ABSTRACT
In contrast to the strategic guidelines, 16 thematic guidelines are moreover oriented in a functional and specific direction. These thematic guidelines shall be part of the political daily life of the city departments determining the full year target of their particular field of responsibility. While the guidelines of the Perspective Munich described above must be considered as a meta-level between functional and spatial views, the ‘areas for action’ enable to locate targets of urban development selectively. Being amorphous and diffuse, they are able to spread over the administrative borders instead of covering the whole urban area like a land-use plan does (Thierstein et al., 2010). In April 2012 the updated Perspective Munich was publicly debated during three citywide conferences. The municipality launched a public consultation process under the slogan ‘Thinking together. Talking together. Planning together’. Among other issues, participants addressed their fears and reservations about urban growth. How could they be dispelled, noting the fact that according to citizens’ surveys (City of Munich, Department of Social Affairs and Department of Urban Planning and Building Regulation, 2010), the housing supply and the level of renting cost are the greatest problems for the inhabitants of Munich? The city council approved an updated Perspective Munich in June of 2013,
shortly after the forming of the new coalition by the Social Democratic Party and the conservative Christian Socialist Party. The Christian Socialist Party replaced the Green Party as the Social Democratic Party’s coalition partner, which had been governing the municipality consecutively since the early 1990s. A strong socio-ecological consensus developed also allowing to establish the unique instrument of the ‘Sozialgerechte Bodennutzung’ (SoBoN) – the socially equitable land use scheme, which is described in more detail below. It must be kept in mind that for decades the Free State of Bavaria was governed by the Christian Socialist Party, while the city of Munich tended to vote for a Social Democratic Party-led coalition. The Christian Socialist Party’s policy traditionally gears towards their constituencies in rural and semi-rural urbanized areas, renouncing to the active support of the larger cities, and the emerging of the metropolitan regions of Munich and Nuremberg in particular.
