Suburban Areas as Cultural Landscapes

Coordinator: Prof. Dr. Winfried Schenk

Representative of the ARL secretariat: Dr. Gerhard Overbeck
Contact: Overbeck@ARL-net.de

The European Landscape Convention played an important role in extending the definition of landscape beyond the limits of historic or scenic landscapes to areas at the fringes of urban agglomerations which often are not regarded as landscapes in a traditional sense.

Landscapes in suburban and peri-urban areas undergo tremendous changes. The distinction between city and countryside is increasingly vanishing and new types of landscapes are emerging. They are cutting across traditional classifications due to their character and mode of development. Usually the dynamics of such landscapes are valued differently than those of traditional cultural landscapes. Up to know, hardly any experiences with active landscape governance in ‘suburbia’ exist.

The working group is preparing an anthology on the merits of regarding suburban areas as cultural landscapes. The individual contributions are supposed to explore governance options for suburban landscapes, to assess them from different theoretic angles and to formulate practical recommendations for planners and policy-makers.

The working group includes representatives of the 4R institutes and guests. It is coordinated and financed jointly by the 4R institutes.

The current members of the working group are:

Prof. Dr. Winfried Schenk, University of Bonn (Coordinator)
Dr. Markus Leibenath, Leibniz Institute of Ecological and Regional Development
Dipl.-Ing. Ludger Gailing, Institute for Regional Development and Structural Planning
Dr. Sabine Tzschaschel, Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography
Prof. Dr. Rainer Danielzyk, ILS – Institut für Landes- und Stadtentwicklungsforschung GmbH, Dortmund
Prof. Dr. Stefan Heiland, Berlin Institute of Technology
Dr. Klaus-Dieter Kleefeld, Büro für Historische Stadt- und Landschaftsforschung, Köln
Dr. Manfred Kühn, Institute for Regional Development and Structural Planning
Dr.-Ing. Ilke Marschall, University of Applied Sciences Erfurt
Prof. Dr. Isolde Roch, Leibniz Institute of Ecological and Regional Development
Dipl.-Geogr. Jens-Peter Scheller, Frankfurt/Rhein-Main
Prof. Dr. Axel Priebs, Region of Hannover
Dr. Gerhard Overbeck, Academy for Spatial Research and Planning