Changes in the Spatial Structure of the North Rhine-Westphalia Economy Since the Middle of the 20th Century

The article presents a spatial statistical modeling of employment in the North Rhine-Westphalia. The source of information was statistical reference books for the years 1948 to 2021. We examined the level of municipal districts and extra-district cities. As a result of administrative-territorial reforms, the number of districts varied from 53 to 94. In order to process heterogeneous statistics and to identify differences, the territory of North Rhine-Westphalia was divided into 400 cells of equal size. The statistics were linked to these cells by appropriate recalculations. Spatial schemes were constructed. The dates of fundamental shifts in the spatial structure of the economy of North Rhine-Westphalia were identified. The main changes affected the economic centers of the state—the Ruhr area and the Rhine region. New growth poles appeared on the periphery of the region—the case of Bielefeld and Münster. The historical and current degree of polarization of the economic landscape by industry, trade and transport was studied. Whereas in the past industrial enterprises were concentrated in industrial centers, today they are relatively evenly distributed throughout the region. Each factory has its own function in the production process. 

1. Arora A., Schroeder H. How to avoid unjust energy transitions: Insights from the Ruhr region. Energy Sustain. Soc., 2022, vol. 12, no. 1, art. 19. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13705-022-00345-5

2. Artobolevskii S.S., Ioffe G.V., Treivish A.I. Cyclicity and stages as patterns of territorial development. In Geografiya i problemy regionalnogo razvitiya [Geography and Problems of Regional Development]. Privalovskaya G.A., Artobolevskii S.S., Eds. Moscow: Inst. Geogr. SSSR, 1989, pp. 42–54. (In Russ.).

3. Asprogerakas E., Mountanea K. Spatial strategies as a place branding tool in the region of Ruhr. Place Brand. Public Dipl., 2020, vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 336–347. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41254-020-00168-1

4. Blotevogel H.H. The Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region: Reality and discourse. Eur. Plan. Stud., 1998, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 395–410. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654319808720470

5. Bömer H. Political economy on modernisation of old industrial areas and the crisis of the new economy: the example of the Ruhr area and the city of Dortmund. Louvain-la-Neuve: European Regional Science Association, 2002. 24 p.

6. Bross U., Walter G.H. Socio-economic Analysis of North Rhine-Westphalia. Karlsruhe, 2000. 53 p.

7. Carter D.K. Remaking Post-Industrial Cities. Lessons from North America and Europe. New York: Taylor & Francis, 2016. 250 p. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315707990

8. Chmielewska M., Otto M. Revitalisation of spoil tips and socio-economic polarisation — a case study of Ruhr Area (Germany). Environ. Soc.-Econ. Stud., 2014, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 45–56. https://doi.org/10.1515/environ-2015–0037

9. Danielzyk R., Wood G. Restructuring old industrial and inner urban areas: A contrastive analysis of state policies in Great Britain and Germany. Eur. Plan. Stud., 1993, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 123–147. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654319308720205

10. Danielzyk R., Wood G. Innovative strategies of political regionalization: The case of North Rhine-Westphalia. Eur. Plan. Stud., 2004, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 191–207. https://doi.org/10.1080/0965431042000183932

11. Demin A.A., Lavrov S.B. FRG segodnya: Nekotorye aktual’nye problemy ekonomiki, nauki, politiki [FRG Today: Some Topical Problems of Economics, Science, Politics]. Leningrad: Lenizdat Publ., 1973. 407 p.

12. Einig K., Zaspel B. Local employment trends and sector specialization in the Ruhr region and North Rhine- Westphalia. Z. Wirtschgeogr., 2006, vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 162–180. (In Germ.). https://doi.org/10.1515/zfw.2006.0017

13. Fürst D., Kilper H. The innovative power of Regional Policy Networks: A comparison of two approaches to political modernization in North Rhine-Westphalia. Eur. Plan. Stud., 1995, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 287–304. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654319508720308

14. Gruehn D. Regional Planning and projects in the Ruhr region (Germany). In Science for Sustainable Societies, Sustainable Landscape Planning in Selected Urban Regions. Springer, 2017, pp. 215–225. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-56445-4_18

15. Hospers G.-J. Restructuring Europe’s Rustbelt. Intereconomics, 2004, vol. 39, no. 3, pp. 147–156. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02933582

16. Hospers G.-J. The Ruhr beyond Ruhr. 2010. Town Country Plan., 2010, pp. 247–251.

17. Hospers G.-J., Desrochers P., Sautet F. The next Silicon Valley? On the relationship between geographical clustering and public policy. Int. Entrep. Manag. J., 2008, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 285–299. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11365-008-0080-5

18. Knapp W., Kunzmann K.R., Schmitt P. A cooperative spatial future for RheinRuhr. Eur. Plan. Stud., 2004, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 323–349. https://doi.org/10.1080/0965431042000195047

19. Knapp W., Schmitt P. Discourse on ‘metropolitan driving forces’ and ‘uneven development’: Germany and the RhineRuhr conurbation — retracted. Reg. Stud., 2008, vol. 42, no. 8, pp. 1187–1204. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343400801932292

20. Körfer H.R., Latniak E. Approaches to technology policy and regional milieux — experiences of programmes and projects in North Rhine-Westphalia. Eur. Plan. Stud., 1994, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 303–320. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654319408720270

21. Kotov A.V. “Polar Ruhr”: Structural policy in Russian Arctic industrial towns. EKO, 2017, no. 7, pp. 34–52. (In Russ.).

22. Kovalev Yu.Yu., Sobolev A.O., Stepanov A.V. Ot staropromyshlennogo k innovatsionnomu regionu ES: protsessy transformatsii ekonomiki Rurskoi oblasti FRG [From an Old Industrial to an Innovative Region of the EU: Processes of Transformation of the Economy of the Ruhr Region of Germany]. Ekaterinburg: Izdvo Ural. Univ., 2022. 134 p.

23. Kunzmann K.R. State planning: A German success story? Int. Plan. Stud., 2001, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 153–166. https://doi.org/10.1080/13563470125630

24. Lengyel J., Alvanides S., Friedrich J. Modelling the interdependence of spatial scales in urban systems. Environ. Plan. B: Urban Anal. City Sci., 2022, vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 182–197. https://doi.org/10.1177/23998083221091569

25. Lengyel J., Roux S., Alvanides S. Multivariate analysis of socioeconomic profiles in the Ruhr Area, Germany. J. Maps, 2022, vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 576–584. https://doi.org/10.1080/17445647.2022.2098839

26. Maggi C. Key factors of structural change in North RhineWestphalia. Institut für Entwicklung und Frieden INEF-Report. Duisburg: Gerhard-MercatorUniversität, Gesamthochschule, 2000. 42 p.

27. Neumann U., Trettin L., Welter F. Fostering entrepreneurship and small businesses in the context of neighbourhood regeneration in old industrial regions: the example of North Rhine — Westphalia/Germany. In Conference Montpellier “Accompagnement des jeunes entreprises: entre darwinisme et assistanat” [Conf. Montpellier “Accompanying Measures and Survival of New Firms: Between Darwinism and Assistance”]. Colloque, 2005. 26 p.

28. Oei P.-Y., Brauers H.,d Herpich P. Lessons from Germany’s hard coal mining phase-out: Policies and transition from 1950 to 2018. Clim. Policy, 2019, vol. 20, no. 8, pp. 963–979. https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2019.1688636

29. Shuvalova O.V. New growth points in North Rhine Westphalia, after the reorganization of old industrial areas. In Sotsial’no-ekonomicheskaya geografiya: teoriya, metodologiya i praktika prepodavaniya: Materialy Vseross. nauch.-prakt. konf. “Devyatye Maksakovskie chteniya” [Socioeconomic Geography: Theory, Methodology and Teaching Practice. Proc. of the Int. Sci.-Pract. Conf. “Ninth Maksakovsky Readings”]. Zayats D.V., Ed. Moscow: Sam Poligrafist Publ., 2023, pp. 127–138. (In Russ.).

30. Taubenböck H., Wiesner M. The spatial network of megaregions — types of connectivity between cities based on settlement patterns derived from EO-data. Comput. Environ. Urban Syst., 2015, vol. 54, pp. 165– 180. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2015.07.001

31. Vitkovskii O.V. Rhine-Westphalia region. Political and geographical characteristics. Cand. Sci. (Geogr.) Dissertation. Moscow: Institute of International Relations, 1954. 637 p.

32. Vitkovskii O.V. State stimulation of industrial development in depressed economically backward and border eastern regions of the FRG. In Gosudarstvennoe regulirovanie razmeshcheniya proizvoditel’nykh sil v kapitalisticheskikh i razvivayushchikhsya stranakh [Regulating the Allocation of Productive Forces in Capitalist and Developing Countries]. Volskii V.V., Kolosova Yu.A., Eds. Moscow: Mysl’ Publ., 1975, pp. 67–101. (In Russ.).

33. Vitver I.A. Germaniya [Germany]. Moscow: Voennoe Izd-vo, 1945. 103 p.

34. Zimin B.N. Federativnaya Respublika Germaniya Ekonomiko-geograficheskaya kharakteristika [Federal Republic of Germany. Economic and Geographical Characteristics]. Moscow: Mysl’ Publ., 1975. 305 p.

35. Zimmermann K., Hundt C., Jütte C., Pofalla C. Dortmund, Duisburg and the 2008/2009 recession — why two cities of one region show different patterns of economic resilience. Raumforsch. Raumordn., 2017, vol. 75, no. 5. (In Germ.). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13147-017-0483-2