The increased significance of public private partnership (PPP) for urban development in Germany

Friesecke, Frank

Over the past years a marked increase in cooperation between the public and private sectors for the development and operation of public services and infrastructure has been observed in Germany. Such Public Private Partnerships (PPP) for a wide range of economic activities were driven by a shrinking economic performance in many regions. Due to the fact that the demographic and economic change influence the financial situation of the cities, almost every municipality ascertains a loss of revenues to finance local public transportation and the construction and maintenance of roads, schools, hospitals, cultural and sports facilities. In this case, PPPs can be an important tool for urban development to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of public services. The innovative aspect of these partnerships is the introduction of a lifecycle approach which aims at the optimisation of the planning, construction, running, financing and utilisation of real property. The article describes the current PPP debate in Germany and gives a review of different German Public Private Partnership projects concerning urban development at Federal Government, Federal States and municipal level. According to the German Institute of Urban Affairs (Difu) more than 100 PPP real estate projects are in the planning and implementation phase at the present time. Compared to the United Kingdom, it is only a limited number of PPP projects, but nevertheless, they include a large variety of different building types, such as administrative buildings, sports facilities, military barracks, medical institutions and judicial buildings. The overall investment volume of all projects together amounts to more than 4 billion Euro.

Event: XXIII International FIG Congress : Shaping the change

Only personal, non-commercial use of this document is allowed.

Document type:The increased significance of public private partnership (PPP) for urban development in Germany (140 kB - pdf)