Did the spatial order of the working world change fundamentally in European cities since the 1970s? To answer this question Arndt Neumann turns to a case study about the port city Hamburg. He argues that due to a cumulative structural break the fordist city was replaced by the neoliberal city. Until the 1970s industry and urbanity were closely linked. Steel mills and shipyards shaped the city centres. In addition, modernist town planning was oriented towards industrial mass productions. Since then the industrial sector lost its importance, from the decline of heavy industries to the rise of postmodern architecture. At the same time the creative industry and the financial market gained influence. To grasp the entire complexity of this transformation Arndt Neumann investigates different working worlds in different urban space: the industrial labour in the port area, the office work in the city, the house work in the suburbs and the sequencing activities in the urban neighbourhoods. In particular he focusses on the manifold cross connections between labour history and urban history.

Autorentext

Dr. Arndt Neumann ist wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter des Historischen Instituts der FernUniversität in Hagen.