Actors of settlement development in rural areas

Background and Objective

At the European and federal level, numerous goals for climate-friendly settlement development are being set, which pose significant challenges for smaller cities and municipalities. The goals include, for example, reducing land use, prioritizing inner-city development, reducing vacancies, and focusing construction activity on existing buildings. For the practical implementation of these goals, a wide range of construction and planning actors at the local level are crucial. They represent the central interface between the overarching framework and the actual built environment.

However, relatively little is known about who actually drives and shapes settlement development in smaller cities and municipalities. While individual actors are often addressed in guidelines and implementation-oriented projects with regard to specific challenges and strategies, those who implement these projects in practice have hardly been systematically examined in scientific research.

Existing research shows that due to the limited personnel and financial resources of smaller municipalities, there is a high dependence on individual persons for planning and construction activities. It is assumed that, in addition to municipal councils and their administrations, other professional actors such as construction companies, land and development companies, or planning offices play a significant role. Of interest in this project are, among other things, their decisions for or against individual construction and planning projects and how various factors, such as the legal-institutional or financial framework, influence these decisions. Furthermore, the project aims to investigate the extent to which differences exist between the actions of private and public actors. The goal of the project is to gain an overview of relevant actors in construction and planning in smaller cities and municipalities and to understand their actions and the underlying decision-making processes.

Approach

Conceptually, the project is based on a practice-theoretical approach: the focus is on the everyday evaluation and decision-making processes of construction and planning actors, whose individual approaches ultimately form the basis of planning documents and materialised construction projects. This approach allows for an examination of the diverse planning-related fields of tension that arise in the context of climate-friendly urban development.

Concretely, the project aims to gain insight into planning and construction practices in smaller cities and municipalities through case studies. The first focus will be on larger areas that have fallen out of use, such as former industrial, agricultural, commercial, or military complexes. An initial approach to these cases will be made through the analysis of official secondary data (in particular, census data and construction activity statistics). In addition, in-depth analyses of media and documents from publicly accessible sources, as well as interviews (expert interviews, walking interviews) with locally and supra-locally relevant actors, will be conducted.

Our Research Questions

• Who are the significant actors in construction and planning practices in rural areas? What decision-making processes underlie their actions?
• What importance do professional actors such as housing construction companies or planning offices have for construction and planning practices in smaller cities and municipalities? To what extent do differences emerge in their actions, for example, between private-sector and non-profit actors, as well as between local and external actors?
• What conclusions can be drawn from practical construction and planning actions for the design of overarching framework conditions, particularly rural development policy?