Regionale Entwicklung organisieren? – Die regionalen Wachstumskerne im Städteverbund in der neuen Förderpolitik des Landes Brandenburg

The thesis deals with the renewed structural policy in Brandenburg, more precisely with the 15 regional growth cores that constitute its spatial basis. They have been announced by the Land Brandenburg’s government in November 2005. The paper concentrates on the criteria for picking the growth cores and their prominent position. In plus it accounts the strategy’s actual development process. So far the structural policy’s focus on economic growth and the right selection of growth cores have been the dominant topics of debate. This work highlights another point. This refers to the question whether the region as a strategic level of policy making has gained importance in the course of the new policy approach and how the implementation process at the regional tier functions. The initial point of this reflection lies in the emergence of so-called associated regional growth cores, which consist of several municipalities. This special constellation can be interpreted as an cooperation institutionalised from above. The growth core Oranienburg-Hennigsdorf-Velten serves as an empirical example. Three essential challenges of regional development processes are examined in depth. Each of them requires a cooperative attitude and the coordination of different interests and ways of action: 

• Working together across administrative borders, 

• To involve private actors and 

• An integrative approach. 

Concerning the Land’s policy the question is whether these aspects play a role in the new strategy at all. Regarding the regional tier the implementation process can be analysed with the help of these points. Thus, the background for this new perspective on the renewed structural policy lies in the scientific field of regional gov-ernance and appropriate incentives for regional actors.