Population development in Leipzig since 1989 [+]

While Leipzig was among the five largest cities in Germany in 1933, boasting a population of 713,000, the city's number of inhabitants has steadily declined since. Between 1989 and 1998 alone, Leipzig lost almost 100,000 of its former 530,000 inhabitants. The redrawing of communal administrative boundaries in 1999/2000, however, assigned an additional 60,000 inhabitants to the city, a number of whom were among the population lost in the preceding years.

Since 2002, Leipzig's population has increased from approximately 495,000 to 504,000 today. This steady, slight population growth has been estimated to continue until 2020. For the time being, a continuing increase in the number of households is also assumed.

	Building of Gruenderzeit unfurbished/refurbished

In 1990, the City of Leipzig was faced with a difficult inheritance: the quality and quantity of apartments offered on the housing market were unacceptable – 25,000 apartments were uninhabitable. While the region witnessed large-scale housing development, the renovation of old properties was impeded by the complicated legal situation regarding property ownership and restitution claims in the wake of German reunification.

From the very start, Leipzig's urban development strategy aimed at the conservation of the many buildings and quarters dating from the "Gruenderzeit" (a period of rapid industrial expansion after 1871), which are a major constituent of the overall appearance of the city. More than 85,000 apartments from that era have been fully or partially refurbished and renovated since 1991. Consequently, only about one fifth of the 19th-century architectural fabric is in need of refurbishment or partially at risk today. Meanwhile, an "overlap" of developmental and social issues is promoting the development of less-favoured districts while refurbished "Gruenderzeit" quarters are enjoying increasing popularity as attractive residential areas.

	Strategy of competitiveness STEP W+S [+]

In 2000, the urban development plan STEP W+S was passed. It matches spatial and structural development strategies to create a transparent frame of reference for municipal activities to boost the competitiveness of the existing residential space. The city council's strategy aims at promoting the existing potential while ensuring high quality levels for each of the market segments: old refurbished buildings, large housing estates and single-family dwellings.

For market consolidation purposes a reduction of the existing residential space by an estimated 30,000 residential units will be required by 2010. Apart from discontinuation, conversion and consolidation of 10,000 apartments, the structurally agreeable deconstruction of approximately 20,000 residential units has been planned. The use of subsidies from different development programmes will as far as possible be controlled via the target categories of STEP W+S.

	Rietzschke Brook Green Belt Area (conceptual district plan of Leipzig's East) [+]

For the less-favoured districts in the eastern and western parts of the city, which require special urban development and renovation strategies, "conceptual district plans" have been created on the basis of STEP W+S. Some of these plans have a visionary quality regarding the districts' development prospects in the medium and long term. Take the idea of the "Rietzschke Brook Green Belt Area", where a new urban landscape with a much larger percentage of open spaces will be created by 2020 by means of concentrated deconstruction and a variety of land improvement measures.

	Townhouses - owner-occupied properties in the inner-city area of Leipzig [+]

Classic land use planning plays only a subordinate role in the process of urban redevelopment. Far more important are an extensive cooperation between public authorities and private initiatives, the development of flexible concepts and means and the controlled use of public resources.

Innovative approaches illustrate that there is room for creativity alongside traditional land use planning, and that this must be made use of. In Leipzig, such approaches include

• intensive municipal public works,
  
• property counselling for owner-occupied properties in the innercity area,
  
• utilisation agreements between city council and owners for the creation of temporary public green areas on privately owned open spaces,
  
• and an "Alliance of Reason" between building cooperatives and the city council for the large housing estate of blocks of flats in Gruenau.