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Berlin, Germany
Berlin was founded in the early thirteenth century as the
capital of Brandenburg. From 1701 it served as the capital of
Prussia. As a result of its position on the main transportation
route in the centre of Prussia, the city grew to be an industrial
and commercial hub during the eighteenth century. Between 1830
and 1860 the population of Berlin doubled as a result of
migration from the rural provinces. Berlin reached its apex of
growth in 1939 just prior to the Second World War.
After the Second World War, the city was partitioned into East
and West Berlin. In 1961 a wall was built to prevent movement
between the two Germany republics. In 1989, that wall was
demolished when the two German States reunited and Berlin was
reinstated as its capital city.
Partition greatly affected the demographics of the city. The
population of post-partition East Berlin initially decreased and
than stabilized, whereas West Berlin experienced a steady decline
in population that continued until reunification. A new unified
Berlin is expected to achieve a slow and steady rate of growth
into the next century.
East Berlin was the financial, commercial and industrial centre
of the German Democratic Republic and an important transit hub
for the East-West trade. Its economy was based on a mixture of
heavy and light industry including electrical engineering and
electronics, metals, automobile production, textiles, printing,
publishing and beverages.
Though medical and educational facilities were well funded in
both East and West Berlin, housing remained a problem for both.
Inadequate housing retarded the population growth of East Berlin,
and West Berlin suffered from the destruction of one third of its
housing to during the Second World War.
After reunification the city faced vast problems of
restructuring. The question was how to unify two autonomous
cities with different infrastructures. A new zoning plan was
proposed as the solution. The plan focuses on: housing,
transportation linkages, preservation of green space, mixture of
land uses, and a new focus on transitional areas lacking
infrastructure on the edge of the inner city and on the outer
city border. This new plan seeks to integrate infrastructure and
strengthen the economy in an ecologically-oriented urban
strategy.
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