Can inner cities still be saved?: “People want places where they don’t have to buy anything”

Can inner cities still be saved?
“People want places where they don’t have to buy anything”

04/15/2023 1:07 p.m

With the large department store deaths, the fear of dead inner cities is growing. “There’s a lot of experimentation going on now,” says Thomas Krüger from Hafencity Hamburg ntv.de. He sees showcase projects, but also places that will lose. Fortunately, it is not yet the case that “inner cities are completely extinct”. Inner cities are important for people and also stand for the identity of their hometown, says the professor for urban planning ntv.de. He is certain that reinventing some of them will be a tour de force. For him it is clear: “Maximum returns are no longer possible for investors here.”

ntv.de: The death of department stores and the struggle for survival of Galeria Kaufhof and Peek and Cloppenburg fuel fears of boarded up inner cities. The topic isn’t new, though, it’s just that nothing has happened for a long time, right?

Thomas Krüger: That’s right, a lot of time has passed without doing anything. The decline of the department stores began right after the format had its peak in the early 1970s. At that time, the department stores tied up up to 6 percent of the total purchasing power, today it is only about 1.5 percent. Downtown was synonymous with Karstadt or Hertie. Then came the specialized chains like H&M or Mediamarkt. They have a broader range of products in their respective segments and are much more flexible and faster on the market. The department stores simply didn’t recognize the signs of the times and no investments were made. Consumers notice that. However, two things have also greatly accelerated the decline: the lockdowns during the pandemic and the shift in consumption to the internet. Although people returned to the centers after Corona, they shop significantly less here.

When is a city center considered desolate, when should the alarm bells ring in the cities and municipalities?

At the latest when one-euro shops, amusement arcades and fast food start renting. “Downtrading”, as it is called, is the precursor to a center becoming uninteresting. Landlords find it more and more difficult to find tenants, customers don’t find any interesting offers and in the end there are vacancies.

You are a city planner. What ideas do you have for the stop the process of desertification in city centers when the department store concept is dead?

So, there is still hope. Internationally, there are successful department store providers. The format has also been revived with us: through the shop-in-shop system. But regardless of that, we’re lucky because the inner cities haven’t died out completely yet. People want downtown. But what they want there less and less is just shopping. They want a place where they like to hang out, where they meet people, but don’t always have to spend money. Cities have to partially reinvent their centers. The quality of stay, encounter and experience must be improved. Something has to happen in the city center where I can watch or even participate: it can be concerts, dance, street theatre, sports and games or other things.

For the sake of honesty, one has to say: The nice get-together doesn’t bring the economy any money and the cities have to invest a lot to make the places attractive. Isn’t that utopian then?

Cost is a big issue. But for many people, the inner cities are the most important port of call. The inner city is the “market place” of society, a market in the sense of economy, politics, encounters and culture. It’s also about identity.

How strongly do the municipalities accompany the process of renewal?

In recent years, most cities have realized that they have to take care of this. It is clear to everyone: Decline, vacancies and decay in the inner city are a fatal signal for the entire city. The problem is that the properties mostly belong to private owners, including large investors like René Benko, who work purely economically. The city only owns the streets and squares, the town hall and maybe a museum. Not more. It is therefore important that business people, owners and the city work together. A start-up culture would also be helpful: new business ideas that combine retail and online business, the conversion of libraries into media centers or theaters on the marketplace. Shakespeare’s theater was street theatre! These creative people could be helped: for example, with the temporary use of buildings or the takeover of key properties. Of course, maximum returns are no longer possible for investors. The place for society and not the place for consumption must be strengthened. In my opinion, it would also be important to open public cultural institutions in the inner cities, especially since we pay for them with tax money anyway.

What beacon examples of a successful, innovative renewal of inner cities are there that could give us courage?

I find the Core in Oldenburg in Lower Saxony interesting. An old Hertie property on the outskirts of downtown, so in a really bad location. The Core is now a successful meeting place. Stairs lead straight to the first floor. Visitors don’t have to go through the bad department store atmosphere that everyone knows. On the ground floor there are restaurants and event rooms. Coworking spaces upstairs. There are organic shops and much more. In Mainz, the Boulevard Lu is being built, a former Karstadt building that a regional investor has acquired. There is also a very interesting mixed concept here. Karstadt has remained in a reduced area.

As in Aarhus in Denmark, people walk through the house and have access to a free rooftop viewing platform. The region’s chamber of crafts has set up trial workshops there, where students can find out about crafts.

In the meantime, a number of commercial project developers are also working on concepts that are supposed to bring in good money. This is about so-called event spaces and hip meeting places for gamers, for example. This has little to do with a colorful marketplace environment. Is this a solution for the future?

These are the exceptions and profiled individual projects that are primarily suitable for large cities. I think we’re in a transition phase where there’s a lot of experimentation going on. Department stores have been renovated and repurposed for at least 20 years: retail on the ground floor, sometimes gastronomy. Office space or living space on the upper floor. It is working. Now the development continues. We are entering a phase where, for climate protection reasons, we will no longer tear everything down and build new ones. In project development, they are only just learning how to deal with it.

Speaking of living space. In the inner cities we have more vacant commercial properties than anyone would like. What role do they play in the development of new living space?

Unfortunately, the big effect on the housing market is not to be expected here. The buildings have to be rebuilt, which incurs the same costs as for a new building. This is only possible for a clientele that can afford it. There are few exceptions: in Lüten, for example, a housing cooperative has built affordable apartments in an old Hertie building.

In principle, can all cities manage to revitalize their centers?

That depends very much on how attractive a city and its catchment area are. A place with 5000 inhabitants has bad chances. But from 20,000 inhabitants it can succeed in a joint venture between private and new cultural or commercial initiatives and people. There are currently many grants and programs for this purpose.

Diana Dittmer spoke to Thomas Krüger