At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Dortmund is once again a growing city boasting great achievements with regard to the transformation of its old industrial areas. In the last two decades, integrative strategies for industrial structural change and urbanization have been developed, scarcely rivaled by any other former European mining region. The renaturation of the Emscher river landscape—a project of the century—has already been completed here. New addresses, districts, and projects have been springing up in many parts of the city. The city center is once again being given a new face, after the functional aberrations of the post-war period. A campaign targeted towards the developmental potential of districts supports the approach of upgrading the city as a whole.
As a book about the current and future status, the innovative strategies of the Dortmund urban development policy are presented in themed clusters. It illuminates leading projects and key areas and presents long-term governance and participation concepts. The insider report is linked to outside perspectives. Internal and external involved parties, observers, and authors all have their say, resulting in a well-founded documentation of urban development, urbanity, architecture, building culture, and landscape design in the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia.