In Germany it reveals a general trend which assigns a higher importance to the environment and landscape in the development of cities. Even so the development towards a scattered urban landscape based on extensive individual mass mobility could
not be brought to a halt. In addition to this, the process of catching up in East Germany with regard to suburbanisation has proceeded in the same way as in West Germany before unification, even though this development was already recognised as being ecologically
detrimental. This reveals an inability to steer the landscape development process as a whole. Concepts of regional environmental quality, sustainable land use concepts, economic steering instruments and ecological scenarios develop slowly as principles