A new type of city and land activist has emerged on the scene: Raumunternehmen – self-determined space and project developers who gradually appropriate abandoned sites, form special usage mixes and networks, and build up long-term prospects through clever fi nancing strategies.
They create testing grounds for the urgent issues facing the city of the future. They involve new models of participation and community, cooperation between civic society and the state, and relocalisation and sustainable economic activity. Based on six practical case studies, this book presents the spatial strategies, development approaches, and alternative value creation concepts of spatial ventures, and relates these insights to the current debate about user-financed urban development.