Konstantinos Chatziandreou

Urban Contradictions and the Governance of Space: The ‘Urbanes Gebiet’ Zoning Category as a Case Study

This PhD project examines how contemporary urban planning in Germany negotiates contradictions between traditional zoning logics and new policy ambitions for dense, mixed-use urban development. It focuses on the implementation of the zoning category Urbanes Gebiet (Urban Area), introduced in 2017 to promote compact, vibrant, and socially integrated city quarters. While the category was intended to reconcile housing needs with urban liveliness, its legal and technical design continues to reflect a categorical planning logic based on separation and regulation of uses.

The research analyses how this tension unfolds in practice: how municipalities interpret and apply the Urbanes Gebiet in local development plans, how conflicts between density, noise, and environmental standards are managed, and how planning instruments both expose and conceal structural contradictions between regulatory order and integrative urban ideals.

The project combines perspectives from contradiction studies, planning theory, science and technology studies (STS), and critical urban theory. Together, these approaches allow an analysis of Urbanes Gebiet as a legal instrument, a governance practice, and a socio-technical assemblage. By tracing how contradictions are produced, negotiated, and stabilised in everyday planning processes, the study aims to contribute to a broader understanding of how contemporary planning instruments mediate the conflicting demands of compact urbanisation, social diversity, and environmental sustainability in the German zoning system.