Case Studies  The Berlin Case Study: The Socially Integrative City.Wrangelkiez, Boxhagener Platz, Ostkreuz

1. The Research Area: its History, Location and Relations to the City of Berlin

Our analysis looks at the south-eastern part of the inner city of Berlin. The area includes parts of the former East and West of Berlin. It consists of the neighbourhood management areas Wrangelkiez and Boxhagener Platz and the URBAN II area “Ostkreuz”, so it lies within the political-administrative districts of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg and Lichtenberg (see map) [1]. About 61 000 people live in the area, the size of the area as a whole is about 531 ha.

Location of the ENTRUST-area in the City

The three areas differ considerably in terms of population size. 19176 people inhabit the Boxhagener Platz area, 12 331 live in the Wrangelkiez[2] and around 30 000 in the URBAN II area[3]. All neighbourhoods have in common a high density (whilst differing in detail), a relatively high proportion of poverty (measured in terms of transfer payments and household income) and a high and socially selective fluctuation of residents. An important difference between the western and the eastern part is the share of migrants, which is significantly higher in the western part.

Most of the area’s urban form is made up by an early 20^th century grid of tenement houses (Wilhelminian Style) with a mix of residential and commercial uses. In the western part this historical structure was altered by the International Building Exhibition in the 1980s. In the eastern part, industrially constructed housing estates from the 50s and 60s prevail. They are part of the “complex housing construction” of the GDR regime after 1970. The area as a whole is divided in west-east-direction by the river Spree. Until 1990 the river was also the border between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic. This already points to one specific feature of the area: For large parts of the population, the residential areas close to the wall had a special status until re-unification in 1990. Because of its proximity to the boarder, the western part was unattractive. For a long time it was consequently stigmatised by a “ghetto”-image. With a high number of unemployed and receivers of welfare aid, Kreuzberg developed both as a centre for Turkish foreign workers (“Gastarbeiter”) and as a locus for alternative movements. The old Wilhelminian tenement areas on the eastern side of the wall were characterised by vacant and dilapidated buildings, which is in parts explainable by urban development strategies of the GDR regime who had plans for a totally new design for the area[4]. However, one part of the area – the housing complex to the South of Frankfurter Allee – was already the result of GDR planning and was seen in those days as a privileged residential area.

Location of the ENTRUST-area in the City

Given its inner city location about 2 km east of Alexanderplatz, the area is well integrated into transport and traffic networks. At Ostkreuz – at the core of the area – the circle line and the west-eastern axis of the inner city railway cross. Additionally, there are main stations to the East and to the West of the area for regional and distance trains. Two Metro lines and a number of buses and trams integrate the area into the local public transport system. However, an unpleasant side-effect of this very good equipment with transport connections is the fragmented urban form resulting from the various bridges, tracks and tunnels. Even more, the area is cut up by highways –with dirt and noise polluting it.

There is little green space in the area itself. However, the “Treptower Park” and Rummelsburger Bucht (“Rummelsburg Bay”) offer attractive facilities for local recreation nearby.

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