This is a place where you can live—a place where you can breathe! A city’s identity has a major impact on the people who live there and their sense of wellbeing. Urban identity is always about perception—but also about aesthetic consciousness. It is about our day-to-day experience, but also about the way urban spaces—the spaces where we live—are designed. And because this is the case, urban identity is always in a continuous state of change—but it cannot transform itself. On the contrary: a fresh meaning for the city in the eyes of citizens and visitors today must constantly be recovered and recreated. There is no department responsible for non-physical wellbeing in the city: instead, the concepts and processes of identity development come from a number of different sources. In Stadtidentität der Zukunft – Wie uns Städte glücklich machen, prominent authors reveal the significance of a city’s identity in a wide variety of specialised fields—how it can be used and, above all, how it can be developed to ensure a living future.

With contributions by:
Myriam Baumeler, Christoph Craviolini, Götz Datko, Piotr Drewnowski, Robert E. Gubler, Maria Luise Hilber, Martina Kühne, Winy Maas, Jürgen Mick, Christa Reicher, Klaus Ronneberger, Hans Ruh, Wolfgang Sonne, Hanspeter Spörri, Thomas Stadelmann, Joris Van Wezemael