THE LAND USE CONFLICT As a contribution to the 20th Bundestag elections, the Architecture Section of the Akademie der Künste invited politicians to two urban-development policy discussions held online. The first discussion, which took place on 19 August 2021, was on the topic “Land, a limited resource”.1 Bernhard Daldrup (SPD, Social Democrats), Christian Kühn (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, Green Party), Caren Lay (Die Linke, Left Party), and Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (FDP, Liberals) took part. No one from the CDU/CSU was able to attend. With all participants aware that the current land consumption in Germany of 56 hectares per day must not be allowed to continue, surprisingly, by the end of the discussion, a cross-party consensus was reached on what was needed:
LIVING SUSTAINABLY DESPITE CULTURAL IDEALS Wilfried Wang
oordinated and integrated regional planning • Cacross local authorities to effectively manage land consumption. ormation of suburban hubs to improve the public • Ftransport network. only on already sealed land; alternatively, • Btheuilding use of land certificates or exchange systems. nsealing of downtown areas (e.g. through • Umodification/replacement of car parks, creation of new green spaces). ensification of the existing fabric, including • Dtaller buildings. arge-scale planning of inner-city brownfields, • Lformer industrial areas, and railway land.
• Intensification of the local public transport network. reation of a functional/social mix in residential • Careas. • Short distances between residential areas. The topic of the construction of single-family houses, controversially discussed in the media in the run up to the elections, was only briefly addressed during the Akademie der Künste debate. The following article thus fills this gap.
1 The discussion was recorded and is accessible online: https://www.adk.de/en/programme/?we_object ID=62724. The second conversation of 30 August 2021, on the subject of “Design the metropolis sustainably!”, is also online: https://www.adk.de/en/programme/?we_ objectID=62728
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Map of Suburban Areas, Berlin-Brandenburg, 2021 (areas with single-family houses in pink)
OR THE DECISIVE BATTLE FOR THE SINGLE-FAMILY HOUSE
