ABSTRACT
Germany's rich urban heritage, and in particular its outstanding contribution to urban form and architectural styles, was an underlying feature of the pioneering treatise on the west European city written by Dickinson in 1951. Postwar urban development in West Germany can be viewed within the context of a series of overlapping phases in which one priority is superseded by another and certain policies evolve which are then modified or overturned. This chapter is based on the recognition of four such phases: first, the phase of immediate-postwar reconstruction and secondly, a phase of rapid urban population growth, economic expansion and quickly rising affluence. Thirdly, a phase characterised by mounting environmental concern and pressures for the retention of the traditional urban fabric and finally, the phase of newly emerging urban problems at a time when West German cities are entering a period of relative economic austerity.
