History, Structure and Perspectives of a Quarter - A Case-Study of the "Schwetzingerstadt" in Mannheim, South West Germany

History, Structure and Perspectives of a Quarter

A Case-Study of the "Schwetzingerstadt" in Mannheim, South West Germany*)

W.-Ruth Albrecht

Former works of mine discussed some problems of regional development and regional planning in its various forms, aspects and at different levels:

1. a survey of problems of regional un-equalities, development. and policy-making (regional, spacial) in Western Europe [inter-state-approach](1),
2. a systematic and critical approach to problems of evaluation nation-wide regional policy in West Germany, discussing above all aspects of the development of jobs established (or not) by public money(2),
3. a case-study of the very problems of a specific region, situated in the South-West of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), the Westpfalz, and its functions caused by effective intra-state underdevelopment and its mechanisms(3),
4. an analysis of local traffic and communications problems in an industrial town of FRG,  Mannheim, and  its very center (4).

This small report approaches another - fifth - level of regional analysis and planning: the historical development and the spacial and social structure of an individual part of an industrial city situated at the Rhine in the South-West of Germany - the Schwetzingerstadt within Mannheim in the Rhine-Neckar-Region. its very problems and prospective perspectives of  development.

Undertaking such ´small' research-work in the sphere of regional micro-structure as given by an individual quarter within a town could be worked out on at least three levels of surveying such a miniature of a ´´concrete totality´´:

1.  a critical survey and discussion of relevant literature on settlement and town in general and on settlement  in  towns especially(5);

2.  a historical approach presenting the specific development of this quarter, above all in and since the middle-ages(6);

3. an empirical analysis of the basic structure of the Schwetzingerstadt (which leads to a well-substantiated proposal to improve real-life-conditions of the inhabitants by sketching a plan for creating a people's park in the heart of his quarter(7); when analyzing the official data produced and published by local authorities, I have sketched an own approach according to the concept of  'social indicators' when nearing the micro-structure of the quarter by some unconventional  methods getting own  data(8). 

Surveying the relevant concepts describing and interpreting the process of human settlement a critical analysis has, above all, to work out the various pattern and images which influence special planning methods, e. g. at municipal level, systematically. Moreover, such an analysis of the ,state of the art' of course touches the more basic or ,theoretic' concepts and doctrines according to the general relations between space and society itself.

In so far  a critical survey as resumed as follows works out, too, the ideological presupposition dominating some concepts and influencing planning business within town and quarter.

Analyzing step by step that complex field of planning-concepts at micro-structural level there do exist three basic positions which influence debates on planning methods at municipal level generally and at sub-municipal level (e. g. at level of an individual quarter) especially(9):

1.  the approach mainly determined by a standpoint of social culture plainly takes up  'town' as a paradigm for 'society' at all. The concepts of town-planning run by this framework used by social scientist and their orientation towards community, neighbourhood  and the public sphere aim to influence the spacial structure to constituate society itself.. Students to town planning (as well as planners} working with this approach us£ to preserve and/or renew the social relations given in the social structure in its micro-structural appearance a well trying to prevent its further segmentation and/or its breaking up.

Theoretically this point of view is characterized by an idealistic philosophy and Weltanschauung. Practically the measures having been developed and applied by a socio-cultural approach lead to some more superficial planning practice such as, e.g., the preservation of the traditional juste milieu, and its customs, the creating of specific images as well as to contemporary and/or partial improvements in the fields of, for example, the traffic, the surroundings, the preservation of some buildings etc.;

2.  the approach mainly determined by a viewpoint of socio-ecology studies, above all. the spacial organization of society. Social scientists favouring this specific concept and  framework use to describe and explain (more or less in a manner of using arguments which appear it least plausible) above all social and spacial events, processes,  and appearances within the town and its community. Moreover, a critic of the socio-ecological approach cannot ignore that it is widely determined by a pure biologist understanding of society which images 'society' in quite an obscure way as a sort of sum of the individual members belonging to it(10):

The narrow socio-ecological approach leads to some pragmatic methods, of course, as well known in the advanced capitalist societies of the Western World. However, this approach seems able to get hold of some process-produced data in the field of municipal and micro-structural spacial development. In so far it systematized some data and discusses some aspects of the social process of reproduction.

The methods itself applied by using  this approach do, however, not follow to derive a specific concept of spacial planning. And perhaps there may be some success in rendering identification of potential municipal trends of a more general development and the role of individual deviation in it. In this connection planning measures based on this approach and run mainly by local authorities can be practiced to reduce and/or reinforce some trends.

[...]

*) this short essay is the online-version of the small scholarly report the author has published under the  same title in: Sociologia Internationalis, vol. 27 (1989) 2, pp. 237-243.-  Dr. rer. soc. Wilma-Ruth Albrecht (Mrs.) was, until 1982, a post-graduate student of regional science/regional planning at TH Karlsruhe, and, until 1989, an independent town/regional planner in West Germany. The author is a member of the chamber of architects in Northrhine-Westphalia, and its town-planner section. She lives in Bad Muenstereifel where she was elected as a member of the municipal council, 1989-1999; mailto: dr.w.ruth.albrecht@web.de

references

¹ cf. Wilma Albrecht, Paul Faber et. al.: Raumordnungs- und Regionalpolitik im Rahmen des westeuropäischen Integrationsprozesses. Karlsruhe 1982: Materialien, vol 18, 266 p.

²cf. Wilma Albrecht: Zum Investitionsmechanismus staatsmonopolistischer Regionalpolitik in der BRD, Marxistische Studien, vol. 3, 1980, pp. 219-238.

³ cf. Wilma Albrecht:  ... und die Westpfalz zum Beispiel. Regional-strukturelle Analyse einer defizitären Region (...), Regionale Krisen und Arbeitnehmerinteressen, ed. Hermann Bömer, Jochen Hanisch et al.., Cologne 1981: Pahl-Rugenstein, pp.101-126.

⁴ cf. Wilma Albrecht; Paul Faber et al.: Verkehrsberuhigung in einem innerstädtischen Wohngebiet [...], Karlsruhe 1981: Materialien, vol. 12, 212 and VIII p._; Wilma Albrecht. Paul Faber: Wohnen und Verkehr, öko päd., vol. 1, 1982, 2, pp. 36-25.

⁵ cf. Wilma Albrecht: Stadt oder Siedlung? Anmerkungen zum Raumbegriff sozialwissenschaftlicher Studien über städtische Siedlungseinheiten und zu seiner Planungsrelevanz, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie, vol. 8, 1983, 3, pp. 57-87.

⁶ cf. Wilma Albrecht: Von der Zollburg zum Cityrand: ein Kapitel Stadtgeschichte am Beispiel der Mannheimer Schwetzingerstadt, Die Alte Stadt, vol. 11, 1984, 1,  pp. 17-40.

⁷ cf. Wilma Albrecht: Eine Stadtteilstrukturanalyse - dargestellt am Beispiel des Mannheimer Stadtteils Schwetzingerstadt, Landschaft und Stadt, vol. 15, 1983, 3, pp. 111-125.

⁸ cf. Wilma Albrecht: Soziale Wirklichkeit und sozialwissenschaftliche Forschung, Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik, vol. 26, 1981, 2, pp. 234-244.

⁹ Those three mainstream-concepts as found out here usually occur, of course, in reality of planning and planning policy mingle with each other; in so far I underlay Max Weber's concept of Idealtypus as pointed out in his verstehende Soziologie; cf. Max Weber: Soziologische Grundbegriffe. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Grundriß der verstehenden Soziologie, ed. Johannes Winckelmann, Cologne - Berlin 1964: Kiepenheuer & Witsch (4^th edition), pp. 3-41.

¹⁰ When discussing such as poor as naive images of the constitution of society and its moving forces, which, of course, still basically influence some doctrines of society, planning etc.,  Carl Marx has clearly worked out: „Society does not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of relations, circumstances, in which the individuals stand towards each other" (cf. Carl Marx: Ökonomische Manuskripte (I857/58)_, Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA), Berlin 1976: Dietz, vol. II,  part 1.1, quoted p. 188).