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Socially Integrative City Programme An Encouraging Three-Year Appraisal
Heidede Becker Thomas Franke Rolf-Peter Löhr Verena Rösner

Introduction 1. Socially Integrative City A Programme to Combat Social and Spatial Marginalization     1.1 Programme Background: Emergence of Disadvantaged Urban Districts     1.2 Programme Approach: Halting the Downward Spiral     1.3 Programme Areas: Selection and Adaptation 2. Pooling Resources New Cooperation Forms and Targeted Funding     2.1. Pooling Resources: A Key Programme Objective     2.2. Pooling Resources at Federal and EU Levels     2.3 Pooling Resources at Land Level     2.4 Pooling Resources at Municipal Level     2.5 Significance of Non-Government Resources 3. Integrated Action Plan A Strategic Tool     3.1 Practical Significance of Integrated Action Plans     3.2 Drafting, Implementation and Updating Procedures     3.3 Central Fields of Activity of Integrated Urban District Development 4. Neighbourhood Management a Key Instrument for Programme Implementation     4.1 Tasks and Organization of Neighbourhood Management     4.2 Neighbourhood Management in Practice     4.3 Neighbourhood Management as a Process 5. Activation and Participation     5.1 Organization of Onsite Interests     5.2 Findings of Participation and Activation Campaigns 6. The Socially Integrative City Appraisal and Outlook     6.1 Opportunities and Problems in Programme Implementation     6.2 Outlook: Points to Consider in Refining the Programme Notes Bibliography

Introduction

The joint programme Districts with Special Development Needs The Socially Integrative City (in short: Socially Integrative City) was born with the 1998 coalition agreement between the German Social Democratic Party and Bündnis 90/Die Grünen (Alliance 90/The Greens). An administrative agreement between the federal government and the Länder established the programme in September 1999. It builds on the traditional construction and spatial planning approach to urban development promotion. The Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Housing (BMVBW) has recruited the German Institute of Urban Affairs (Deutsches Institut für Urbanistik Difu) to provide referral, guidance and information services with several key responsibilities (see chart) for the first phase of programme implementation (autumn 1999 to spring 2003). The high level of experience sharing and knowledge transfer required to implement the programme strongly influenced the decision to develop a national Socially Integrative City network consisting of the following elements: central, regional and local events, continuous reporting (Information on the Socially Integrative City and Working Papers on the Socially Integrative City) and a website (sozialestadt.de) with information about the programme, the areas involved, events and publications and databases containing relevant literature on projects and initiatives which share the Socially Integrative City objectives.

Programme support elements

A second key element of the national programme support initiative, Onsite Programme Support (PvO), was launched in summer 2000 in the 16 Socially Integrative City pilot areas nominated by the Länder. A best practice analysis also facilitates evaluation of the performance and effectiveness of measures and projects. It is based on the project database which was published on the Internet in spring 2001 and has been constantly updated since then. Preparations for a national evaluation of Socially Integrative City involve findings from this investigation, the results of two surveys on the Socially Integrative City areas (from 1999, 2000 and 2002) and Onsite Programme Support conclusions.

This initial appraisal of the Socially Integrative City programme, made after almost three years of operation, is based on:

• national, regional and local events and the two impetus congresses organized by Difu in cooperation with the BMVBW (on neighbourhood management in Leipzig in October 2000 and integrative action in Essen in November 2001);
• the first Difu survey, which focused on problems, potential, goals and (planned) measures (1);
• interim reports on the first phase of Onsite Programme Support;
• results from a strategy workshop on pooling resources, involving federal and Länder urban development promotion coordinators, and two network meetings covering Socially Integrative City issues;
• participation in task forces and networks (e.g. Municipalities of the Future network, Socially Integrative City task force of the Construction Ministers Conference Urban Planning Commission).

1.

Socially Integrative City A Programme to Combat Social and Spatial Marginalization

Despite the fact that it has only been in place for a short time, the Socially Integrative City programme has already elicited a substantial response from the public. It has generated a spirit of optimism in many districts classified as disadvantaged. The participating municipalities have established new organizational and management forms for integrated urban district development. These range from interdepartmental task forces at local government level to district offices on site. They consider diverse problems but also the potential of underprivileged districts, as encountered in many environments running initiatives and projects, and involve local players in processes and decisions. In most cases this does not merely assist «technical» programme implementation, but also marks the evolution of a new district-oriented, holistic management «philosophy» based on intensive dialogue between residents, policymakers and local government.

We can therefore regard the Socially Integrative City programme as a pilot project for urban renewal policy reform and perhaps even for urban policy renewal as a whole. This is underlined by the broad interest in the approach shown by policymakers and local government, business and research spheres, associations, organizations and initiatives and manifested in numerous events and publications and in the development of programme-related courses and further training measures.

The Socially Integrative City programme is largely based on the experiences of several of our European neighbours and individual Länder with their own separate schemes. The North Rhine-Westphalian regional programme Districts With Special Development Needs (ILS 2000), which has been under way since 1993, and Hamburgs Pilot Project to Combat Poverty (Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg 1997), launched in 1994, have played a particularly important pioneering role. Conclusions from other European countries particularly France, England and the Netherlands and findings from the EU Community URBAN I initiative also shaped the programme. The ARGEBAU (now Construction Ministers Conference) Socially Integrative City community initiative launched in 1996 compiled these findings. It added feedback from the more recent Länder programmes in Hesse, Berlin and Bremen in the course of the process, and pooled all results with the aim of guaranteeing a «sustained upward trend» in «districts with development priority» throughout Germany (ARGEBAU 2000). The German Institute of Urban Affairs prepared additional conceptual input for the federal/Länder programme for the Bundestag urban development promotion hearing in spring 1997 and other purposes and conducted a survey on the impact of previous national urban renewal programmes (Becker u.a. 1998).

The novelty of the approach favoured a special form of implementation. A kickoff event in Berlin on 5 July 1999 gave the programme nationwide publicity. More than 500 participants from various political and social arenas learned about British and Dutch experiences with comparable approaches, backgrounds, objectives and the provisions of this new, warmly welcomed programme to combat the widening social and spatial rift in German towns and cities. After several teething problems, which stemmed partly from the new schemes complexity, the programme was ready to enter the implementation phase by the end of that year. The Starter Conference in Berlin in early March 2000, which more than 1000 people attended, laid further foundations for the programme. The Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, the Federal Minister of Transport, Building and Housing, the ARGEBAU chairman and representatives from the 16 pilot areas reported initial experiences with integrated urban district development. Experts from various social sectors also presented findings. The impetus congresses on neighbourhood management in Leipzig in autumn 2000 and on Integrated Action Plans one year later in Essen each attracted several hundred delegates. They demonstrated keen interest in the programmes new philosophy but expressed widespread doubts regarding its implementation.

Considerable discrepancies between the formulation of programme visions and objectives and the grassroots work have also surfaced in some districts with particular development needs. The resistance and disruptive friction among some players stems from the fear that they will lose power and influence, that public services will be deprofessionalized and that their own financial security will be jeopardized. The unrealistic expectations of swift and tangible results prevalent in some areas also lead to unreasonable frustration in many quarters. However, without patience and perseverance, the programme will not be successful in the long run, given the complexity of the problems and the inevitable chore of breaking ground in Socially Integrative City areas. Other European countries can confirm that sustainable urban district socioeconomic development is not a viable short-term objective.

1.1 Programme Background: Emergence of Disadvantaged Urban Districts

Economic, political and social changes since the late 1960s have caused mounting social and urban fragmentation which has led to upward revaluation or devaluation of individual districts (Franke/Löhr/Sander 2000, pp. 244-246). The rigid segmentation of the housing market has played a major role in this. For example, since the early 1980s the number of flats reserved for low-income households has halved throughout Germany, while the number of households dependent on transfer payments has increased sharply. Alternatives on the free housing market, which is relaxing in many cities, and the low appeal of vacant subsidized accommodation drive residents in higher wage brackets to abandon disadvantaged areas. This goes for quite varied population segments. The vacated flats are then occupied chiefly by migrant households, particularly in the old, former West German Länder, and low-income German families. Progressive social segregation and the resulting concentration of underprivileged households is fuelling the potential for social conflict in many neighbourhoods. In the new, former East German Länder negative net migration is leaving more and more property empty in many urban districts with particular development needs.

Since the early 1990s, if not before, we have been able to discern a new type of social and (urban) spatial inequality throughout Germany. One of the symptoms is the emergence of disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Districts with particular development needs are usually beset by a combination of complex, interrelated problems. The most common are:

• great need for renovation and modernization, pockets of dilapidation, disinvestment, poor living environment, high building density and sealing level, traffic congestion, often limited accessibility;
• lack of green areas and open space, noise and air pollution;
• poor commercial infrastructure, insufficient social and cultural infrastructure, inadequate leisure facilities for children and teenagers in particular;
• deindustrialization, loss of small businesses, trade and services, declining or inadequate job and training opportunities;
• above-average youth and/or long-term unemployment, above-average dependence on state benefits, loss of purchasing power, poverty;
• ageing German population, overproportionate influx of underprivileged households and migrants (in western Germany they average 25 percent in the districts concerned, compared to 13 percent in the cities as a whole, in eastern Germany around 4 percent both citywide and in the disadvantaged districts), high proportion of one-parent families (mainly single mothers), departure of higher-income households, high population fluctuation, increase in vacant property, particularly in eastern Germany;
• concentration of underprivileged households, conflicts between different population segments, vandalism and crime, inadequate health services, school problems among children and teenagers, no community spirit, loneliness, anonymity, hopelessness and lack of perspective, drug and alcohol abuse, little resident initiative;
• negative image in the eyes of both residents and outsiders.

Almost all urban districts investigated in the first Difu survey admitted social difficulties and burdens and poor housing and living environment (more than 95 percent). Well over 80 percent also listed inadequate local shopping facilities and (urban) cores, and around three quarters mentioned insufficient employment and a lack of job opportunities. Unemployment in the programme areas averages 19 percent. This is much higher than the overall average of the host cities (13 percent). In half of all the districts, well over one fifth of residents are unemployed. This is almost equally true of the old and the new Länder. The number of people receiving social security in the pilot areas also greatly exceeds the citywide average.

Many disadvantaged neighbourhoods no longer have any distinct social networks. In some areas we can observe the evolution of a «deviant culture» among children and young people. Growing up in an environment which offers them few positive examples and representatives of a «normal» life, they no longer see the point of school, training and employment. In areas of high unemployment, public transfer payments and petty crime often replace work as the material basis for livelihood and consumption. Many disadvantaged districts face a loss of core society recognition and are often stigmatized. The unfavourable environment in many districts also has an adverse effect. Disadvantaged neighbourhoods are therefore often disadvantaging neighbourhoods.

Residents in these areas are marginalized in several ways: economically, as a lack of necessary qualifications permanently bars many from the primary labour market, culturally because of a loss of self-respect caused by stigmatization and discrimination, socially due to estrangement from the mainstream «through social isolation and life in a closed milieu» (Häußermann 2000, p. 13), and institutionally, as contact between those affected and political and welfare state institutions constantly decreases.

At the same time all areas have a wealth of potential. In the 1999/2000 Difu survey, construction and urban planning opportunities dominated restoration and modernization of existing buildings and development and landscaping of green areas, brownfields and open and public space. However, over half of the municipalities stated that they also see considerable local economic potential in openings for new trades and businesses, and in particular in local human resources as key players in the development of their district.

1.2 Programme Approach: Halting the Downward Spiral

Without welfare state support, the downward spiral in some disadvantaged urban districts will continue. The processes at work here reinforce each other unless politicians, local authorities, residents, businesses and other local players make a concerted effort to break the cycle. We need integrated urban district policies which focus on the neighbourhood as a whole and underscore the existing potential to improve local living conditions and erect ideally self-supporting structures. The sectoral approaches individual departments have adopted until now are no longer up to this task. Furthermore, we can observe a growing discrepancy between socioeconomic problems and town planning measures. This, and cities inability to meet the challenges of many critically developing neighbourhoods, led to the BMVBWs launch of the Socially Integrative City programme in July 1999 in accordance with the coalition agreement. The fundamentals of the administrative agreement are:

• The Socially Integrative City programme will complement earlier urban district promotion measures and be combined with other urban development policies to create a new, holistic approach.
• The aim of this comprehensive approach is to combine and integrate investment and non-investment measures from various EU, federal and Länder programmes focusing on urban renewal to produce a centrally managed programme.
• The participating municipalities must draft a long-term, district-oriented, integrated plan of action as a basis for Socially Integrative City implementation.

Adoption of the programme demands efficient local government action, particularly

• resource pooling, integration and cooperation;
• motivation and involvement of grassroots and local players; and
• establishment of new management systems and organizational structures.

The Socially Integrative City programme concentrates on selected areas. Nevertheless, we should always consider citywide contexts so that we can observe and analyse a neighbourhoods development trend and its interaction with other regional and urban units. We therefore need an interdepartmental, multi-district urban renewal and development approach.

The federal government initially allocated an annual budget of DM 100  million to the programme, which must be updated each year in the same way as urban development promotion. Since 2001, however, the government has allotted DM 150 million to the scheme. As the Länder and the municipalities each supplement the federal support with DM 150 million of their own, the programme currently has an annual budget of around 230 million Euro (DM 450 million). At the Integrative Action for Social Urban District Development impetus congress in Essen-Katernberg in autumn 2001, then Federal Construction Minister Kurt Bodewig stated that this amount should be maintained to ensure programme continuity.

1.3 Programme Areas: Selection and Adaptation

Selection of districts is a prerequisite for urban development funding, and Socially Integrative City is no exception. The programme districts are very heterogeneous but all have a high problem density. As Socially Integrative City cannot solve the identified problems alone, it is vital to complement district-based activities with citywide strategies. Determining the «particular» development needs of selected districts necessitates comparison with the city as a whole to show that they require action more urgently than others and that their development should receive greater priority. The procedure should be transparent and plausible to justify the municipal selection policy. However, legitimate programme area selection requires precise data on the current state of urban neighbourhoods and the entire city. Information of this nature is available in only a few cities, (e.g. Berlin, Duisburg, Essen, Gelsenkirchen and Munich) which have regularly published social environment reports, on the demographic situation, poverty and health, for example, or established monitoring systems.

In 1999 the Länder accepted 161 districts in 124 towns and cities for the Socially Integrative City programme. Now 249 districts in 184 towns and cities are involved in the scheme (2). Around 1.8 million people live in the 1999 and 2000 programme areas alone. One fifth of the districts are in the new Länder, while 54 percent of the programme areas are in cities with a population of over 100,000, including 23 percent in cities with more than 500,000 inhabitants. Almost a third are in towns with fewer than 50,000 residents. Nevertheless, the Socially Integrative City is not an urban core programme, as some have supposed. A good third of districts are peripheral or on the fringe of the town centre, and almost one fifth are inner-city areas.

For some time two types of neighbourhood have manifested particular development needs: densely populated, often late-19th-century, former industrial, in some cases neglected prewar areas, sometimes with a varied mix of small estates; and new, mainly prefabricated housing estates built between 1960 and 1980 (Großtafelsiedlungen in the west, Plattensiedlungen in the east), which comprise 44 percent of all districts. This high proportion of large new estates shows the special role of housing enterprises as integrative urban district developers and players.

Federal/LänderSocially Integrative City programme and URBAN II cities

District selection, size and delimitation were important issues in traditional urban development and continue to be vital programme implementation variables, although the focus was always on funding modes and rapid execution. Consequently the redevelopment areas, which averaged 10.6 hectares (1984) nationally, were relatively small (Autzen u.a. 1986, 1986, p. 51 f.). In contrast, the Socially Integrative City areas are more than ten times as large, averaging 116 hectares. We can interpret this as an indication that the urban renewal philosophy, which is no longer solely based on urban planning requirements but is adopting more integrated approaches, also affects district selection and delimitation. Examination of urban districts solely with reference to estate structure and spatial function is no longer appropriate.

The size of areas selected for the Socially Integrative City programme varies considerably, from 950 hectares (Boy/Welheim in Bottrop) to 0.5 hectares (the centre of Spiesen in Saarland). North Rhine-Westphalia has by far the largest areas with an average of 301 hectares, followed by Saxony-Anhalt with districts averaging 161 hectares. The smallest programme areas are in Baden-Württemberg (averaging 35 hectares) and Rheinland-Pfalz (averaging 39 hectares).

The average number of inhabitants in the areas concerned is 9,200, with clear variations between the old Länder (8,400) and the new (11,600). This reflects the much higher proportion of large housing estates in the new Länder. The wide variance in the size of residential areas is particularly striking if we consider the districts with the fewest people (Schwabach Schwalbenweg with only 60 inhabitants and Husterhöhkaserne in Pirmasens with 107) and those with the most (Dortmund northern city centre with a population of around 54,000 and Flingern/Oberbilk in Düsseldorf with 42,000). The most populous areas, with more than 25,000 residents, are either sprawling late-19th-century neighbourhoods (e.g. eastern Leipzig, Cologne-Kalk, Bremen-Gröpelingen) or the eastern prefabricated housing estates (e.g. Halle-Neustadt, Berlin-Marzahn, Jena-Lobeda).

Some cities have therefore identified large zones incorporating many segments with «social hotspots» and «problem islands». Others have tended to adopt the chiefly investment-oriented urban development promotion viewpoint. Very small districts, delimited almost exclusively according to the volume of construction investment and urban planning measures, tend to contradict the requirements of Socially Integrative City, if the potential of their surroundings e.g. to boost the local economy is disregarded and development and exploitation concepts do not consider neighbouring infrastructures. In view of this, the North Rhine-Westphalian evaluation study, for example, pleads the case for «expandable, flexible area delimitation» (ILS 2000, p. 18) and the integrative action impetus congress advocated consideration of «institutionally secured supplementary areas» (Spiegel, unpaginated).

2.

Pooling Resources New Cooperation Forms and Targeted Funding

The objective of the federal-Land programme designated as «Urban Districts With Particular Development Needs the Socially Integrative City» is sustained improvement of the lifestyle of the people residing in the disadvantaged neighbourhoods selected for the scheme. This requires comprehensive strategies to upgrade the areas. We must implement these strategies by combining investment with measures to prepare, complement and assure this investment in support of urban renewal. We must also pool them by involving resources and responsibilities from widely varying policy areas (cf. VV-Städtebauförderung 2002, p. 13 f., ARGEBAU 2000, Chapter 6).

The Socially Integrative City is a Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Housing (BMVBW) and Länder policy area in the domain of urban development. It is designed to strengthen cities as business locations and places to live. It is an independent investment programme pursuant to Article 104a, Paragraph 4 of the Basic Law (GG) and has a separate federal government budget item.

2.1 Pooling Resources: A Key Programme Objective

Socially Integrative Citys financial resources and legal scope are insufficient to solve the districts complex problems. The programme is therefore designed to pool resources from various departments and private enterprises and channel the necessary money, know-how and commitment from these sources into the areas concerned. Since the programme launch around Euro 770 million, including matching funds from Länder and municipalities, have been funnelled into the programme. The required municipal cofinancing often faces problems caused by tight budgets.

Resource pooling in line with the Socially Integrative City programme is a strategic approach to district-oriented application of miscellaneous resources. The approach centres on urban development promotion and its support guidelines as a separate investment and control programme, which may assume a steering and interfacing function for the whole of neighbourhood development (ARGEBAU 2000, Chapter 4.1).

«While construction and facilities requiring investment have dominated urban renewal until now, currently the main thrust is on reinforcing social, economic, cultural and environmental aspects of revitalization and development processes, designing and implementing integrative policies and mobilizing local self-organizing forces. Interdepartmentalizing support programmes, putting more emphasis on non-investment measures and testing new administrative and management structures should help pool existing resources for comprehensive and integrative urban district improvement while making the allocation of funds more targeted, efficient and flexible» (Becker et al. 1998, p. 4).

The General Funding Principles in Section 6.1 of the ARGEBAU guidelines from 1 March 2000 on Districts With Particular Development Needs the Socially Integrative City state: «Socially Integrative Citys problem-solving approach holistically combines tasks and promotional programmes for investment and non-investment initiatives. We should therefore give priority to existing financing programmes run by the departments and agencies involved & The new approach regards pooling urban district development funds and measures (urban development and housing construction support; housing, transport, employment and training promotion; safety, womens issues, family and youth welfare; economic development; environment; district culture; leisure) as an urgent Länder and municipal task.» And under 6.2, Legal Funding Basis, it states: «Funds from third parties (e.g. housing associations, European Structural Fund, employment promotion programmes) must be incorporated into project financing.» The binding guideline forms the basis of programme implementation in accordance with the annual urban development promotion agreements between the federal government and the Länder.

The Socially Integrative City programme therefore involves more than just combining money from various sources to finance an initiative or a project. Implementing the strategic goal of resource pooling requires coordination of conceptualization at the federal, Land and municipal levels and with project-related work on site.

Resource pooling thus refers neither to simply adding up the various support schemes in a territory nor to lumping several programmes into a single budget. It means coordinated activity of various sponsors and harmonized application of financial and human resources from different policy areas on the basis of Integrated Action Plans. This measure centres on combining investment and measures to prepare, complement and secure this investment.

2.2 Pooling Resources at Federal and EU Levels

Programme success depends on intensification and improvement of interministerial cooperation at the national level (ARGEBAU 2000, Chapter 4.4). The federal ministries fulfil this commitment in various ways (3).

• Using an inventory of all federal promotion options related to urban district development (4), the ministry helped shape other federal schemes, enriched ongoing Socially Integrative City programmes and published information on these initiatives for grassroots players on its own website and that of the German Institute of Urban Affairs. For example, the Development and Opportunities for Young People in Social Hotspots programme, supervised by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, does not supply project funds itself, but the child and youth welfare plan beneficiaries often channel resources into Socially Integrative City districts. However, Development and Opportunities also applies funds for the Voluntary Social Training Year (FSTJ) (5). The Ministry of the Interiors Migrant Integration Programme also concentrates on Socially Integrative City zones (6). Further synergy effects result from the fact that other programmes not specifically related to Socially Integrative City often target these areas. This particularly goes for traditional federal urban development promotion, public housing support and Municipal Transport Financing Law funds. The Federal Labour Office has expressly urged employment offices to give specific support to Socially Integrative City areas (7). The deliberately flexible Free Promotion programme, based on the Labour Promotion Law, Article 10, is crucial. This permits support of regional, i.e. district-oriented youth training and skills-development activities, among other things. Free Promotion implementation directives now include a reference to Socially Integrative City.
• Interministerial cooperation outside promotional programmes has also been reinforced. BMVBW involvement in an interministerial task force helped the work of the newly founded German Forum for Crime Prevention bear fruit even in urban districts with particular development needs. The Transport, Building and Housing Ministry also sits on the State Secretary Youth Policy Committee. Charities and other independent social service providers are also essential for successful urban district development. To facilitate synergy effects, the BMVBW conducts talks with association and project representatives at national level, sometimes involving researchers and practitioners, sometimes political bodies and with the minister himself attending. It cooperated with the German Protestant Churchs Diakonisches Werk in organizing a Socially Integrative City conference early in 2002. The subject was «Socially Integrative City: Development and Opportunities for Children, Young People and Adults in Underprivileged Districts». The ministry also joined the German Institute of Urban Affairs in supporting the 2001 edition of the traditional December international Poverty and Health congress. (8).
• Finally, the BMVBW continued to support the federal Socially Integrative City Prize competition in 2002. It was first held in 2000 and sponsored by the German League of Cities, AWO Arbeiterwohlfahrt Bundesverband e.V., GdW Bundesverband deutscher Wohnungsunternehmen e.V., Schader Foundation, vhw Deutsches Volksheimstättenwerk e.V. Bundesverband für Wohneigentum, Wohnungsbau und Stadtentwicklung and other organizations.

However, the Socially Integrative City programme is also bound by the division of responsibilities according to the department principle and the distribution of tasks between the federal government and Länder prescribed in the Basic Law (Article 65 GG and Article 83 ff. GG). This hampers pooling of national resources because the BMVBW cannot meet the demands of other departments providing district-based support, such as the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology with shared responsibility for regional business promotion, to participate in the area selection process. District selection for the Socially Integrative City programme is a Land responsibility. No avenue for beneficial cooperation has been discovered as yet.

The different sponsorship terms (prerequisites, duration, subsidiarities) for the individual programmes also cause practical problems. Urban renewal resources are invested by territory, but occupational and skills acquisition support (e.g. job creation schemes (ABM), structural adaptation measures (SAM)) and social welfare and youth services are based on the individual. However, almost all political spheres are also considering allocating funds demographically as a preventive measure in addition to assigning them to target groups, and some are already practising this policy. These include the significant areas of youth services and healthcare, although implementation is still posing considerable difficulties (9).

The division of responsibility and subsidiarity problem does not exist at EU level. The URBAN II programme already pools the funds available for all necessary urban district development tasks. Very different applications can therefore be processed at one source. However, the criteria for acceptance in the programme are much stricter (e.g. ex-ante evaluation, precise determination of the desired objectives, commitment to continuous monitoring and assessment). Furthermore, only twelve German cities may benefit from the programme. Promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is a clear priority.

In addition, EU Structural Fund support for 2000 to 2006 complements the federal/Länder Socially Integrative City programme. This is possible thanks to the EUs structural policy resources and projects for Renewal of Urban Problem Areas. European Fund for Regional Development (EFRD) support can be obtained both through URBAN II and via regular EU support for Target 1 and Target 2 areas. Support from the European Social Fund (ESF) can be combined with EFRD resources (10).

2.3 Pooling Resources at Land Level

Many Länder have formed interministerial task forces. For example, in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania in 1999, representatives from the Ministry for Employment and Construction, the Social Welfare Ministry, the Ministry for Education, Science and Culture, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Economics, the Environment Ministry, the Mecklenburg-West Pomeranian League of Towns and Cities and the North German Housing Company Association formed a programme support group. Chaired by the Ministry of Employment and Construction, it discusses and approves funding applications and produces programme aids and publications. In 2001 the Ministry of Employment and Construction Task Force (IMAG) issued a funding guideline for Mecklenburg-West Pomerania (11). In North Rhine-Westphalia the members of the long-established interministerial task force assume coordinating responsibilities in their fields. They also act as contacts for the municipalities and the presiding Urban Planning Ministry. This task force approves Socially Integrative City applications from municipalities and harmonizes current support programmes. The decisions of North Rhine-Westphalias interministerial task force are recommendations rather than stipulations.

Some Länder, such as Baden-Württemberg, do without this interministerial task force and apply a cabinet decision which requires departments to favour Socially Integrative City districts in their programmes. Other Länder, such as Hamburg, negotiate resource pooling in project-related dialogue with each department under the auspices of the municipal development agency rather than in a larger discussion involving several departments.

Saxony-Anhalt pursues a more comprehensive approach with its Urban 21 programme, which aims to pool all urban development programmes for the region. The support programme only embraces concepts which follow several of the goals of the Sustained Urban Development in the European Union action plan. The URBAN 21 Land initiative is supported by a task force presided over by the Ministry of the Economy. It comprises representatives from the most heavily involved departments, municipal and Länder councils, the Towns and Cities Association, the Länder housing associations and related research institutes such as the German Seminar for Urban Development and the Economy (DSSW). This task force decides on tentative acceptance of an application, in consultation with the relevant fund administrator. Saarland has also pooled local resources with EU funds. This Land coupled Target 2 support with Socially Integrative City funding in its Saar Urban Outlook programme.

Standardizing the funding guidelines of different departments and introducing a central application point for all Land grant applications on the principle of Land government unity has not been achieved anywhere except in Saxony-Anhalt. The compilation of integratable support programmes tailored to specific problems of the programme areas, which Bavaria has achieved, has proved advantageous. This inventory is intended to facilitate the elaboration of holistic solutions, to support cooperation between separate agencies and be conducive to drafting and implementing Integrated Action Plans (12). In Lower Saxony the Land Trust Agency has produced a comprehensive catalogue of all funding programmes applicable to Socially Integrative City areas (13). It advises all applicants and helps them to find the right address for their grant requests. In North Rhine-Westphalia the Society for Innovative Employment Promotion (G.I.B.) and the Research Institute for Regional and Urban Development (ILS) have established advice centres for funding applications and resource pooling. Some Länder, such as Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia, also use their regional authorities as pooling agencies. However, effective resource pooling is also often impossible to achieve here. The vertical stacking of specialist departments from federal level through Länder and regional governments down to the municipal authorities, which is well established in eastern and western Germany and has proved its worth over many years, still shapes government activity (14).

Nevertheless, networking over and above the initiatives mentioned is increasing. More and more departmental programmes targeting urban districts with particular development needs are appearing. For example, North Rhine-Westphalia witnessed the launch of the Education Ministrys 1000 Teaching Positions programme, the Social Welfare Ministrys Special Homelessness Avoidance programme and the programme for Youth With a Future Exercise, Recreation and Sport in urban districts with particular development needs (now Sport Workshop). The Hessian Social Welfare Ministry supports the federal/Länder Socially Integrative City programme by promoting social measures to prepare, complement and secure investment through the Hessian Joint Socially Integrative City Initiative HEGISS (15).

2.4 Pooling Resources at Municipal Level

Despite attempts at superordinate levels, resource pooling still takes place predominantly at the municipal and project levels. Funds which have not already been pooled, as is the case with the EU URBAN II programme, must be combined at this stage. Gaps in agreements and decisions at federal and Länder levels loom large at the municipal level. The German Institute of Urban Affairs survey of the municipalities participating in the 1999 and 2000 programme stages showed that pooling was limited to the traditional fields of urban planning and new housing promotion, the Municipal Transport Financing Law and labour administration in the majority of cases.

Great uncertainty about funding and application procedures generally reigns. Many Länder and communities lack central agencies to handle aid applications. Several Länder and smaller regions have compiled assimilable support programmes (in funding guidelines). Others need to catch up in this respect (16). Implementing the Socially Integrative City programme is delayed and resource pooling is obstructed by the fact that some area support schemes must be renewed after the programme launch, so that project applications cannot be submitted beforehand. Deficits in the harmonization of support programmes exacerbate the total segregation or the insufficient or outdated combination of the assimilable funds. Local authorities advocate harmonization of funding regulations, duration and prerequisites so that funds from the municipalities can be pooled sensibly and effortlessly. Conflicting subsidiarity requirements and other factors make this difficult or impossible in some instances.

Great uncertainty about funding and application procedures generally reigns. Funding advice centres do not exist. Almost all pilot areas in the federal/Länder programme employ interagency or interdepartmental steering committees as citywide monitoring bodies. Several onsite programme support groups cite the excessive work involved in reaching agreements between various administrative levels in both municipalities and Länder as a general trend. They also state that discussion of concepts between the various levels is insufficient.

Many municipalities have created interagency structures to facilitate swift decisions on applications from Socially Integrative City areas. Close contact with neighbourhood management offices exists. Some cities, for instance Essen, are considering organizing all municipal government services on district lines. This would facilitate territorially coordinated and preventative administrative action (Grimm/Micklinghoff/Wermker 2001).

In Gelsenkirchen Bismarck/Schalke-Nord intragovernmental agreements are reached in an interdepartmental task force. The urban district programme is coordinated at management-level committees involving Land, regional and local authorities. District office staff orchestrate measures and aid applications in consultation with district players, administrators and project sponsors. Similar structures are in place elsewhere, for instance in the northern city centre of Dortmund, Kassel-Nordstadt and neighbourhoods in Munich and Nuremberg.

Almost all pilot areas in the federal/Länder programme employ interagency or interdepartmental steering committees as citywide monitoring bodies. Several onsite programme support groups (PvOs) cite the excessive red tape involved in reaching agreements between various administrative levels in both municipalities and Länder as a general trend. They also state that discussion of concepts between players at various levels is insufficient. Moreover, in many municipalities the Socially Integrative City programme is not conceived as an investment and steering scheme for the application of municipal department budgets but as an additional source of funding for measures which were already on the agenda but could not be executed because of city budget consolidation.

An example of pooling resources is the construction of a new youth centre in Leinefelde on environmental lines. The building was financed by the Thuringian Ministry of Social Affairs, Family and Health, the county of Eichsfeld and the town of Leinefelde. Socially Integrative City funds covered outdoor facilities. The Togetherness pilot project to foster the integration of German repatriates from eastern Europe, sponsored by Development and Opportunities aid, was assigned to the youth centre.

Another example of the principle of resource pooling is the financing of «residential area managers» in the Schwerin Neu Zippendorf pilot zone to provide onsite neighbourhood support. Various sources of funds facilitate this project. The European Social Fund (ESF) covers some training costs. The Federal Labour Office finances structural adaptation measures (SAMs). Socially Integrative City provides the spending for community facilities. The budget is bolstered by funds from the Land Community-Oriented Work Programme (GAP) and resources of the Schwerin Wohnungsbaugenossenschaft eG (SWG) and the Hand in Hand Association. SWG is the sponsor of the measure, but it is cooperating closely with Hand in Hand since part of the appropriations can only be claimed by a non-profit-making organization.

2.5 Significance of Non-Government Resources

The largest private Socially Integrative City investors are the housing companies. They are modernizing their accommodation, particularly in large estates and prefabricated buildings, improving the living conditions on their own property, employing caretakers and concierges often long-term unemployed neighbourhood people and giving them the opportunity to gain additional skills, and sometimes hire social workers to stabilize the area (Sachs 2001, p. 133 ff.). The sum of their investment exceeds state funding from the federal/Länder Socially Integrative City many times over. The housing companies business interests are a major motivating force behind this commitment (17). The GdW has only recently started recording statistics on its members investment in the programme zones. Conclusive data are therefore not yet available. The private landlords who own most of the buildings in prewar neighbourhoods play a key role. Like the housing companies, they are also torn between short-term gain and long-term maintenance of property value, and between stabilizing the existing population structure and improving the area, which could lead to displacement of current residents.

Private business is also a key investor in Socially Integrative City areas. Reinforcement of the local economy is vital for positive and sustained development in these districts (18). The sum of privately invested funds is impossible to calculate. However, we can assume that investment will be directly proportional to area improvement, i.e. stabilization or even an upward trend, as is the case with traditional urban development promotion.

The financial commitment of non-government players is often greater than government appropriations for neighbourhoods with special development needs. For instance, in Gelsenkirchen Bismarck/Schalke-Nord, the Protestant Church and private landlords are devoting their own funds to district improvement. These players have invested in the new Gelsenkirchen-Bismarck Protestant Comprehensive School and the construction of a new Build It Yourself Simply Estate in the neighbourhood. Beyond the scope of the district programme, two housing companies, the Gemeinnützige Gelsenkirchener Wohnungsgesellschaft (GGW) and the THS Trust Agency, have pumped substantial resources into modernizing housing and improving the residential environment in the neighbourhood (AGB/ILS 2002).

Major charities, which deploy internal and outside funds for social services in the districts, also play a crucial role. They carry out social work, provide youth and family services, promote health and the integration of foreigners and perform numerous other functions. The total investment is also unknown, but must be considerable.

The role of social sponsoring and corporate citizenship is increasing (19). Various initiatives such as startsocial, a social integration idea competition (20), and Business: Partners of Youth (UPJ) (21) are becoming involved in neighbourhoods with particular development needs. While startsocial focuses on encouraging transfer of knowledge from business into the welfare sphere, the UPJ federal initiative concentrates on networking youth and social work institutions with SMEs locally and regionally.

The Socially Integrative City Prize competition in 2000 and 2002 demonstrates further commitment from various supporters of the programmes approaches and goals. This competition, which is not restricted to the programme areas, rewards innovative approaches to pooling resources and integrative projects which incorporate various areas of activity. Both the competition and the numerous events and initiatives run by the housing associations, the charities and other institutions, such as the Schader Foundation and the ZEIT Foundation, reflect the widespread approval and support which Socially Integrative City goals and approaches inspire.

3.

Integrated Action Plan A Strategic Tool

Effective deployment of the resources available depends on well-conceived action. The federal government and the Länder therefore consider the Integrated Action Plan essential to the Socially Integrative City programme. They base an areas eligibility on creation of this kind of concept (Article 2, Paragraph 4 of the 1999-2002 federal/Länder administrative agreement on urban development promotion). «The local authorities are to produce a long-term, integrated, district-based urban development policy action plan to support measures. The action plan (preparation and implementation model and cost and financing overview) is intended to offer targeted, integrated solutions for complex problems, feature all steps required to achieve the goals including those of developers, builders and funding providers and present spending estimates and means of financing.» Integrated action plans must build on the interests, activities and needs of neighbourhood inhabitants to be effective. They must therefore be drafted and updated with residents and local players.

3.1 Practical Significance of Integrated Action Plans

Although many programme participants regard Integrated Action Plans as a strategic tool for steering integrated urban district development (Becker/Böhme/Meyer 2001), uncertainty and reticence still prevail when it comes to actually drafting such concepts. Little more than a third of pilot areas have produced Integrated Action Plans. The uncertainty stems partly from the gaps in basic data for the area when the programme is advertised and applications are solicited. Organizational, management and communication networks are not established, and time pressure is usually considerable.

Furthermore, high expectations from both the district and policymakers evidently make them favour more pragmatic approaches which concentrate on rapidly achievable projects. It is therefore no surprise that the shorter time taken to approve projects within existing support programmes and to develop truly integrated, neighbourhood-oriented action plans leads to preliminary work on projects and initiatives for which there is no action plan and hence no generally binding frame of reference to control project development and realization. Ways to pool resources also receive insufficient consideration.

Existing Integrated Action Plans cover a broad spectrum of approaches. These range from an annotated project overview or an urban-development-dominated framework and/or a traditional urban renewal plan to a comprehensive, multifaceted compendium featuring everything from a model to a description of individual steps.

The Socially Integrative City areas are called to develop and justify a viable and sustainable scenario for the future, including a timetable, focusing on their specific problems, potential and resources. To this end they must specify fields of activity, generate project ideas, set priorities for implementation and arrange and coordinate sources of funding. Such a process demands detailed knowledge of living and housing conditions in the neighbourhood and clarification of its function for the city as a whole. The main action plan must incorporate statistics from pertinent district-based surveys and investigations.

Elements of Integrated Action Plans, which are needed to deploy the tool effectively, appear in many places: e.g. in the urban development promotion administrative agreements, the ARGEBAU guidelines, feedback from the pilot areas, discussions at the impetus congress devoted to this subject and Land Integrated Action Plan stipulations, which serve as a basis for awarding Socially Integrative City and traditional urban development funds and for pooling them with resources from other programmes. These elements include:

• justification of selection and delimitation of the area, analysis of its citywide significance and function;
• specification of the central problem areas and development potential on the basis of a structural analysis;
• merger of existing development programmes and measures from all significant fields of activity;
• formulation of an urban district development model, networking of goals from various fields of activity, insertion of district development objectives in the citywide development concept;
• presentation of strategies, measures and projects with data on providers, targets, financing, timetable for implementation, etc.;
• information on organization, project supervision and management;
• steps towards involvement of local individuals and organizations;
• concept for a parallel process evaluation and preparation for assessment of findings;
• cost and financing overview with total estimated costs and funding plan.

3.2 Drafting, Implementation and Updating Procedures

Careful coordination of the concept, not only between all departments and agencies concerned and local organizations, but also with residents, is vital for effective and efficient control of urban district development under the Integrated Action Plan. This goes particularly for interdepartmental measures and projects and harmonization of private sector and community interests. Municipalities currently have very different perceptions of how far bottom-up and top-down strategies can and should be combined in drafting and developing Integrated Action Plans. However, it is clear that applications for acceptance for the programme and the implementation phase generally require more top-down proposals to get the ball rolling. Subsequently bottom-up strategies have to be initiated rapidly. They are instrumental in refining and updating the concepts. Elaboration, implementation and development of the Integrated Action Plan therefore simultaneously initiate and bolster communication and coordination between players at all levels. These include the population, municipal government, district players and business. The Integrated Action Plan is intended to provide a foundation for resident involvement in the urban district development process and build the trust necessary to assure commitment from private businesses by creating reliable and motivating prospects.

Development of an Integrated Action Plan should be combined with activation, participation and harmonization processes and public discussion forums in the neighbourhood. Formulation of Integrated Action Plan objectives and guidelines has proved to be an abstract exercise. It must therefore take place at neighbourhood level so that as many residents as possible can participate. However, debate on guidelines for district development action and orientation must not be isolated from discussion on specific measures, projects and individual steps for swift improvement of the local situation (so-called lighthouse projects) and on ways to achieve the goals. Joint drafting and development of Integrated Action Plans offers the chance to establish a common self-image and group awareness in the neighbourhood and to discuss urgent measures, projects and procedures.

Implementation of Integrated Action Plans requires political support, i.e. municipal council commitment to the concept and to all stages of its implementation. The Integrated Action Plans take shape only through interaction between concept development and implementation feedback as expressed by the phrase «initiative supporting» used in the administrative agreement. We must therefore design the Action Plans as flexible frameworks, maintain continuous public dialogue on successes, failures and necessary alterations in the district and adapt the concepts to changed conditions so that they remain learning systems with learning players. It follows that development of the action plans is a municipal policy priority.

However, we cannot afford to ignore the citywide aspect. Integrated action plans target the problems and potential of individual areas, but they must still be regarded as a component of a citywide concept. Success in implementing the Socially Integrative City programme partly depends on how well district-based measures, projects, procedures and strategies can be yoked to the whole citys development policy and their citywide impact taken into consideration. This is the only way to avoid merely shunting malfunctions into another sociospatial sphere or superordinate policies counteracting district-oriented strategies. This particularly applies to housing and infrastructure policy.

Experience in North Rhine-Westphalia, the Land with the longest tradition of integrated urban district development, proves how essential it is to continue to develop objectives and model conceptions and implement small steps concurrently. This demonstrates the need to set clear priorities for implementing measures and projects. So-called key or pilot projects characteristically span several fields of activity (they are therefore projects with multiple objectives, i.e. the integrative aspect is already anchored in the project and many players with different qualifications and skills are involved in development and execution). Implementation and enforcement of multipurpose projects and measures demand a high level of interfacing and networking between business and urban district development players, local initiatives and cooperation between enterprises and schools in the area.

3.3 Central Fields of Activity of Integrated Urban District Development

The broad spectrum of Socially Integrative City projects and initiatives reflects the variety of fields of activity in integrated urban district development. These should be merged and networked into the integrated action plans, with particular attention to non-investment measures. Documentation of projects and measures in the Difu database is classified according to 16 fields of activity, which are summarized below.

A central goal of the Socially Integrative City programme is strengthening residents ability to cooperate, interact and organize social networks. The «integration of different social and ethnic groups» and «qualification, articulation and political involvement» fields aim to foster self-help, assumption of responsibility, cooperation and communication by creating the necessary infrastructure. This includes meeting points, opportunities for interaction and dialogue and advice and counselling centres. Insufficient «linguistic compatibility», i.e. a lack of communication, lies behind most difficulties.

Internet Forum «Socially Integrative City»

The «social activities and social infrastructure», «schools and education in the district» and «sport and leisure» fields are particularly instrumental in organizing and promoting integration and activating many population groups, especially when measures and services and the relevant players interact. Schools can assume many important social functions over and above their narrow brief to provide compulsory education, particularly when they open their doors to the public. They provide individual guidance and support for parents, forge links with the local economy, foster communication and act as an open house and a district focal point where citizens can converge.

The «employment», «skills and training» and «assets in the area» fields pursue labour market, employment, structural and social policy objectives and thus incorporate strategies to strengthen the local economy. Boosting assets is essential for developing viable longer-term structures in districts. Fostering self-assertiveness and self-confidence occurs in the course of integration into the district economy, while increased purchasing power is an important supporting factor for neighbourhood businesses. Around 70 percent of the programme areas mentioned local economy deficits in the first Difu survey. The programmes short running time so far largely explains the dearth of information on appropriate (planned) measures. The majority of projects were still in the early stages of implementation when the first survey was conducted. Half of the themed conferences held in the Socially Integrative City pilot areas to date focused on the local economy: those in Flensburg-Neustadt, Hamburg-Altona/Lurup and Kassel-Nordstadt.

The classical urban development promotion fields of «local housing market and housing economy», «living environment and public space», «environment» and «transport» continue to dominate in the Socially Integrative City programme. This is due to the persistent heavy demand for restoration and modernization, particularly in the new Länder, and the emphasis on investment-based support for construction and urban development measures rather than those concentrating on social integration, for instance. Furthermore, classical urban development promotion measures allow faster and simpler pooling and releasing of higher volumes of funding. This projects the image of a smoothly running programme. Housing measures such as rent waiving, selective occupancy policies and supplementary services were already par for the course when conservative urban renewal was practised. Socially Integrative City spotlights approaches such as «Living Plus» and establishing housing company trusts and employment-oriented living environment initiatives. Other significant measures are the new Housing Promotion Law to create or preserve socially stable population structures, such as the cooperation agreement between the city and housing companies, the lifting of restrictions on flats previously reserved for low-income tenants, the acquisition of occupancy permits and the transfer of tenancy and rent restrictions.

In the field of «health» we still have considerable catching up to do. Up to now it has received too little attention from Socially Integrative City, although many players are beginning to focus on it more closely. In fact, health promotion in the broadest sense of the word, as propagated by the World Health Organization (WHO) since the late 1980s, encompassing physical, spiritual, mental and social wellbeing, is becoming a key issue in Socially Integrative City programme areas. Many investigations have shown that poverty impairs health preservation and drives victims to high-risk behaviour in the form of irregular hours, poor nutrition and drug abuse. Health and behavioural problems in children, such as poor concentration, motoric disturbances, etc. usually surface in kindergartens and schools. Expansion of advice services and preventative and promotional healthcare in Socially Integrative City areas is a key factor in improving and stabilizing living conditions.

Insufficient cooperation between the cultural and the social spheres was already a bone of contention in the 1980s. Until now the field of «district culture» played a subordinate role even in Socially Integrative City areas. Cultural activities in disadvantaged neighbourhoods can help improve communication in the district, foster resident participation and creativity, profile local and regional heritage and offer new experiences and perceptions.

«Image and public relations» cuts across all other Socially Integrative City fields of activity. Correcting the current negative image of many programme areas, which hampers identification with the district as a social entity, and nurturing a positive image requires tangible improvements in the neighbourhood, accompanied by aggressive PR work. A wide variety of measures has been employed to boost a positive neighbourhood image. However, introspective PR work often seems to be given a higher profile than farther-reaching media relations.

«Evaluation of processes and findings, monitoring» is another all-inclusive task and a fundamental component of the integrated action plans. Concomitant evaluation offers a chance to shift orientation in the concept while measures are in progress. Selecting programme areas revealed gaps in statistics on the actual situation. Closer monitoring with new findings and data confirmed hypotheses on urban districts «particular development needs».

4.

Neighbourhood Management a Key Instrument for Programme Implementation

Most Länder and municipalities agree that full implementation of the Socially Integrative City programme depends on flexible, cooperative political and administrative structures. They prepare the ground for the necessary measures, activities, activation and revitalization processes for the neighbourhood. The vast majority of the municipalities in the Socially Integrative City programme regard neighbourhood management as the right tool to handle the complex tasks and objectives of integrated urban district development. However, it is clear that neighbourhood management cannot be restricted to grassroots work. It also requires comprehensive urban district development organization at all monitoring and operational levels.

Neighborhood management - Areas of responsibility and organisation

4.1 Tasks and Organization of Neighbourhood Management

Implementation of the Socially Integrative City programme shows that Germany lacks a consensus on the actual scope and application of neighbourhood management. This is reflected in both the different terms urban district, area, neighbourhood management, moderation or coordination and the equally diverse organizational forms. Depending on the Land and the municipality, these range from conventional top-down approaches, often with limited local player participation opportunities, to a strong shift of administrative responsibility to grassroots neighbourhood management experts, who are often overtaxed by unrealistic expectations.

Many cities experiences with individual Länder programmes and Socially Integrative City have defined several key points for drafting a profile of requirements for effective neighbourhood management. The Institute for Community-Related Social Work and Consultation ISSAB in Essen and the German Institute of Urban Affairs process these findings. The approach is currently being developed by the neighbourhood management node in the Municipalities of the Future network, for which ISSAB and Difu are consultants Franke/Grimm 2001). We can therefore generally describe neighbourhood management as a strategic approach for systematic construction of self-supporting, sustained personnel and material structures for neighbourhood development. It covers the following elements:

• targeted investment of municipal resources;
• incorporation of the district-related neighbourhood management process in a citywide development policy;
• operations spanning various fields of activity and levels;
• activation and empowerment of residents, with close involvement of local businesses, neighbourhood institutions (schools, preschool facilities, churches, police) and local societies, initiatives and associations.

The often very varied experiences of cities which have been participating in Land integrated urban district development programmes for some time show that we must see neighbourhood management as a complex process which incorporates various monitoring and action strategies, procedures and methods, achieves the interaction of various functional areas and has its roots in neighbourhood decision-making and implementation and intermediate levels ( cf. Neighbourhood Management diagram).

These findings (Franke/Grimm 2001) support the case for forming an interdepartmental task force and nominating an area commissioner with the following responsibilities:

• horizontally networking participating agencies (district-based, interdepartmental cooperation);
• controlling the investment of municipal resources in consultation with the competent departments/agencies (harmonization responsibility);
• establishing goals/standards/indicators;
• supervising the whole project/coordinating implementation of the Integrated Action Plan;
• managing individual projects;
• acquiring funds, providing financial planning and advice;
• reporting to political committees;
• monitoring.

Establishing grassroots offices with qualified staff and suitable facilities has proved to be a vital requirement for successful implementation of the Socially Integrative City programme at neighbourhood level. Office tasks include:

• horizontal networking of and cooperation with local players;
• general activities and outreach work/activation of neighbourhood residents (including developing contacts; guaranteeing availability; getting to know key players, communication structures, problems and potential in the district; motivation and activation of inhabitants; counselling; information services; interest and topic pooling; project initiation).

An area moderator is vital for networking the various intermediate players and stakeholders with policymakers, local government, the market, the service sector and «civil society». He or she fulfils the following tasks, partly through involvement in discussion forums:

• pooling and diagnosis of various forms of neighbourhood needs and feeding of information into the neighbourhood (vertical networking between local government and the «real world»);
• circular networking between municipal government, policymakers, business and «civil society» (partly to activate the relevant human and material resources);
• assurance of information flow between municipal government, neighbourhood and intermediate level and between integrated urban district development players;
• creation of procedural transparency;
• development and stabilization of local cooperation and communication structures;
• moderating, mediation, dialogue management;
• project initiation;
• public relations work within and beyond the neighbourhood.

Regulating the cooperation between these levels both contractually and via formal and informal cooperation and communication structures (interface management) is as important as the organization of the functions specified in the three lists above. This is particularly significant where responsibilities overlap, e.g. where intermediate district management and experts active at grassroots level are involved in organizing the district office, or when municipal government participates in arranging and presenting events as well as the relevant intermediate management. No matter what structures are in place, the rapport between the players decides whether an integrated action plan works. Feedback from almost all municipalities shows that the players willingness to cooperate is a crucial aspect at and between all three levels.

4.2 Neighbourhood Management in Practice

The 1999/2000 Difu survey reveals that barely half of the municipalities had neighbourhood management elements at the start of the programme. A good 40 percent planned to take this step when programme implementation commenced. Only ten percent had neither established neighbourhood management nor considered doing so at this early stage.

Organization of neighbourhood management details depends on the size of the target area, what specific problems are identified and the competence and skills of the professional grassroots players in each case. The PvO spring 2001 interim reports also reveal that in the 16 pilot areas, neighbourhood management differs radically from municipality to municipality, and the scope of organization at municipal government, intermediate and neighbourhood level varies.

In 2001 over two thirds of pilot areas had established a superordinate departmental steering committee. At the subordinate agency level, however, only half of pilot areas had installed an interagency or interdepartmental task force. In some municipalities interdepartmental and interagency cooperation still closely mirrored «traditional» urban development promotion. It was hardly holistic and neglected non-investment fields.

Almost two thirds of pilot areas had incorporated the intermediate level into neighbourhood management concepts in various forms and degrees of intensity. Few municipalities organized district conferences or similar events on fundamental coordination issues in their pilot areas. Almost half of the pilot areas arranged more frequent gatherings in the form of round tables or district forums which conducted project work in (narrowly defined) task forces. However, a few areas tackled harmonization issues at intermediate level without providing opportunities for public input. Grassroots offices had been set up or were ready to open in summer 2001 to implement the programme in twelve of the 16 areas. (Planned) staffing levels, availability and (predicted) work focuses differ dramatically.

The general trend, in the pilot areas at least, is for the superordinate steering levels in municipal government and onsite offices to have the strongest organizational neighbourhood management structures. Only half of pilot areas demonstrated comparably advanced organization of interdepartmental administration at agency and district level in 2001, however. Relationships between the neighbourhood, intermediate and municipal level arose in most cases from the involvement of grassroots workers in municipal committee meetings and were not insitutionalized.

Programme implementation to date has revealed, significantly, that the success of neighbourhood management does not depend solely on municipal, neighbourhood and intermediate structures, but also on the existence of political decisions on Integrated Action Plans and these new forms of cooperation. The entire neighbourhood development process then receives the municipal policy backing it needs. Involvement of policymakers at all decision-making levels during the process is another important prerequisite for neighbourhood management effectiveness. If (local) politicians perceive the establishment of this kind of organization as a loss of power, competition and refusal to cooperate can displace partnership and support. Binding regulations for the involvement of policymakers and clear definition of the decision-making scope of participation panels can diffuse this «conflict potential» before it ignites. Only political integration creates solid participation structures in the «shadow of the hierarchy» cast by the city council and/or district council representatives. Responsibility for neighbourhood management itself should lie at the pinnacle of local government to maximize support from this sphere.

Straddling departmental boundaries and erecting cooperative structures at municipal level are also crucial for effective neighbourhood management. Networking and pooling should be the task of the area commissioner, while workers from the appropriate departments must take charge of individual projects so that the area commissioner is not overburdened with the day-to-day implementation of the Socially Integrative City programme.

At intermediate level it seems necessary to clarify the form and content of the relationship between the area moderator and local government. This eliminates divided loyalties between neighbourhood management players in the event of a conflict between the two spheres. A regulation of this nature can be formalized in a contract. The same goes for relations between the intermediate level and the neighbourhood, where it is also advisable to set down tasks and forms of cooperation in contracts and quality agreements. Intermediate and local panels also need authority and material resources to enforce decisions swiftly. Contingency funds play a major role here. They also require spending regulations.

Establishing a grassroots office (e.g. a district office) has proved indispensable for neighbourhood practice. Activating neighbourhood residents and encouraging them to participate depends on the permanent onsite presence of experts and the availability of contact points with low-commitment services. Where possible, local individuals and groups already involved in the neighbourhood should assume responsibility for its management.

All players performing neighbourhood management functions at local government, grassroots and intermediate levels require special qualifications. Excellent communication and organizational skills top the list. In the light of the varied and complex demands made on neighbourhood management, several higher education institutions have offered broadly based courses designed to impart the relevant skills since the late 1990s.

These qualifications, personal commitment and the willingness of neighbourhood managers to identify with their complex tasks are unlikely to be fruitful if the municipalities cannot reckon with the financial and human resources necessary to support the managers work in the medium term at least.

4.3 Neighbourhood Management as a Process

Socially Integrative City implementation to date clearly shows that successful neighbourhood management stems accumulatively from political decisions, viable structures with distinct definition of responsibilities and quality agreements and personal commitment in all areas of society, in all fields and at all levels of activity. All Socially Integrative City programme areas have demonstrated that neighbourhood management offers no patent resolution of sectoral urban (district) development issues, but represents a fundamentally new, process-based approach leading to sustained progress and neighbourhood stabilization.

This process-based approach and the fact that neighbourhood management is a new concept in the context of Socially Integrative City implementation leaves several central aspects of programme design and implementation unsettled. The disparity between administration and «real life» still raises many questions, manifested in the «two speeds» problem, for example. Local governments head start caused by applications for funding, the fact that it is bound by stipulations in budgetary law on annual expenditure and its duty to abide by programme duration and approval deadlines clash with the process-based approach, internal momentum, complexity and generally very different pace at neighbourhood level.

Impetus congress "Neighbourhood Management" (October 2000), plenary meeting at Plant II, Leipzig-Connewitz (Picture source: Monika Vielitz, Berlin)

New communication processes arise not only between the various steering and implementation levels, but also between the different players who (have to) cooperate in neighbourhood management. This is particularly apparent in cooperation between planning and social service occupations in the broadest sense of the word. In well over half of all municipalities the fields of urban planning, construction and housing and urban renewal are responsible for implementing the Socially Integrative City programme and therefore for organising neighbourhood management. At the same time workers from social service fields (e.g. from youth and social welfare offices and social work associations) often demand more say in programme implementation, as activation, participation and neighbourhood management were traditionally their responsibility. The solution to this problem may be to divide responsibility for programme implementation between offices focusing on urban planning and those concentrating on social tasks. Few municipalities have achieved this to date. In most cases cooperation between social welfare providers and urban planners leaves considerable room for improvement. We can regard the «tandem solution» practised in Hesse, i.e. staffing grassroots offices with one worker each from urban planning and social work, as a concrete step in the right direction.

5. Activation and Participation

Major innovations in the area of participation which are to emanate from the Socially Integrative City programme are creation of holistic neighbourhood involvement structures, neighbourhood networking of local initiatives and organizations, exploitation of special problem-solving resources, including empowerment and activation of previously unorganized citizens, and involvement of local business and other important locally active players in district improvement (Franke 2002).

5.1 Organization of Onsite Interests

Implementation of the Socially Integrative City programme demonstrates that the conception of activation and participation may vary significantly from municipality to municipality. There is often no clear definition of who is to activate and involve whom or of the techniques and goals involved. It is frequently pointed out that we cannot separate activation and participation since activation always entails participation, and all forms of involvement also have a mobilizing effect. If we look at local operations, we can see that many municipalities do offer conventional top-down participation opportunities and hope they will motivate the community, but then realize that the instituted panels are not used at all or rarely used by the «normal» neighbourhood population. It is therefore crucial to view the activation aspect separately.

District-based activity in the GWA (community affairs) tradition involves a project-unrelated, generalized process of activation of the populace, usually over a period of several years, mostly consisting of a number of smaller activation campaigns and intended to organize the interests of the inhabitants and produce a «groundswell that will buoy up larger individual projects». (Hinte 2001). Urban district development strategies would have no foundation without such activation. The basics are «communication, elicitation of ideas and organization of people and resources» to «harness existing interests, activities and need patterns to improve community integration» (Hinte 2001).

Having said this, we can understand motivation as all techniques which can be employed to address individuals and groups in the neighbourhood and foster communication between them. The objectives of activation include initiating and cultivating contact with neighbourhood people, identifying problems they experience in their environment and stimulating their willingness to become involved in district improvement by asking people what they want. The process primarily involves project-unrelated, informal procedures, mostly addressed directly at people: activating surveys, counselling services, outreach activities, streetwork, networking of and mediation between individual players, institutions and organizations, arbitration of conflicts of interests, organization of meetings, (district) festivals, shows and campaigns, walking tours and open days, talks, information stands and public relations work. Fostering neighbourhood relations through (multilingual) district newspapers, posters, flyers, brochures, circulars, websites, logos and slogans is a way to motivate residents (Mohrlock et al. 1993, p. 223 f.).

Participation usually starts at a more formal level and is based on more or less planned procedures (a specific programme, a predetermined location, moderated proceedings) and well-defined objectives (e.g. discussion of certain topics, development of projects, lobbying). Forms of participation include district conferences, district and citizens forums, future-planning sessions, laypersons assessments, issue-oriented committees and task forces, workshops and participatory projects.

Apart from the application of motivation techniques and participation tools, grassroots work is indispensable, and interacting with neighbourhoods also involves contacting and networking residents via already existing projects and organizations such as interest groups for instance, local retailers associations tenant forums/initiatives/round tables/advisory committees, civic associations, parent advisory boards, parishes and district advisory panels.

The cited participation forms have been known since the 1970s and 1980s. A new element of the Socially Integrative City programme is the demand for both a «local area network» combining these approaches and the gearing of organization and internal government management structures to these forms of marshalling and exploiting resources.

The lack of authority to make decisions locally, depriving grassroots organizations of possibilities to act quickly, has greatly hindered activation and participation. This has demonstrated that activating the population and triggering self-organizing processes requires creation of contingency funds or district budgets which can be used to implement smaller projects and schemes rapidly and unbureaucratically. The total amount of available funds is less important that the possibility of spending them without first negotiating red tape and on the basis of local, democratically legitimate decision-making arrangements.

5.2 Findings of Participation and Activation Campaigns

Successful activation and participation has primarily been noted in places where municipalities have established a robust neighbourhood management system to implement Socially Integrative City. Problems arise mainly when the interaction with the neighbourhood is too severely restricted to conventional participation procedures at intermediate level, reducing the impact of the onsite activation effort. The consequence is that only «pros» attend participation panels in some municipalities, while disadvantaged segments of the population, the main Socially Integrative City target groups, are excluded or hardly affected.

In the 16 pilot areas motivation focuses on (district) festivals, events for particular target groups and general publicity, while activating surveys, outreach, counselling services and other highly communicative techniques are often neglected. There is much left to do in this area before we achieve the programme goal of «activation». Several Onsite Programme Support teams confirm this shortcoming. In 2001 the personalized activation techniques were almost entirely neglected in five pilot areas. The same number of pilot areas registered urgent reminders to expand generalized activation activities.

District conferences and forums are the dominant avenues of participation in the pilot areas. They are usually conducted in connection with autonomously operating task forces. However, five areas had not yet established any participation organs, or only held meetings sporadically.

Various participation and activation methods can be effective, as the project diversity in the Socially Integrative City areas illustrates. The most important determinant of success is tailoring measures to the target area and its normally heterogeneous population. Simply transferring best practices from other territories usually does not work. The best way to activate neighbourhood residents is to be open to various processes and ideas and to use a well-appointed tool kit skilfully, taking the specific situation into account. The addition of ideas from residents and their cooperation in implementing programmes and projects is an integral part of activation. However, inhabitants ideas often clash with municipal governments concrete project design concepts, timetables and performance indicators. Inadequate decision-making authority and the lack of contingency funds are further hurdles. One important lesson we have learned is that organizers should not generate unrealistic illusions about the fulfilment of residents desiderata. Another conclusion is that procedures must be transparent. That involves clarifying the issues of the legal status and leverage of decisions passed by the panels and precisely defining the addressees of the recommendations or decisions and the arrangements for implementation outside the panels. Crucial prerequisites for activating neighbourhood people and encouraging them to participate are the permanent onsite presence of experts and the availability of contact points with low-commitment services.

Finally, experience to date in implementing the Socially Integrative City programmes activation and participation policies, as in neighbourhood management, shows that they require backing from politicians and civil servants if they are to be taken seriously as instruments and methods of grassroots democracy.

6.

The Socially Integrative City Appraisal and Outlook

Since its conception the Socially Integrative City programme has elicited both approval and criticism. The positive response focused on the fact that the federal and Länder governments were addressing urgent problems of urban living with a new cooperative policy and support approach. The programme faced scepticism and reservations because some people believed it was designed to delegate societal problems like unemployment, deficits in healthcare and educational systems to district agencies and camouflage the dismantling of welfare-state benefits. Another objection is that efforts to integrate urban districts do not tackle the roots of the problems. The logic behind these criticisms is that the government policy to redistribute responsibility between the state and the society is tantamount to passing the buck for solving macrosocially generated problems to the man in the street.

Despite all the objections, which also concern the volume of funding and the strings attached to the urban development programme, people generally have now reached a consensus that the programme is going in the right direction, furnishing important stimuli for the stabilization of living conditions in disadvantaged urban districts and taking initial steps towards constructing a sustainable infrastructure. Everyone also agrees that a society which claims to promote solidarity and social equality must do everything in its power to foster integrative, motivational programmes and provide onsite support. Solidarity in the city implies that all citizens in all districts help develop their milieus and become involved in community life. This is the only way for everyone to feel the security of a close-knit society and to gain confidence in where it is heading.

6.1 Opportunities and Problems in Programme Implementation

Although the programme is still in its infancy, its progress in the first three years of implementation permit us to postulate a positive balance in many areas. Many things have been set in motion in the neighbourhoods, in municipal and federal government and in politics.

• Major pluses are the sense of optimism in the pilot areas, which goes hand in hand with a new awareness of local problems and capabilities, despite the fact that palpable neighbourhood improvement is subdued after such a short period. Many urban districts have at least been able to check an unwholesome trend.
• Cities and towns particularly appreciate the experience-sharing forums established in many Länder, for instance the Hessian Joint Socially Integrative City Initiative (HEGISS), and North Rhine-Westphalias Forum for Urban Districts With Special Renewal Needs. Transfer of findings has proved to be fundamental for conversion to new ways of operating.
• Despite remnants of rivalry between departments and agencies, many municipalities and Land departments and agencies are launching joint efforts. For many this is a new experience. Some find it to be an inspirational incentive. We can expect this new cooperation dimension to change attitudes in the long run.

The greatest restrictions for the Socially Integrative City programme are considered to be that orientation on urban development promotion reduces the latitude for non-investment schemes and projects and hampers onsite problem solving. We are far from attaining the core objective of the programme, designed to overcome these limits partially or completely, increasing cooperation among the parties and thus pooling district development resources. Municipalities in some Länder feel their efforts do not receive enough support. This primarily concerns obstacles to pooling funds a burden that is mainly borne by municipal and neighbourhood players. The numerous sources of funds, each requiring application to a different allocator, and the often incompatible financing terms (duration, territorial and target group strings, application rules) continue to present obstacles that are hard to surmount. Some Länder have been more successful than others in harmonizing their programmes and putting resources at their municipalities disposal.

Municipalities face two basic kinds of problems and restrictions:

• The cities precarious financial situation often impedes application. It is growing harder and harder for municipalities to raise their share of Socially Integrative City funds. Many of them, particularly in the new Länder, cannot do their part without larger Land allocations.
• Despite a breakthrough in cooperating and networking, some local governments are still too inflexible. In some cases initial progress is thwarted by Land stipulations primarily due to lack of practice in co-administration, adherence to prerogatives and formal delimitation of responsibilities.

Many complexes require a change of course for municipal implementation of the programme.

• Efforts to marshal disadvantaged population segments in particular must be redoubled, because we are failing to reach certain people (e.g. migrant families, the long-term unemployed, the elderly) in many districts. Many activities remain middle-class affairs.
• An intercultural approach must play a stronger role in implementing the programme. We must put more stress on acquisition of language skills and organization of multicultural activities.
• Such important players as housing companies have not been adequately involved. In some districts housing enterprises boost the Socially Integrative City programme with various measures (e.g. «Living Plus», tenant co-financing, employment initiatives). In other districts property owners do little in this line.
• The problem of «two speeds» the mandated pressure on the government to act versus the spontaneous articulation of needs in the «real world» of the community (in application procedures, approval delays, elaboration and implementation of integrated action plans, etc.) requires greater operational leeway, like that afforded by tapping unbudgeted area-tied funds.
• Political leaders and high-ranking government officials often fail to give wholehearted support. This is especially true of instituting neighbourhood management and Integrated Action Plans.

6.2 Outlook: Points to Consider in Refining the Programme

In the first phase after establishment of the federal/Länder programme, the complexity of the task in a deteriorating social environment fuelled great uncertainty concerning the permanence of the programme, coupled with the certainty that it will take at least ten to 15 years for it to achieve its goal of more viable structures in the urban districts. It is thus very encouraging that all parties in the Bundestag emphasize the importance of sustaining this innovative urban development scheme.

Neighbourhood management has already been established or is planned in 90 percent of the programme areas. Experience in implementing this key element of the programme clearly shows what shape neighbourhood management must take to succeed. It must be founded on commitment, political decisions and viable organizational structures with unambiguous tasks and responsibilities. All fields of activity and levels of governance (municipal, intermediate and neighbourhood) must be incorporated. The contingency funds established in a number of districts have proved to be very useful resources in mobilizing resident involvement.

Some municipalities underestimate the value of the Integrated Action Plan as a frame of reference and strategic steering instrument. In these cases the Länder must intervene and bind the appropriation and release of funds to the development and updating of high-quality action plans. Good concepts must be honoured and rewarded. Policymakers are seriously considering tying funding more closely to the quality of the plans. If the Socially Integrative City programme is to succeed, it appears to be indispensable to set higher standards in assessing the integrative content, the problem-solving capacity and the effectiveness of concepts as steering and coordinating devices in the long term. That requires a consensus on quality standards for Integrated Action Plans.

Experience in North Rhine-Westphalia shows that from the start of implementation we must place more emphasis on recruiting reliable personnel and constructing viable organizations and institutionalizing them as a framework for sustainable district structures. The proliferation of projects and measures only contributes to a positive community atmosphere if long-term implementation of projects is guaranteed.

These findings focus attention on the issue of concurrent process evaluation and reporting. Results in the pilot areas demonstrate that municipalities consider activating and documenting research by onsite programme support teams to be a big plus. They therefore want this resource to remain available.

The first Difu survey revealed that two thirds of the towns and cities either plan or have conducted achievement checks or evaluation and monitoring, but closer scrutiny disclosed that they have widely varying definitions of evaluation and particularly of monitoring. Only a few have developed control schemes with sophisticated contents and methods. The existing approaches focus on updating (regular) statistics and individually interviewing players in the programme areas, normally in the form of the preparatory investigation prescribed in the Urban Development Act. Room for improvement remains, for evaluation is an «indispensable element of Integrated Action Plans» according to ARGEBAU guidelines (ARGEBAU 2000, p. 19). The Länder of Bavaria, Berlin and Hesse have commissioned evaluations. North Rhine-Westphalia and Hamburg have already completed assessments.

BAs early as the mid-1980s nationwide experience with urban renewal led to urgent demands for forward-looking, prophylactic urban development promotion to prevent urban neighbourhoods from degenerating and stop social and spatial disparities from reinforcing each other» (Autzen et al. 1986, p. 216). Continuous pinpoint observation is the basis of prevention. Deficits and reactional behaviour persist. This background indicates that we must preferentially support all future-oriented areas of Socially Integrative City activity (especially schooling and vocational training, skill certification and preventive health measures). In addition we must develop citywide monitoring systems as seismographs of looming problem situations in the districts.

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Notes

(1) This Difu survey covers 199 of the 210 districts in the programme from 1999 and 2000. This amounts to a 95 percent response rate.
(2) Cf. Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning (BBR) map in appendix.
(3) Details on federal and Länder resource pooling can also be found in the federal governments Question Time response to the CDU/CSU on 14 November 2001 (cf. Deutscher Bundestag, Brochure 14/7459) Deutscher Bundestag, Drucksache 14/7459).
(4) A catalogue compiled by the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Housing on federal Socially Integrative City initiatives can be found on the Internet at sozialestadt.de/programm/foerderprogramme/uebersicht-bmvbw.shtml.
(5) For more information, visit www.eundc.de
(6) You can find a programme overview at sozialestadt.de/programm/partnerprogramme.
(7) Federal Labour Office general directive of 27 March 2000 on the Urban Districts With Particular Development Needs the Socially Integrative City programme to the government employment offices and the Central Placement Office (ZAV), Re: Support of job creation schemes (ABMs) and structural adaptation measures (SAMs); Emergency Youth Unemployment Alleviation Programme (JuSoPro).
(8) More information on poverty and health is available at gesundheitberlin.de
(9) For examples, see: Institut für soziale Arbeit e.V. (2002), Institut für stadtteilbezogene soziale Arbeit und Beratung (ISSAB) (2002), Trojan/Legewie (2001) and Alisch (2001).
(10) Sander (2002) reports on resource pooling in other European countries.
(11) Ministerium für Arbeit und Bau Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Ed.) (2001).
(12) According to Dr. Günther Beckstein, State Minister, and State Secretary Hermann Regensburger in the preface to the publication on integratable aid programmes (Oberste Baubehörde 2002).
(13) LTS Niedersächsische Landestreuhandstelle und vdw Niedersachsen-Bremen, Verband der Wohnungswirtschaft in Niedersachsen und Bremen e.V. (Ed.), Handbuch «Soziale Stadt», Status March 2000, Hannover.
(14) As far as the various levels are involved.
(15) The Hessian Social Welfare Ministrys «Financing Principles for Non-Investment Social Policy Measures to Support the Hessian Joint Socially Integrative City Initiative (HEGISS)» of 17 May 2001 are found at sozialestadt.de/gebiete/dokumente/hegiss.shtml.
(16) An online list of Länder publications on funding programmes applicable to Districts with Particular Development Needs The Socially Integrative City is available at sozialestadt.de/programm/foerderprogramme/buendelung-laender.pdf
(17) Hans Fürst, Beitrag auf einer Podiumsdiskussion im Rahmen der Starterkonferenz, Deutsches Institut für Urbanistik (Ed.): Dokumentation der Starterkonferenz, 1/2 March 2000 (Working Papers on the Socially Integrative City; Vol. 4), Berlin 2000, p. 229.
(18) One source of further information is the Institut für Landes- und Stadtentwicklungsforschung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen - ILS (2000) and Soziale Stadt info 5, sozialestadt.de/veroeffentlichungen/newsletter/DF5804-info5.pdf.
(19) Cf. the report of the Bundestags special commission of enquiry on the future of civic commitment» of 3 June 2002, Bürgerschaftliches Engagement: auf dem Weg in eine zukunftsfähige Bürgergesellschaft, BT-Drs. 14/8900.
(20) For further information visit www.startsocial.de.
(21) For further information visit www.upj-online.de.
(22) Visit sozialestadt.de/praxisdatenbank/.

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