The Gerd Albers Award is given to award remarkable publications published by ISOCARP. This means that it is an award for ISOCARP members only.

In 2009 three articles and six books were received by the jury of the Gerd Albers Award. The jury 2009 consists of Estefanía Chávez de Ortega, (Mexico), Peter Robinson (South Africa), Didier Vancutsem (Germany), Ric Stephens (United States of America). Dirk Engelke (Germany). As responsible Vice President, Dirk Engelke evaluated all nine entries by our individual and institutional members.

To give recognition to all authors the jury decided to name each entry explicitly. The entries were:
– Andrea Haase, Germany, “Unzeitgemässe Orientierungwerte im Leitbild für die Raumordnung?”. This article is dealing with spatial planning in Germany, and the old-fashioned orientation of instruments of the State of Sachsen-Anhalt.
– Sachihiko Harashina, a book chapter on “Introduction of strategic environmental assessment and public participation”. This article combines SEA with public participation.
– Marialuce Stanganelli, Italy, “A new pattern of risk management: The Hyogo framework for action and Italian practice”, is looking at the question of vulnerability of cities.
– The book “Amsterdam” of Ton Schaap is about lifetime devoted to urban planning in Amsterdam  and a vision for future developments in this city
– Aleksandra Stupar, winner of the last year award, with a book on “The City of Globalization – Challenges, Transformations, Symbols”. The book describes in a more philosophical way the globalization phenomenon of the city in general.
– Dhiru Thadani and the book “Léon Krier, The Architecture of Community” presenting 30 years of work of Leon Krier, the famous architect from Luxemburg.
– Raquel Tardin, Brazil: “Espaços Livres: Sistema e Projeto Territorial”. The book is discussing the possibility of developing a planning method of land use starting from the evaluation of existing open spaces and their potentialities.

The jury thanks all authors of these entries and of the following two publications for their work and the inspiring time it gave the jury to read and evaluate the contributions.

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The jury decided to give the Gerd Albers Award 2009 to the book “New Rhythms of the City, Moulding the metropolis in Amsterdam”, written by Maurits de Hoog and Rick Vermeulen, DRO Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

The book contains a powerful message which is presented clearly and in a most creative way. It provides a fascinating insight into contemporary urban life in Amsterdam. At the same time, it sets the discussion firmly within the context of current international debates about mega-regions. The book has a lot to offer in the wider context of urban theory and practice. The rhythm approach to analysis of activity patterns is most effective and presents a framework for understanding how different people live/ visit Amsterdam.
In an outstanding way the authors illustrate problems and challenges faced by cities in mega-regions; by cities constantly needing to re-position themselves in a global context; and by cities needing to simultaneously respond to the varying needs of its residents as well as those of commuters and international visitors. As such, it is very relevant and offers lessons for other cities and city-regions.

Beside the introduced and the awarded publications the jury received the new book of Gerd Albers and Julian Wekel (Germany) on “Stadtplanung – Eine illustrierte Einführung”/ Urban planning – an illustrated introduction. The jury decided not to include this publication in the evaluation of the Gerd Albers Award. But because of the excellence of this publication the jury decided to give a “special honourable mention” to this book.

The Authors describe urban planning in Germany for the broad public. It is an introduction to challenges of planning cities and regions. It explains the origins of urban planning, the theory and its practice. The book is a very comprehensive and easy-to-understand publication for interested persons, such as professionals and non-professionals. The book is probably THE upcoming textbook on urban planning in Germany.

The jury thanks all authors for their contribution and asks all ISOCARP members to submit entries for the Gerd Albers Award 2010!