Stephan Willinger studied Urbanism at the Universities of Dortmund and Berlin and at the Düsseldorf academy of arts. Grant at Bauhaus Dessau for a work on narrative urbanism. Spatial planning practice and writing in the field of urban development.
Since 2002 researcher at the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development (BBSR) in Bonn. Project Director of the National Urban Development Policy (NSP). His area of expertise covers informal urbanism, participation, civic society, public spaces.
Abstract
X-Town 2025. Scenario of a Co-Creative City
X-Town is a formerly declining town in the middle of Europe in which the attitude towards urban areas and their accessibility has fundamentally changed. In X-Town, old planning principles are revised and replaced by new instruments strengthening informal activities and their actors and turning them into basic elements of urban development processes. Civil society commitment and social creativity become a central resource in order to support the cohesion of the urban society, the integration of migrants and new forms of local economy. To answer urgent questions about the future of urban planning, the relationship between citizens and local governments and the arrival of newcomers Stephanie Haury and Stephan Willinger drafted a scenario for 2025. It is based on societal trends as well as on a number of research projects and stimulated by a variety of innovative projects and concepts in German cities. This scenario rather takes planning as non-planning and keeps up fuzziness and improvisation as important parameters.