At first glance, the cards with their colorful lines, hatching and curls look like sewing patterns for clothes. But on closer inspection, new city districts, underground lines, parks and, on the other hand, places that will be particularly affected by climate change in the future appear in the mind’s eye. The new urban development plan for Munich, which Lord Mayor Dieter Reiter, Urban Planning Councilor Elisabeth Merk and urban planner Arne Lorz presented on Friday, is a milestone for the future of Munich. If the city council basically approves the concept on July 7th, the first visualized urban development plan developed for all relevant fields of action since 1983 will lay a basis for how the city can develop by 2040.
One and a half years ago, Reiter asked the town planning councilor, instead of the regular reports from “Perspektive München”, to give a visual overview of where building can still be done and where new parks need to be built, where traffic needs to be reduced and how together with the surrounding communities the future can be planned. “Munich can only continue to develop worth living if you base political decisions on these planning premises,” says Reiter. “To do this, we have to place more value on the urban climate, more value on sustainable mobility, and more value on the planning coordination with the region.”
Over the past year and a half, the planning department has compiled all the important findings from the various departments and visualized them on maps. It’s about more green and interlinked open spaces that run through the city in so-called park miles. The urban landscape is now mapped according to its climatic structure, which means that spaces are drawn that should be preserved and not sealed off as much as possible, as well as the inner-city areas that are so badly affected by the summer heat that they will have to be greened more in the future therefore thousands of above-ground parking spaces will also be eliminated.
The thematic maps, which can now also be digitized and combined with one another, naturally also contain the vision of the mobility of the future – with cycle superhighways, tram and subway plans, possible cable car routes and ideas for expanding the S-Bahn Network. Here, too, the inner city area is colored in such a way that it will either be car-free or “low-car” by 2040 at the latest. Large bicycle parks are shown as well as Park & Ride stations, which are located on the outskirts or outside of the city if possible.
“Urban planning can and must never again be detached from the idea of mobility,” warns Mayor Reiter. For city planning councilor Merk it is therefore clear that the old town will be largely car-free as soon as possible, 2200 above-ground parking spaces, which could be eliminated, would create plenty of space for trees that could cool the city, which is heated up in summer.
Nevertheless, of course, construction will continue in order to master the ongoing housing problem at some point. However, it can be seen from the maps for the draft of the urban development plan that it is no longer possible to build everywhere. Because in view of climate change, Munich can no longer afford to build green spaces in the future. Here, too, the digital map series is intended to provide important information, not only for urban planners, but also for investors, environmentalists and, above all, the people of Munich who want to know where new city quarters could be built in the future and where new parks and green spaces or also social ones Facilities.
The people of Munich in particular should therefore be able to discuss in detail what the city of the future will look like. If the city council approves the draft of the planning department, there should not only be workshops lasting several days with around one hundred randomly selected citizens, but also regular events and exhibitions in the Plantreff on Blumenstrasse, and the district committees can of course also discuss the drafts.
In addition, close contact with the surrounding communities and districts is planned. “We will coordinate very clearly with the district administrators and mayors,” says Reiter. Without this, sensible urban development will not work, also with regard to climate change. For him, the draft of the urban development plan is “a starting shot that has not been given for decades”. The SPD politician knows that the course must be set urgently: “It’s about the future of the whole city.”