Urban planning for governing the metropolis

Overview & Synopsis

This paper explores the emergence of regional planning for Berlin in the context of a serious urban crisis and the transformation of balances of power in Greater Berlin around World War I. In that period, public policies and the principles of town planning became very much contested between municipalities, political parties, large private enterprises and experts such as architects, engineers and planners. As a result of a major planning competition concluded in 1910, an inter-municipal legal association (the so-called Zweckverband) was founded in 1912. After the war and the German revolution of 1918, this association was replaced by a completely new...