Shopping districts and centres, markets, neighbourhoods, public squares, and urban gardens: Reflecting upon place management practice in Berlin

This paper aims to reflect upon a recent study trip to Berlin to offer some conclusions about similarities and differences in approaches to place management.

The authors start with a short overview of the visits made to City West (a shopping district), Bikini Berlin (a shopping centre), Visit Berlin (a destination management organisation), Leopoldplatz (a public square), Brunnenstrasse and Bayerischer Platz Quartier (both neighbourhoods), Markthalle IX (a covered market) and Prinzessinnengarten (an urban garden) before identifying some key lessons learnt.

The eight visits made as part of the study trip offered a brief but diverse insight into how different areas and functions of the city were managed, maintained, developed and promoted. Key lessons learnt and identified in the paper are as follows. Place management, as a practice, consists of people with passion working in partnership within the context of a place “patch”. Place management is practiced somewhere, and that somewhere has its own political, legal, economic, technological and social environment. People learn more about places in places. Place management is more akin to gardening than architecture.

The conclusions drawn in this paper are based, predominantly, upon the observations of the study trip facilitators, along with some comments and feedback from the delegates.

Place managers can and should learn from each other. Other places and people can be a source of inspiration – not necessarily providing a readily transferable solution (as the legal or political environments may not be conducive to carbon-copy interventions) – but offering alternative perspectives and approaches which can then be contextualised and adapted locally.

Enlarging the pool of information and evidence from which practitioners can draw from when solving place problems can ultimately lead to places that are more successful, liveable and equitable.

Many place managers are volunteers or may not have access to a professional development budget. The authors hope that this paper can help to share the reflections of one study tour with a much wider audience.