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Integrated Action Plans
Control and coordination instruments for district social development
Strategic significance of integrated action plans
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Main fields of integrated urban development activity
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The German federal government and the Länder assign strategic significance to integrated action plans for the implementation of Districts With Special Development Needs – the Socially Integrated City. This is demonstrated in Article 2, Paragraph 4 of the 1999-2001 administrative agreement on urban development assistance concluded by the federal and Land governments. “The problems of urban districts with special development needs shall be tackled by an integrative concept amounting to an holistic improvement strategy in a comprehensive package of targeted social and environmental infrastructure policies. (...) local authorities shall produce a renewable, long-term, integrated, district-based urban development policy action plan to support measures. The action plan (design and implementation model and cost and financing overview) shall offer targeted, integrated solutions to complex problems, feature all steps required to achieve the goals – including those of developers, builders and financers – and present spending estimates and specify funding sources.” At the same time this stipulation makes the fundability of a district contingent on the elaboration of an integrated urban development action plan for the neighbourhood.
The ARGEBAU ministers’ conference Guidelines on Implementation of the Joint Socially Integrated City Programme (second version, issued 1 March 2000 ) confirms the strategic role of integrated action plans. It also emphasizes their in-process status and the need for local players to get involved in designing and implementing ideas. Administrative regulations, guidelines, invitations to tender and aids published by the Länder on the topic of the Socially Integrated City programme usually refer to integrated action plans. To a large degree they adopt the stipulations of the administrative agreement. However, many also formulate additional demands on the content and procedural aspects of action plans.
Local government reservations
Despite the great value the federal and Land governments attach to integrated action plans, implementation of integrated action plans in the 16 Socially Integrated City pilot districts selected by the Länder seems to have been somewhat cautious to date.
According to the assessment in the onsite programme support interim reports of May 2001, seven districts have no integrated action plan, three districts are preparing one and only six districts actually have one. The plans in those six districts vary dramatically. This proves that municipalities are unsure about the form, content and processes of plan development and of their implementation and extension. Presumably the situation is similar in the remaining 249 programme districts.
Integrated action plans: functions and prerequisites
The problems and demands for action in “districts with special development needs” go far beyond issues of structures and space. Therefore, cross-sectional orientation is a primary feature of district social development. Unlike in traditional urban renewal projects, social, employment, education, environmental, cultural, political, housing and economic pressures have equal status with structural and urban planning demands. All these requirements and fields of activity should be incorporated and interlinked in integrated action plans with special emphasis placed on non-investment measures. Therefore the different agencies and departments should collaborate and pool funds from various sources, both public and private, in the interests of neighbourhood development. This enables integrated action plans to become an important control and coordination instrument for district social development.
Integrated action plans provide orientation for project development and implementation management and help authorities to pool funds effectively. Politically, integrated action plans form a binding foundation for active involvement of all responsible departments and offices. They also constitute a reliable basis for private investments and serve the Länder as a tool for allocating Socially Integrated City funds and traditional urban planning assistance, and for pooling those with monies from other programmes.
Effective, efficient urban district development coordination through an integrated action plan requires the interaction of all relevant agencies, offices and local players. This is particularly necessary when realizing interdepartmental measures and projects and balancing private economic and public welfare interests. Consequently, devising, implementing and extending integrated action plans also stimulates communication and coordination processes between local players and administrators.
Ultimately, integrated action plans should create reliable, motivating perspectives for the future and thus help activate local district development potential and establish the security private investors need to play their part.
Fields of activity and aspects of integrated action plans
The urban planning assistance administrative agreement (1999-2001), the ARGEBAU guidelines and the Land stipulations for integrated action plans (cf. in this volume p. 7 ff.) reveal that the following elements are the basic requirements for successful utilization of these tools. Programme support experience both nationwide and in the pilot districts confirms this assessment.
District selection and demarcation:
explanation of why a district has been selected and why boundaries were chosen, analysis of the district’s function and meaning for the city as a whole;
Analysis of structure, problems and potential:
brief outline of the district’s development, analysis of its functional, urban planning, economic, social and ecological structures, problems and potential, identification of central problem areas and development potential;
Incorporation of existing action programmes and individual measures:
e.g. urban rehabilitation and development measures, employment and training schemes, improvement of the social infrastructure, living environment projects, district initiatives;
Guidelines and development goals:
formulation of an overall concept, setting of priorities, definition of specific development aims for individual fields of activity, interlinking the objectives of the various fields, incorporating aims into the city’s development policies;
Development and presentation of strategies, measures and projects in various fields of activity, considering the following aspects:
objectives; topic and content; projected findings; effects on other fields of activity; links with other strategies, measures and projects; providers; participants; target groups; priorities; schedules; financial demands; funding plans;
Organization, management and project coordination:
government organizational forms aligning all departments and offices, organization and management structures and their interaction at municipal level, intermediary level and neighbourhood level, measures for monitoring the implementation of integrated action plans;
Involvement of residents and local players:
measures encouraging activation and participation in designing, implementing and extending action plans, measures to incorporate local players;
Concomitant evaluation:
proposed concomitant (process) evaluation and performance monitoring methods, establishing indicators for concomitant evaluation;
Cost and financial overview:
Cost and financial overview for all integrated action measures and projects with an estimate of the overall costs, local government share, private share, share of funds earmarked by the Land, the federal government and the EU.
Frequently asked questions about what the integrated concept entails are “What actually makes an action plan integrated?”, “Do all or at least two of the fields of activity, however they are formulated (cf. Difu proposal in the overview) have to be included in the plan?” Since the action plans are to be developed within the districts themselves and must thus directly relate to their specific problems, potential and resources, we feel that any answer to the questions can only be very generally worded. An action plan can be considered integrated when all fields of activity required to solve the problems are incorporated, independently of how much funding is available, and whether it is from the Socially Integrated City programme or elsewhere.
Development of integrated action plans
The plethora of possible aspects and fields of activity within integrated action plans demonstrates the high expectations they generate. Local authorities are still very uncertain about how to launch integrated action plans, as experiences in Socially Integrated City pilot districts prove. This is partly explained by the fact that during the programme’s tender invitation and application procedure much basic information about districts was not yet available. Organizational, management and communication structures were also yet to be erected and time pressure was usually tremendous. Opinions vary dramatically on the extent to which bottom-up and top-down strategies can or must be linked together.
A significant hurdle is that residents’ and politicians’ expectations demand more pragmatic processes focusing on projects which can be concluded swiftly. Often projects and measures are initiated prematurely, before any action plan has been drawn up. Consequently they lack a generally binding orientation framework. This is hardly surprising since planners can rarely be certain when a project will be accepted into an existing assistance programme, and development of truly integrated action plans with districtwide approval often occurs at an unpredictable pace. Existing integrated action plans continue to cover a broad spectrum of approaches. They range from commentated project outlines of traditional urban renewal plans and measures dominated by structural aspects, to comprehensive compendia of numerous aspects such as basic models and descriptions of individual measures.
The ARGEBAU Guidelines contain a general, abstract treatment of Socially Integrated City’s philosophy and its development goals and fields of activity for integrated action plans. One aim is to use the specific problems, potential and resources of the programme districts to create and convincingly explain viable, sustainable future perspectives and the appropriate processes for realizing them. To do this, municipalities need to define fields of activity, generate project ideas, set implementation priorities and acquire and coordinate funds, meaning that they must have detailed knowledge of conditions in the districts and clarify their functions within their cities. Findings of any relevant district-related surveys and studies should be incorporated into the overall action plan.
Whoever develops the integration plan, be it a neighbourhood management body, a privately commissioned agency or a government task force for the district (cf. the article by Gaby Grimm, Gabriele Micklinghoff and Klaus Wermker in this volume, p. 13 ff.), should ensure it includes activation, participation and voting procedures as well as open neighbourhood meetings. Drafting objectives and guidelines for integrated action plans turns out to be an abstract task. Therefore planners should communicate them clearly to neighbourhood residents so that as many as possible are motivated to participate. However, the debate on guidelines as action and orientation models for district development should not be distinct from discussions of concrete measures, projects and separate steps to rapidly improve the district’s situation and to attain goals. Discussions and collaborations of this kind offer the opportunity to develop community identity among neighbourhood residents and consensus on the most urgent measures, projects and procedures.
Experience so far demonstrates conclusively that open district discourse on the results of studies into the district’s situation and the conclusions that can be drawn from them yield important fundamental information on problems and needs as viewed by inhabitants and local players and on requirements for further investigation.
Abbildung: Fiktive Beispieltabelle für ein Zeit-Maßnahmen-Kosten-Programm
| 1st field of activity | Citizen participation and district life | ||
| Item No. | Designation Location Provider |
Scope | Description |
| 1.01 | Contingency funds | Financial support for smaller measures promoting local self-help and responsibility |
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| 1.02 | District office | Onsite consultation, local advice centre for residents on district social development |
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| n.n. | others | ||
| ∑ 1 | |||
| 2nd field of activity | Training and employment | ||
| Item No. | Designation Location Provider |
Scope | Description |
| 2.01 | Halfway house project | Reconstruction of entrance hall with a common room and children’s toilet/ Building porter’s office, porter and carer services |
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| 2.05 | Regional employment agency |
“Gathering in” unemployed people and social welfare recipients and finding them jobs |
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| n.n. | others | ||
| ∑ 2 | |||
Implementation and extension
Implementation of integrated action plans requires government backing. City councils must get involved in planning and extending them. Despite comprehensive guidelines and objectives, development plans for cities and their districts often falter because they remain mere statements of intent and vague formulations of agreement if not augmented by concrete proposals for projects, individual measures, priorities and detailed cost and financing forecasts. That is why, for example, the City of Hamburg stipulates not only a cost and financing overview for its neighbourhood development plan (QUEK, cf. Ludger Schmitz in this volume, p. 10 ff.) but also a Zeit-Maßnahmen-Kosten-Programm (Time, Measure, Cost Programme or ZMKP).
Experiences in the Socially Integrated City programme districts show that when local players are not only involved in the creation and further development of projects and measures but also have a role to play in their implementation a feeling of rejuvenation encourages inhabitants to identify more closely with their neighbourhood.
Integrated action plans assume sharper contours in the give and take between plan development and implementation findings, or, as formulated in administrative agreements, when they “accompany measures”. That is why action plans must constitute flexible orientation frameworks featuring constant neighbourhood discourse on successes, failures and changes. They must adapt to altered conditions and become a kind of proving ground system with participants who learn by doing. Consequently, extending action plans is a crucial local government task. Although integrated action plans should be highly flexible and adaptable, we must also guarantee that implementation and further development stages be documented to make them generally transparent.
Incorporating integrated action plans in citywide development
Selection of “districts with special development needs” for the Socially Integrated City programme must be justified in comparison with the rest of the city. To make sound decisions jurors need detailed microspatial knowledge of conditions in the entire city. However, this depth of information is available in few cities. These include Berlin, Essen, Duisburg and Munich, which have adopted longitudinal sociospatial reporting systems.
Comparison with the city as a whole is not only important for identifying districts with special needs, it also contributes significantly to the content of integrated action plans. Although they focus on the specific problems and resources of the programme districts, they must mesh with the wider picture of city strategies. Successful implementation of Socially Integrated City depends on the degree to which district measures, projects, processes and strategies can be incorporated into the city’s development policies and how well their citywide impact is taken into consideration. District integrated action plans must be part of a concept for the city as a whole to avoid the risk of simply shifting problems geographically or of neighbourhood strategies conflicting with superordinate policies. This is particularly relevant for housing and infrastructure policy.
Tabelle 1Tabelle 2
Source: Hamburg Urban Development Authority (STEB), Guidelines on Neighbourhood Development Plans as Part of District Social Development, enclosure 2; adapted by Difu.
Evaluations and performance monitoring must also go beyond the borders of the district to ensure a citywide perspective. Assessing impact by investigating changes in the neighbourhoods themselves entails the danger, for example, of overlooking or ignoring problem intensification caused by displacement. This was the downfall of traditional urban renewal schemes.
Source: Institut für Landes- und Stadtentwicklungsforschung des Landes NRW (ed.), Analyse der
Umsetzung des integrierten Handlungsprogramm für Stadtteile mit besonderem Entwicklungsbedarf,
1st draft, Dortmund (ILS 166), p. 29
Outlook:
Integrated action plans – transparency and commitment
Experience in North Rhine-Westphalia, the Land with the longest tradition of integrated urban development, conclusively demonstrates the importance of continually extending integrated action plans via legislation so that objectives and proposals can be refined while certain phases are being implemented. This lends transparency to the envisioned district development objectives, the achievements of previous projects and measures and necessary plan adaptations.
To date, municipalities have accorded integrated action plans differing levels of significance. Successful Socially Integrated City programmes seem to demand long-term, stringent criteria of action plans’ integrative content, their problem solving capacity and their performance as control and coordination tools. This requires agreement on general quality standards for integrated action plans.
Heidede Becker, Christa Böhme and
Ulrike Meyer
Difu
Source: Soziale Stadt - info 6, Der Newsletter zum Bund-Länder-Programm Soziale Stadt, Deutsches Institut für Urbanistik (Difu), Berlin, 2001
Im Auftrag des BMVBS vertreten durch das BBR. Zuletzt geändert am 10.05.2007