City in Transition: Quality through Active Governance

Basel, at the heart of a trinational metropolitan region, exemplifies the profound transformations of urban spaces. The economic restructuring of recent decades has fostered an urban-compatible key industry that minimizes environmental impacts while creating new qualities of living and housing. As a result, people are increasingly returning to the city. Former industrial sites are being transformed into vibrant neighborhoods, each with its own identity.

This shift brings complex challenges and involves many stakeholders: demand for affordable housing, public facilities, attractive jobs, and additional green spaces is rising within a limited territory. At the same time, the built heritage is under pressure, and land is increasingly becoming an object of speculation.

Urban planning must actively guide this dynamic process through quality-oriented, participatory, and governance-based approaches. Only in this way can diverse interests be integrated and urban returns for the common good be created. In doing so, the urban environment can be shaped sustainably, ensuring a livable city for many in the long term.

Since 2015, Beat Aeberhard has served as Cantonal Master Builder of Basel-Stadt and Head of the Department of Urban Development & Architecture. Previously, he was City Architect of Zug, worked as an independent architect in Zurich, and taught at ETH Zurich. After studying architecture at ETH Lausanne and Zurich, he completed a Master of Science in Architecture and Urban Design at Columbia University in New York. In his lecture “City in Transition: Quality through Active Governance”, he will address current challenges in urban development and illustrate how the common good, architectural quality, and political decision-making processes can be brought together.

Portrait: © Derek Li Wanpo