The public private partnership initiative „Going Down-Town“ was kicked-off in North Rhine Westphalia/Germany for the first time in 1999 by the regional government and the department store-chains Karstadt and Kaufhof. The initiative wants to link shopping, culture, living to revitalize the life in the city-centers.

In Ahlen

The annual competition activated 172 cities and communities to create between the years 2000 and 2008 a total of 588 concepts of which 193 got financial support for their transformation to reality. Also for 2009 the competition has 24 winners which get up to 60 percent of their concept-costs paid by the initiative. The rest of the costs has to be paid by the cities/communities and their local government or sponsors.

REAL CORP 2009 will organize its 14th international conference in Sitges/Catalonia/Spain in April 22-25th 2009. The call for papers can be checked at http://www.corp.atThe conference will be jointly organized by the Central European Institute of Technology (CEIT ALANOVA), the Competence Centre of Urban and Regional Planning (CORP), the International Society of City and Regional Planners (ISOCARP); supporter is the city if Sitges

At Expo Real 2008 a total of 1,856 companies from 45 countries participated. 487 came from abroad – 62 of them from Russia. The exhibition space was 74,000 square meters over a total of seven halls. This was a growth-rate of 17 percent compared with last year.

There was also an increase of visitors by 7.7 percent. They came from 77 countries – top of them Germany, UK, Netherlands, Austria, Russia, Switzerland, CZ, Poland, USA, France and Spain. Beside the exhibition about 100 workshops with 500 experts attracted the visitors – one of them was the Retail Special organized by Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier. The next Expo Real will be on October 5-7th 2009 ( more ).