Michael Peterek

Responding to population growth requires efficient planning procedures in order to address the challenges of housing demand and consumption of natural resources. Following the decentralised government approach of Germany and learning from past experiences, the city of Frankfurt am Main has adopted a strategic decentralised planning approach that allows the municipality to manage urban development in accordance with the current needs of the city in a specific moment in time. This approach is based on a land use regulation set up by the regional authority, combined with demand-driven localised sustainable development planning on the municipal level. This paper describes the main issues for sustainable urban development in Frankfurt am Main as well as the main characteristics of the spatial planning system, including the planning instruments for localised sustainable planning, non-formalised planning processes and an example of local district planning.

Infrastructure planning in most cities is a process of sectoral implementation which produces independent sectoral solutions to urbanisation issues. With the advent of sustainable practices, along with the challenges posed by climate change, cities are discovering important synergies among urban infrastructure sectors which are being used to reduce the urban footprint. In the need for sustainable infrastructure, the city of Frankfurt am Main, although operating in a sectoral manner, has learned from past experiences and has progressively developed a collaborative approach to infrastructure planning. This collaborative approach increases the possibilities for trans-sectoral projects and reduces the consumption of natural resources. This paper showcases interesting sectoral and trans-sectoral projects in the infrastructure sectors of energy, water, wastewater, solid waste and urban agriculture. The showcased projects have been selected from a study of 36 operational, programmatic and educational initiatives implemented by the city.

Global urbanisation processes do not only account for quantitative growth, but also bring about qualitative transformations of our urban environments. They lead to the formation of new typologies of settlement forms. Besides the monocentric metropolises and mega-cities, we observe an increasing number of large-scale urban forms that grow together out of former single cities merging into one interconnected city-region. In many respects, Frankfurt Rhine-Main demonstrates the elements of a polycentric city-region, characterised by a network of large, medium-sized and minor centres that build up a system of decentralised centralisation. Challenges for sustainable development include the creation of integrated mobility systems, a nexus of settlement form and public transport, compact multi functional nodes, connectivity of regional open spaces and the conception of a common vision for the future.