrary in the literature, a clear trend towards more protest activities is only discernible to a limited extent. Today, protest actors try to be successful by creating impressive online presences, networking in social media, gathering a large number of supporters for online petitions and posting personal messages of support on the internet. There is no doubt that the internet has also created new spaces for protestrelated participation at the local level and helped initiatives to achieve greater visibility. Within the 16-year period of the study, a total of 9.1 million participants were identified. The number of participants varies greatly. The heterogeneity and complexity of the protest phenomena can be seen. The study confirmed a typology developed earlier that systematizes the main causes and concerns and also includes initiatives by protesters for something. The majority of planning protests are related to issues of technical infrastructure, followed by changes in land use and the construction or demolition of buildings, disputes over social infrastructure, green and open spaces, rents, urban renewal, migration and others. There are strong links between protests, and protesters enter into a wide range of alliances. They are supported by individuals, citizens' initiatives and, to a lesser extent, by institutionalized NGOs and, to varying degrees, by parts of the political establishment, especially at the local level, but in any case they are strongly embedded in local politics. Protests are often successful and can have six possible outcomes. Protests that react to existing plans can prevent them (1), cause a delay (2), a change in the procedure (3) or a change in content (4). By contrast, protests that react to situations aim to persuade the state to act, i.e. to start planning in the first place (5). This can also have an impact on third parties (6). Protest is now to be understood as an integral “participation module”, arising in parallel with deliberative participation offerings and serving to reinforce the positions presented there. They are rarely particularly radical and must be understood as part of everyday planning today.
Publications
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Towards Normality: Planning-related Protests and Reactions by Planning. Raumforschung und Raumordnung | Spatial Research and Planning, 78(2), 185-201.
Bertram, Grischa Frederik & Altrock, Uwe
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»Bäume oder Beton?« − Zur Bedeutung des Bildhaften im strategischen Framing lokalen Protests am Beispiel einer Kleingartenkolonie. Bilder, soziale Medien und das Politische, 125-148. transcript Verlag.
Bertram, Grischa
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Culture-led regeneration in Germany. Vortrag, Online Conference on Urban Regeneration Trends in Europe des Arbeitskreis Stadterneuerung an deutschsprachigen Hochschulen.
Bertram, G. F.
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Jenseits agonistischer Planungstheorien: Die „Normalität“ von Protesten und ihr Einfluss auf die Konfliktaustragung in der räumlichen Planung. Raumforschung und Raumordnung | Spatial Research and Planning, 81(5), 493-508.
Bertram, Grischa Frederik & Altrock, Uwe
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Local Opportunity Structures for Planning-related Protest in major German Cities. Vortrag, International Conference Paradigm Shifts in Local and Urban Governance, IGU Commission Geography of Governance, Budapest (Ungarn).
Bertram, G. F. & Kienast, G.
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Planning-Related Protest as a Key to Understanding Urban Particularities. Urban Planning, 8(4).
Bertram, Grischa Frederik & Kienast, Gerhard
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Planning-related protest in major German cities via online petitions, social media and the internet as a rational and strategic form of e participation. Vortrag, 7th urban e-planning conference, Lissabon.
Bertram, G. F. & Kienast, G.
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Straßen als Anlass und Ort für bürgerschaftlichen Protest in der lokalen räumlichen Planung. Vortrag, Fachtagung des Instituts für Zeitungsforschung. Kommunikationsraum Straße. Vom Kirchplatz zur Montagsdemonstration: neue Perspektiven. Dortmund.
Kienast, G. & G. Bertram
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Culture-led – and Sub-Culture-led Urban Regeneration in Germany. Jahrbuch Stadterneuerung, 375-403. Springer Nature Switzerland.
Bertram, Grischa
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Das Erwachen der Schlafstädte. In: Uwe Altrock, Henriette Bertram, & Arvid Krüger (Hg.). „Neue Suburbanität? Stadterweiterung in Zeiten der Reurbanisierung“. Bielefeld: Transcript, S. 156-177
Bertram, G.F.
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Warum werden wir hier beteiligt? (Un-)Möglichkeitsstrukturen der Planungspartizipation in der multiplen Demokratie. In: pnd, 1/2024, 8-24.
Bertram, G.F.
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Local Opportunity Structures for Planningrelated Protest in major German Cities. In: Tér és Társadalom // Space and Society, Special Issue ‘Paradigm Shifts in Local and Urban Governance’ 1/2025
Kienast, G. & Bertram, G.F.
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Stadt und Protest. Handbuch Stadtsoziologie, 1-29. Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.
Bertram, Grischa
