Introduction

On 18 January 2006, the Planwerk (planning work for urban development) was passed as the basis of planning by unanimous decision of the city council.

Aim and objective of the Planwerk Stadtraum (Master Plan for the urban space) is to depict the spatial structure of the city with its settlement areas and open spaces. It shows in which way the potentials of the city are spatially linked with each other and how qualities of the urban area can be developed or regained.

All the important statements of already existing sectoral urban development plans, of the zoning plan, which is currently being revised, of skeleton plans, conceptual district plans, of partial development plans (e.g. Nordraumkonzept - concept for the northern area), but also of individual projects (e.g. Stadthäuserprogramm - town house program), were incorporated with their reference to urban spaces into the Planwerk Stadtraum and thus put into a context of the whole urban area.

In this way, it draws, against the background of the coexistence of expansion and diminution, a picture of an imaginable urban structure for the period until 2015 and beyond. The Planwerk is designed modularly and has to be understood as a continuous work process. Alterations in the strategic development concepts and in the focal points of the projects are continuously incorporated.

Basic contents of the Planwerk are:

• Visualization of the long-term urban development of Leipzig, specifically with respect to urban spaces,
  
• Presentation of current, as well as medium-term and long-term projects,
  
• Description of the most important potentials of urban spaces and the possibility to link them with each other,
  
• Focussing the focal spaces of urban development.