rhein main

8/12/2019 Rhein Main

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POLYNET Action 1.1Commuting &

the definition offunctional urban

regions

Rhine-Main Institute of Community Studies/The Young Foundation & Polynet Partners, 2005 - Contributions: Polynet Partner Members - Selection & editorial material: Peter Hall & Kathy Pain

The moral rights of the editors and authors have been asserted.


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POLYNET Action 1.1 2 Rhine-Main

Christian Fischer,Tim Freytag, Michael Hoyler & Christoph Mager

Rhine-MainCommuting & the Definition of Functional Urban Regions

1. IntroductionThe region and its history

Located in the central part of Germany, Rhine-Main is one of seven European metropoli-

tan regions in the country (Blotevogel 2002). This decentralised structure of the German

urban system is to some extent a result of the federal organisation of political power and

administration. Rhine-Main includes five cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants; it

is, after Rhine-Ruhr, Germanys second biggest polycentric region (Fig. 1).

There is no generally agreed delimitation of Rhine-Main as the contemporary struc-

ture is the result of different processes of regionalisation in history. Frankfurt, due to

its political function as the venue for the crowning of German kings in the middle ages and as a free city of the Holy

Roman Empire with financial sovereignty and freedom for its courts and administration since the end of the 14th

century, rapidly developed into an important centre for trans-regional trade, fairs and book printing. Due to the territo-

rial fragmentation of the area, Frankfurt had only limited functional connections to its direct hinterland.

Industrialisation in the Frankfurt area did not start until the 1860s when the city was annexed by Prussia and thus

unified with the surrounding areas. The first industrial cores developed along the Main river outside of Frankfurts

city borders. In some cases, for example in Offenbach, these were planned by competing rulers to counterbalance

the dominant economic and political position of Frankfurt. Wiesbaden, Darmstadt and Mainz, as the other main cities

in Rhine-Main, acted as seats of clerical or secular rulers and could maintain their position as political and culturalcentres until today. In the 19th century different smaller industrial locations evolved in places such as Hanau and Rs-

selsheim. Aschaffenburg, a longtime possession of Mainz, developed as a Bavarian centre of paper manufacturing.

Between the foundation of the German Reich in 1871 and the end of World War II Frankfurt lost its dominant posi-

tion as a financial centre in favour of the national capital Berlin but could regain this role after 1945. Frankfurt Rhine-

Main, like other metropolitan regions in West Germany, benefitted from Berlins isolated position in the Soviet zone

of occupation as major banks, several insurance companies and important industrial and wholesale firms relocated

to the region. Some key institutions were founded in Frankfurt (such as the Bank deutscher Lnder, a predecessor of

the Deutsche Bundesbank) that proved to be crucial for its future development as a major financial centre (Holtfrerich

1999). At the same time Frankfurt Rhine-Main, located in the centre of Germany, evolved as a major hub for air and

ground transportation.

The strong economic growth after World War II was paralleled by an increasing integration into the world economy

and a profound change in economic structure. In the major urban centres of Rhine-Main, the number of employees

in the service sector began to increase in the 1960s, while the hinterland was dominated by manufacturing until the

late 1970s. During the last 30 years, the metropolitan region has been reshaped by suburbanisation of population

and firm location and by a tertiarisation of economic activities, especially by a considerable growth of the advanced

producer service sector (Schamp 2001). Sections 2 and 3 highlight some of the recent trends in population, employ-

ment and economic structure for Rhine-Main in more detail.

Apart from Frankfurt, there are six major urban centres in Rhine-Main. Along the Rhine river in the West, the twin

cities Wiesbaden and Mainz serve as capitals of the federal states of Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate respectively.

Their high percentage of employees in the service sector is mainly due to this governmental function. Additionally,

insurance and management consulting firms are concentrated in Wiesbaden, and Mainz has developed a strong

presence of media companies in close connection to the location of a main public national broadcasting company. In

Contents

1. Introduction 2

2. Population 5

3. Employment 8

4. Commuting 12

5. Polycentricity 15

6. References 17


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Figure 1: Frankfurt Rhine Main - Overview

Figure 2: Functional Urban Regions (FURs)


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Darmstadt the self-proclaimed City of Science clusters of software consulting and IT emerged in close proxim-

ity to the Technical University and to other research and development facilities. The three remaining urban centres

along the river Main, Offenbach, Hanau and the Bavarian Aschaffenburg, have retained a strong manufacturing base.

Offenbach as a regional centre of engineering and chemical industries suffers from an ongoing decrease in employ-

ment that has only partly been absorbed by a growing service sector. Hanau, an important German inner harbour,

witnessed a shift from manufacturing to high-tech medical industries and chemical engineering. Aschaffenburg asthe easternmost urban centre in Rhine-Main recently developed as a major regional logistic hub and has a strong

tradition in automotive engineering.

Key planning policies after 1945

After World War II the region was divided between the three federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate in the West, Bavaria

in the East and Hesse, which covers about three quarters of the regions area, in the centre. A distinct regional

consciousness was slow to develop and was not discernable until the end of the 1950s. Due to the continuing lack

of a common territorial history there was no regional planning cooperation in Rhine-Main until the early 1960s. To

increase efficiency in public administration, drastic reforms were implemented that resulted in the merging of smaller

territorial units into larger municipalities. In the 1970s attempts to institutionalise regional planning bodies in order tocope with the burgeoning problems of suburbanisation and commuting failed as many municipalities feared a strong

centralization of decision making and a loss of autonomy. In 1975 the Umlandverband Frankfurt was founded to

advance and secure the orderly development of Frankfurt and its hinterland. Due to its geographical limitation and

the lack of means to sanction breaches of planning regulations, the work and authority of this federation continued to

be disputed. Another major problem in trying to reduce the number of hierarchical levels of governance sometimes

up to six administrative bodies on different scales are involved in planning processes are the different sets of power

relations and interests involved. For example, it is assumed by many cities in Rhine-Mains hinterland that there

are still attempts by Frankfurt to dominate the region not only economically but also politically. On 1 April 2001 the

Planungsverband Ballungsraum Frankfurt/Rhein-Main (Frankfurt/Rhine-Main Regional Planning Association) was set

up as a legal successor of the Umlandverband.

In the last few years there have been tendencies to reverse the usual top-down perspective on planning and

introduce more inclusive participatory approaches. Various other bodies and cooperative organisation such as the

Forum of the Chambers of Commerce, the Economic Initiative Metropolitana where over 200 companies are involved

or the Economic Promotion Board Frankfurt/RhineMain explicitly focus on Rhine-Main as a region. Other regional as-

sociations include municipal cooperations such as the Rat der Region (Regional Council) and the Regionalkonferenz

(Regional Conference) (Brdlein 1999; Brdlein 2000, Fichter 2002).

The Polynet Mega-City Region Rhine-Main

The Polynet Mega-City Region Rhine-Main is delimitated by the borders of adjacent Functional Urban Regions (FURs),

each comprising a single FUR core and its associated ring (Fig. 2). FUR cores are single NUTS 5 units (Gemeinden)or sets of contiguous NUTS 5 units having both more than 7 workers per hectare and more than 20,000 employees.

The data used for this analysis were purchased from the Bundesanstalt fr Arbeit, the German Federal Employment

Office, for June 30th 2002, the latest available figures (Bundesanstalt fr Arbeit 2004).

In Rhine-Main the analysis revealed six FUR cores: Frankfurt (including the city of Frankfurt, Offenbach, Eschborn

and Neu-Isenburg), Wiesbaden, Mainz, Darmstadt, Hanau and Aschaffenburg. Wiesbaden, Hanau and Aschaffenburg

do not fulfil the 7 employees/ha rule but were included, as each of these cores had been used in previous studies (eg

GEMACA, see IAURIF 2002). As preliminary interviews with planning bodies suggest, there is a strong sense of being

part of the Rhine-Main region in each of these cores. The FUR rings are defined as contiguous NUTS 5 units from each

of which more than 10 per cent of employees commute to an adjacent core. The Polynet Mega-City-Region Rhine-

Main stretches about 140 kilometres from East to West and about 100 kilometres from North to South. It counts 4,2

million inhabitants in 359 NUTS 5 units and covers an area of about 8,100 square kilometres.


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2. Population

With over 4.2 million inhabitants in 2001, the Mega-City Region Rhine-Main is home to about 5 per cent of Germanys

population, although it extends over only 2.3 per cent of the national territory. About one third of the population lives inone of the five major urban centres with over 100,000 inhabitants. Frankfurt is the leading city with 644,000 inhabit-

ants, followed by Wiesbaden (269,000), Mainz (183,000), Darmstadt (138,000) and Offenbach (117,000). The FUR

cores with 1.6 million inhabitants contain 37 per cent of the regions population.

Fig. 3 shows the distribution of the population in Rhine-Main in 2001. The dot pattern reveals a densely populated

core strip in the Rhine-Main lowlands stretching from Mainz and Wiesbaden in the West to Hanau in the East along

the Main river with a length of about 70 kilometres and a breadth of about 20 kilometres. Another corridor of high

population density follows the Rhine valley from Frankfurt southwards.

The absolute number of inhabitants in Rhine-Main has increased significantly during the last two decades and

has shown a more dynamic development than Germanys Alte Lnder as a whole. Compared to 1981 (c. 3.8 million

inhabitants) there was an increase of more than 9 per cent in 2001. This increase is due to a net migration gain from

outside the region as demographic trends show that natural birth rates are not sufficient to reproduce the popula-

tion.

At a FUR level, the Frankfurt functional urban region accounts for 57 per cent of the overall population figures with

its 2.4 million inhabitants, whereas the two smallest FURs in terms of population, Aschaffenburg and Hanau, are home

to only 6.5 and 4 per cent of the regions inhabitants respectively.

Overall, the Mega-City Region shows a more dynamic increase in population in the (early) 1990s than in the

1980s. This is mainly due to positive migration figures from the five Neue Bundeslnder after reunification and the

relative strength of the economy in Rhine-Main. Although the FUR Frankfurt has the highest absolute increase in

population with about 100,000 people per decade since 1981 (Fig. 4), in relative terms the Eastern and Southernmost

FURs of the region show the highest proportion of population growth (Fig. 5). The population in the Aschaffenburg

FUR increased by about 8 per cent during the 1980s and the 1990s, only exceeded by c. 9 per cent growth in theFUR Mainz in the 1990s. The only FUR with a loss in population is Wiesbaden in the 1980s with a decrease of about

10,000 people, most of whom moved from Wiesbaden core to other municipalities outside the FUR.

The tendency to relocate from the urban centres to the hinterland has been reported for the Rhine-Main region

since the 1970s (Institut fr Kulturgeographie, Stadt- und Regionalforschung 2000). This process of suburbanisa-

tion continued in the 1980s and 1990s with a stagnation of the population numbers in the FUR cores and a strong

increase of 15 per cent in the functional urban rings.

A closer look at different spatial scales reveals a highly differentiated and complex picture of the suburbanisation

of population. In the 1980s only two of the leading urban centres lost population, Mainz and Wiesbaden, whereas

Frankfurt, Offenbach, Darmstadt, Hanau and Aschaffenburg either gained slightly in population or stagnated. Popula-

tion loss can be recorded for some communes that are located in the densely settled area between the cores ofWiesbaden, Mainz and Frankfurt. Especially the Kreis Gro Gerau, which is economically dominated by automobile

manufacturing, had to suffer from a strong decrease of population into the 1990s that is paralleled by a loss in work-

places. Another area of major population loss is located along the Rhine north of Wiesbaden.

A strong increase of more than 10 per cent of population can be observed in single communes at the fringes of the

Frankfurt core, in the more rural hinterland of Mainz in Rhineland-Palatinate and in the Bavarian part of Rhine-Main.

The areas to the North and Northwest of Frankfurt proved to be highly attractive for living due to short commuting

distances to both Frankfurt and Wiesbaden cores and to the desirable location of the suburbs along the gentle slopes

of the Taunus mid-range mountains. The municipalities of Usingen, Wehrheim or Neu-Anspach, for example, gained

up to 32 per cent of population in the 1980s. In Frankfurts south, Dietzenbach, Rdermark, Langen and Rodgau

gained between 10 to 15 per cent as did some municipalities in Bavaria.

In the 1990s the loss or stagnation of population in the major urban centres continued but in most of the munici-


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Figure 4: Population 1981, 1991, 2001

Figure 3: Population Distribution 2001


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Figure 5: Population Change 1981-2001

Figure 6: FUR Population Density 1981, 1991, 2001


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palities the population figures increased. Only the population in an inner circle of municipalities adjacent to the cores

of Wiesbaden, Mainz, Frankfurt and Hanau stagnated. In addition to the areas that had already gained population

throughout the 1980s, the outer fringes of Rhine-Main especially in the Southeast, and the area between the two

functional urban cores of Darmstadt and Aschaffenburg in the South were affected by processes of suburbanisation.

In 189 of the 359 muncipalities there was a growth in population figures of more than 10 per cent.

Ranging from beyond 50 people per square kilometres in rural Rhineland-Palatinate to a peak of 2601 in the cityof Offenbach the mean population density in Rhine-Main was 525 inhabitants per square kilometre in 2001 (1991:

496; 1991: 480). This is an increase by 9.5 per cent in only two decades. Most densely settled is the smallest FUR

Hanau, the 243 square kilometres were inhabited by more than 177,000 people in 2001 (Fig. 6). The highest increase

in population density can be recorded for the FURs Aschaffenburg and Mainz whose suburban rings were strongly

affected by an increase of 40 to 50 people per square kilometre between 1981 and 2001.

Over the last two decades only 18 of the 359 municipalities in the Mega-City Region Rhine-Main lost population.

While the number of inhabitants in the urban centres stagnated, the ring areas continued to be strongly affected by

suburbanisation processes. Whereas in the 1980s the inner rings adjacent to the urban cores could gain population,

in the 1990s strong increases could be recorded at the fringes of the Polynet Mega-City Region Rhine-Main. By in-

creasing their population many municipalities in the suburban areas could prosper as the process of suburbanisationis socially selective: socially deprived groups are concentrated in the old urban cores while wealthier groups are able

to commute from their homes in the green belt to their workplaces.

3. Employment and economic structure

Rhine-Main is one of the most important economic regions in Germany, clearly affected by processes of economic

globalisation. The perception and the image of Rhine-Main is strongly connected to the skyline of Frankfurts banking

district that visually emphasises the citys rise as an important financial centre in continental Europe. But there are

also many industrial centres in the region. Darmstadt traditionally has a strong chemical industry, in Rsselsheimautomobiles are assembled at the Adam Opel AG, and pharmaceuticals are especially strong in Frankfurt-Hchst.

All of these manufacturing branches are affected by continual structural change that has caused severe losses in

workplaces. The increasing concentration of service business industries in Frankfurts city led to a relocation of many

firms to the suburban areas in the last two decades, where sometimes strong dynamics evolve that are only indirectly

linked to Frankfurts financial district.

Employment data were provided by the Bundesanstalt fr Arbeit, the Federal Employment Office of Germany.

These data only cover contributors to the social security system: not included are (for example) civil servants, self-

employed persons and students. This proves to be especially problematic for Mainz and Wiesbaden, the capitals of

the federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse, both of which have large numbers of people working in govern-

mental departments and in jurisdiction, and for cities with big universities such as Mainz, Darmstadt and Frankfurt. For

1991, the Federal Office for Statistics in Rhineland-Palatinate could not provide data for about half the municipalities

of the FUR Mainz. This lack of data is taken into consideration in the following discussion.

With almost 1.7 million employees in 2001 more than 6 per cent of the national workforce are employed in

Rhine-Main. The main centres of employment are the cities of Frankfurt with 29 per cent (487,000) of all employees,

followed by Wiesbaden (123,000), Mainz (101,000), Darmstadt (88,000), Hanau (47,000), Offenbach (47,000) and

Aschaffenburg (38,000) (Fig. 7). The six functional urban cores of Rhine-Main contain 58 per cent of the workforce,

ie an even higher concentration than for population (37 per cent).

Figs. 7 and 8 show the dynamic development of the numbers of employees for the years 1981, 1991 and 2001.

Overall, the absolute figures in Rhine-Main increased by 240,000 (16.5 per cent) since 1981, 82 per cent of which

accounts for the 1980s, and only 18 per cent for the 1990s. Regionally, this increase is also unevenly distributed.

While the FUR Frankfurt gained about 170,000 employees (an increase of 18 per cent), the FUR Hanau lost about

4,000 employees or 6 per cent. In the 1980s each FUR could gain workplaces whereas the cores grew by 11 per cent


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Figure 7: Employment Density 1981, 1991, 2001

Figure 8: Employment Change, 1981-2001


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(99,000 employees in absolute terms) and the rings by 21 per cent (an increase of about 107,000 employees). In the

1990s a slight overall increase of employees took place in the rings (plus 27,000), while at the same time the cores

lost about 8,000 workplaces. The FUR Frankfurt is, arguably apart from the Mainz FUR which gained over 22 per cent

of workplaces between 1981 and 2001, the only urban region in Rhine-Main with positive figures for the develop-

ment of workplaces in the 1990s. While the Wiesbaden, Darmstadt and Aschaffenburg FURs only lost few employees,

Hanau suffered from a decrease of more than 12 per cent (or 8,000 employees) in the last decade.Analysis of employment distribution and changes at a municipality level (NUTS 5) again reveals regional differ-

ences. In the 1980s there was a strong increase in employment in the inner rings adjacent to the economic urban

cores, especially in Frankfurts West and Northwest where single communes like Friedrichsdorf, Steinbach, Hofheim

am Taunus, Liederbach am Taunus or Kriftel could increase employees by more than 20 per cent, peaking in Karben

with a plus of 95 per cent (about 2,500 employees). In the 1990s there are only very few and isolated municipalities

that could withstand the overall tendency of decreasing figures, mainly in the Taunus areas, in the FUR Aschaffenburg

in Bavaria and in the small communes of Rhineland-Palatinate.

Figure 9 shows the density of employees per square kilometre and highlights the strong influence of cycles of

economic recession and prosperity on employment changes. In the more prosperous 1980s each FUR could gain

workplaces and thus increased its employment density especially in the inner rings adjacent to the urban cores. Inthe 1990s a burgeoning recession caused a loss of employment in the periphery of Rhine-Main. The FUR Frankfurt

replaced the FUR Hanau as the region with the highest employment density with 255 employees per square kilome-

tre.

Two fundamental and ongoing trends are reflected by these changes in employment distribution and density. The

first basic trend is one of decentralisation or suburbanisation, the overspill of large numbers of people and jobs into

the ring areas of the Functional Urban Regions. The other involves a sectoral shift away from manufacturing towards

services, especially advanced producer services. This tertiarisation is connected to the process of deindustrialisation,

a decline in manufacturing that particularly affects old industrial centres and their employees.

There are some basic limitations in availability and comparability of data for Rhine-Main as three different statisti-

cal bureaus, from Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Bavaria are involved in data collection. Due to the methodology

of data gathering and the politics of publishing in these different federal states, data on employment structure can

only be obtained for four broad economic sectors. It is not possible to break down the data for each Polynet sector.

Furthermore, in the last 15 years several changes occurred in the classification of data on economic activities. All of

the statistical bureaus are now aiming to implement the functional classification that adhere to the NACE standard

(Nomenclature Gnrale des Activits Economiques dans lUnion Europenne).

In 2001 73.5 per cent of the employees in Rhine-Main worked in the service sector and 26 per cent in manufac-

turing. The primary sector only plays a minor role in Rhine-Main except for small municipalities at the fringes of the

region and in the FUR ring Mainz. Since 1991 manufacturing in Rhine-Main decreased by 12.5 per cent or 200,000

workplaces in favour of the service sector.

In 1991 the FURs Wiesbaden, Frankfurt and Mainz showed the highest degree of tertiarisation with 66, 64 and

62 per cent respectively (Fig. 11 and 12). In 2001 the FUR Frankfurt had the most employees in the service sector

with 77 per cent (Wiesbaden: 76, Mainz: 72 per cent). The concentration of jobs in the service sector was even higher

for the functional urban cores. For example, in Wiesbaden, the federal capital of Hesse, a quota of 80 per cent was

recorded in 2001. In the two Easternmost FURs of Hanau and Aschaffenburg manufacturing still dominates the labour

market with around 40 per cent of the workforce employed in this sector, a decline since 1991 of about 15 per cent.

Although the strongest relative decrease in manufacturing jobs before 2001 is recorded for the FUR Aschaffenburg,

where the was a loss of more than 14 per cent or 11,500 workplaces, these West-East disparities in tertiary employ-

ment have proved to be persistent (Brdlein, Schickhoff 1998). Generally speaking, the cores show higher increases

in service jobs than the rings. The increase in service jobs is mainly due to other services, a sector that excludes

wholesale, hotels and transport and includes the eight service business sectors under investigation in Polynet.

The marked decrease in manufacturing workplaces in the 1990s has only been partly absorbed by the risingservice sector, as is shown by the employment data. But there are locally very specific and heterogeneous develop-


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Figure 9: Employment Distribution in 2001

Figure 10: Employment Density 1981, 1991, 2001


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ments. In some communes the increase in service jobs could even exceed the number of jobs lost in manufacturing,

mainly in the Taunus areas, in the FUR Aschaffenburg, and in the small communes of Rhineland-Palatinate. In 7

municipalities over 90 per cent of all employed persons worked in the service sector in 2001, all located either in

Frankfurts North and Northwest along the Taunus mountain range or in Frankfurts Southern hinterland in close

proximity to the international airport, for example Bad Orb, Bad Soden am Taunus, Bad Schwalbach, Kelsterbach or

Schmitten.Of all Polynet service business sectors, only employment in banking and insurance could be identified for the

FURs Frankfurt, Hanau and Darmstadt from the available data. Banking and insurance in these FURs accounts for a

maximum of 10 per cent of employment (FUR Frankfurt). Municipalities with very high proportions of employees in the

banking and insurance sector are Eschborn (20 per cent), Oberursel and Trebur (18 per cent each) exceeding Frank-

furts 16 per cent. This points to a relocation of insurance firms and to increasing back-office activities of banks.

4. Commuting

A detailed analysis of commuting pattern on a NUTS 5 level (municipalities) was conducted to delimit functional urban

regions of Rhine-Main. FUR cores are single NUTS 5 units (Gemeinden) or sets of contiguous NUTS 5 units having

both more than 7 workers per hectare and more than 20,000 employees. In the event of there being more than one

instance of 10 per cent workers commuting to a core, the NUTS 5 area was associated with that core to which the

major part of its workers commute.

Again, commuting figures only cover contributors to the social security system, i.e. they exclude self-employed

persons, civil servants and students. Comparable data for 1991 could not be purchased due to limitations in the

Polynet budget for the Heidelberg Team.

By using UCINet, a social network analysis software programme, a standard output of the commuting network

was computed showing the commuting flows in Rhine-Main between the different FUR cores and rings. Fig. 13 com-

prises a FUR base map with a standard UCINet output overlaid. The size of the node for each FUR core and each ringrepresents the number of employees in the respective area. About 260,000 people cross FUR borders to commute

from home to work on a regular basis, additionally about 917,000 persons commute between the cores and the rings

of a FUR.

The resulting pattern of commuting flows highlights the importance of the Frankfurt FUR where more than

1,000,000 million employees work. About 200,000 people commute from the ring to the core, and only 45,000 in

the opposite direction. The outstanding role of the FUR Frankfurt is further underlined by the analysis of the commut-

ing patterns from the five remaining FURs. Apart from the ring-core pattern for each FUR, the strongest commuting

links are all directed towards Frankfurt. Nearly 120,000 workers (19 per cent) in Rhine-Main commute to the FUR

Frankfurt, 72,000 to the core. The cores of Wiesbaden, Mainz and Hanau send more commuters to the core Frankfurt

than their corresponding rings, while for Darmstadt and Aschaffenburg the opposite holds true.The absolute distance between workplace and place of living proves to be an important factor for commuting.

Generally speaking, the shorter the distance to a FUR core, the higher the percentage of out-commuting to this core.

While there are strong commuting linkages between neighbouring FURs, there is almost no exchange between for

example the two Westernmost FURs Wiesbaden and Mainz and the FURs Aschaffenburg and Hanau in the East.

Commuting analyses on a lower scale reveal more insights into the delimitation of commuting areas. As the FUR

Frankfurt shows strong centripetal forces, many municipalities directly adjacent to another core send the majority

of commuters to Frankfurt. Thus the FUR Frankfurt is apart from the FUR Aschaffenburg the only FUR core that

is surrounded by a circular ring structure. All other FUR rings rather than fan out from the core to the fringes of the

Mega-City Region.

The shapes of the FURs often correspond to physical barriers and administrative borders. The rings of the FURsWiesbaden and Mainz for example end at the Rhine river which also demarcates the two federal states of Hesse in the

North and Rhineland-Palatinate to the South. This border proves to be a significant barrier for commuters. Neither the


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Figure 11: Employment Structure, 1991

Figure 12: Employment Structure, 2001


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Figure 13: Commuting, 2001

Figure 14: Self-Containment, 2002


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Frankfurt FUR nor the Darmstadt FUR both stretching to the Eastern banks of the Rhine can attract the majority

of commuters of any municipality beyond the river. In the East of the Rhine-Main region there is also a correspond-

ence between the federal state border demarcating Hesse from Bavaria and the delimitation of the Frankfurt, Hanau,

Darmstadt and Aschaffenburg FURs.

As preliminary interviews with institutions and planning bodies in Rhine-Main suggest, many employees are not

willing to travel for more than 30 to 45 minutes from their home to the place of work. Thus, the transport infrastruc-ture is a major factor in determining the extent of a FUR. On the one hand, the Spessart mountain range in the East

and the Odenwald mountains in the South are relatively weakly developed in terms of transport infrastructure and

form natural barriers for commuting. On the other hand, the Taunus mountains located in the northwest of Frankfurt

are very accessible by major motorways and railway lines. Here, the Frankfurt FUR stretches as far as the border of

Rhineland-Palatinate from where people travel 60 to 70 kilometres to reach the FUR core.

The suburbanisation of both workplaces and living places and a strong discrepancy between increase in popula-

tion and the increase in employment in different areas of Rhine-Main have created several evolving centres of in-com-

muting and out-commuting. Many of the centres of in-commuting are located to the north and the northwest of the

Frankfurt FUR core. In municipalities like Eschborn, Schwalbach am Taunus or Sulzbach am Taunus more than 90 per

cent of all employees commute in. At the same time, there are some centres of out-commuting in Mainz south andWiesbadens north as well as in the northernmost parts of Bavaria where up to 90 per cent of all employed inhabitants

commute to other municipalities.

5. Measuring Polycentricity

In the Polynet project, polycentricity refers to both morphological characteristics of a region and functional relations

within a geographical space. A polycentric urban region in morphological terms is composed of a number of smaller

and larger cities in more or less close proximity (Kloosterman, Musterd 2001). In Polynet, city regions are different

spatially delimitated areas that are characterised by specific morphologies. At the same time, the region is delimitatedby computing the commuting patterns between cities with a high number and density of workers and their hinter-

land.

The rank-size analysis conducted for the Mega-

City Region Rhine-Main refers to the morphologi-

cal characteristic of a region. Any divergence from

the rank size rule, i.e. the constant resulting from

multiplying the number of inhabitants and the rank

of a city in an urban system, measures a degree

of central dominance. This primacy indicates

a more hierarchical system dominated by a fewleading cities. As Fig. 15 shows, the urban system

of Polynet Rhine-Main is dominated by a few

cities, which mainly represent the FUR cores. In

some sense, the leading city of Frankfurt however

is balanced by the five remaining core cities in

Rhine-Main. The smallest of about 340 cities and

towns in Rhine-Main are distributed along a more

or less straight line. In temporal perspective, the scattergrams show an overall increase in population between 1981

and 2001. While there are no changes in the top ranks of the urban hierarchy, the smaller towns gained more popula-

tion between 1991 and 2001 than the mid-size cities, pointing to processes of suburbanisation of population.

Self-containment and in- and out-commuting rates are measures to show functional relations between

spatial units. Self-containment shows how many resident employed workers are employed in that spatial unit. On

Figure 15: Rank-Size Analysis 1981-2001


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Figure 16: In-commuting 2002, 3D Surface Map

average one third of employees works in the same FUR as they live in. Employees living in the Aschaffenburg, Darm-

stadt and Hanau FURs commute above average to other FURs, whereas the highest rates for self-containment are

recorded for the Frankfurt (37 per cent) and Wiesbaden FURs (46 per cent). In accordance to these findings, the rates

for in-commuting, i.e. the percentage of workers in a FUR that commute from outside this FUR, range from 70 per

cent in the Aschaffenburg FUR to only 56 per cent in the Wiesbaden FUR.

The calculation of Special Functional Polycentricity for in- and out-commuting on a FUR level according to Green

(2004) resulted in the following measures:

PSF (in-commuting) = 0.07

PSF (out-commuting) = 0.09

and for General Functional Polycentricity :

PGF (in-commuting) = 0.08

Thus Rhine-Main is a quite polycentric region in terms of commuting dominated by the Frankfurt FUR.


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POLYNET Action 1 1 17 Rhine-Main

6. References

Blotevogel, H.H. (2002) Stdtesystem und Metropolregionen. In: Nationalatlas Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Bd. 5:

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