Planning and Living Suburban Urbanity: A Berlin City Extension Revisited

To avoid the shortcomings of large, postwar-era housing developments, city extension planning has shifted towards ideals of social and functional mix, referred to as “urbanity.” In Germany, this shift can be observed since the 1990s, when a new phase of city extensions started as research simultaneously began to focus on the diversification of suburbia. The extent to which the guiding principles for new city extensions have been implemented and their contribution to diversification remain open research questions. In this article, we investigate the relationship between planned goals and lived reality in the first city extension of post-reunification Berlin: Karow-Nord. The estate was planned under the guiding principle ( Leitbild ) of a “new urban periphery” ( Neue Vorstadt ). Based on a qualitative case study, we examine the Leitbild ’s aims, the assessment of its realization, and residents’ perspectives. The study reveals a discrepancy between the ideal communicated to the public and the actual planning, as the social and functional mix has been subordinated to other goals. Although the neighborhood today is socially mixed, residents do not perceive it as particularly urban. Instead, they value its position between city and countryside, and describe it as village-like. The urban features of Karow-Nord, however, give rise to challenges in the more classic suburban surrounding areas. We discover processes of symbolic boundary-making that are fueled by negatively labelled features of the city and political mobilization against new city expansions. The study contributes to conceptual debates about suburbia and to a reflection of contemporary city expansion planning.