ABSTRACT

The historic urban development meant that the production sites were in the center or in the immediate vicinity of inner cities or neighborhoods; the working population settled in close proximity to these areas, and even executives had their residences close to the works. The concentration of industrial sites such as coal mines, coking plants, and steel mills in the Ruhr region led to a gradual retreat of the mining industry in structural change and thus to the uncovering of numerous areas, especially near the city centers. The end of the International Building Exhibition Emscher Park in the presentation year 1999 also meant a standstill in the area development in the Ruhr region; the structural change 1.0 phase was over. In North Rhine-Westphalia, the first legal and formal foundations for soil protection were developed, which also took into account the regional geological and hydro-geological conditions or soil and groundwater pollution in the environment.