Changes and diversification are ubiquitous in cities and regions.

The quest for continuous renewal and improvement is a driver towards a thriving development, as well as land use impact, displacement and “constructive destruction” with all the side effects.

Urban development is not a one-way street leading towards an ideal end. Changes of the framework – like revival or crisis of economic sectors, the change of social ideals or ecologically driven challenges – demand the adaptation of the system of aims and development strategies. Also changes of the infrastructure and targeted interventions of planning (lighthouse projects, major events, …) lead towards elementary changes of the dynamics and trends of development.

Permanent change takes place – often as continuous, evolutionary development, but sometimes also with huge, dramatic turning points. The matter of “change as requirement for stability of cities and regions” is the core topic of REAL CORP 2011. How can planning deal with “lifecycles of cities and regions”?

Special attention is be paid to the technical possibilities of confronting and forming the changes: planning processes and instruments as well as urban, environmental, transport and communication technologies.

Some of the topics on which we received your interesting contributions are:

• quality of life as benchmark of successful urban development,
• influence of “new technologies” on urban development,
• spatial aspects of innovation and transfer of knowledge and technology,
• management of rapid growth, structural change and shrinkage,
• sustainability through intelligent resource management,
• stability, safety and vulnerability of modern cities,
• anticipatory planning under economically challenging circumstances,
• together instead of side-by-side: rearrangement of cities,
• new life in old structures.