Cities in transformation processes - Hamburg and Havana (updated) - Renewal proposal

• Applicants: Professor Dr.-Ing. Uwe Altrock; Professor Dr.-Ing. Thomas Krüger
• Subject Area: City Planning, Spatial Planning, Transportation and Infrastructure Planning, Landscape Planning
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 449863470

The aim of the research project is to analzse and understand the patterns of urban transformation in politically, socially and economically diverse systems and to place them in the international context of urban governance debates and planning theory discussions. The research project, which has already been approved, aims to analyze the objectives, structures and working methods of spatial planning and their interactions with the social, planning and political context. The basic hypothesis of the research project is that spatial transformation is shaped by the interactions between goal-oriented, overarching plans and programs and the emergent everyday practices and projects of the various actors. This question is analyzed within the framework of the research project on the basis of very different cases with regard to the political, economic and cultural framework conditions (most different systems-approach). The analyses will be carried out in the spatially structurally similar cities of Hamburg (Germany) and Havana (Cuba). Despite difficult conditions (COVID pandemic, economic crisis in Cuba), the research project has so far succeeded in rebuilding international interdisciplinary research, conducting it in parallel and analyzing the results intensively in their comparison. Our interim results make it clear that the ambitious research approaches are producing in-depth findings for theory-oriented research into the structure of planning processes and the governance of planning. However, in view of the complexity of the project and the unfavorable framework conditions, especially at the beginning of the research, it has become clear that more time is needed to deepen the existing interim results and to draw conclusions for planning theory and governance research based on them. The extension of the research project is therefore intended to help compensate for the loss of time caused by the COVID pandemic, to secure the research results to date and to achieve and publish the project objectives in terms of content.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Cuba
• Cooperation Partners: Professor Dr. René Alejandro González Rego; Professorin Dr. Vivian Oviedo Álvarez; Professor Dr. Jorge Peña Díaz; Professor Dr. Arturo Rúa de Cabo; Professorin Dr. Isabel María Valdivia Fernández