ABSTRACT
The classic organisational milieu for the formation of liberal opinion in towns was the association. During the second half of the nineteenth century, heterogeneous liberal alliances formed a network with a multitude of ties with the general political system. Municipal self-governance played an important role in the dynamic process of urban growth in European towns in the second half of the nineteenth century. One of the forces initiating the alliance of property owners had been Mayor Woeniger. Woeniger was a board member in the liberal city district association in Luisenstadt. The process of decentralisation had begun in 1879, when property owners in northern Berlin saw that the inner-city association had not been able to safeguard the interests of their city district in the best way, and had instead formed their own organisation, Hausbesitzer-Verein des Nordens von Berlin. The property owners set up their own organisations parallel with the city district associations.
