Strasbourg Deux Rives
Core idea
Rhine-crossing urban expansion
Why it matters
Franco-German integration through urbanism
Description
A cross-border urban extension programme led by the Strasbourg Eurométropole with its urban development agencies, extending the city eastwards from its historic core towards and across the Rhine to the German town of Kehl. The plan strings a sequence of new mixed-use districts along a corridor of former port, industrial and military land, supported by a tram line extended over the river, converting docklands and brownfields into housing, workplaces and public space on both banks.
Significance
Deux Rives is one of Europe's clearest cases of urbanism deployed as an instrument of cross-border integration, giving physical form to Franco-German cooperation through a shared tram and facing waterfront quarters. It combines the port-conversion tradition with the political project of the European borderland city, and it is frequently cited in discussions of transfrontier metropolitan governance.
What shaped it
- Transit-oriented development (TOD) (1993)
- The compact city (1973-1990s)
- Landscape urbanism (Waldheim) (1997-2006)