Cities and municipalities are confronting significant challenges that demand swift and effective action. These complex problems include, among others, housing shortages, the necessity to adapt to climatic changes, often dilapidated infrastructure, tight municipal budgets, and increasingly complicated planning and approval procedures. Against this backdrop, there is a growing need for solutions that enable municipalities to expand their scope for action despite limited resources and to accelerate processes, without neglecting quality standards, the common good, or citizen participation.
The 19th Federal Congress on National Urban Development Policy, which will take place in Cologne from 14 to 16 September 2026, is dedicated to these pressing issues. The event is titled “Acting together, moving faster, thinking further: Shaping cities for all” and aims to improve cooperation between the federal government, federal states, and municipalities. Federal Minister Verena Hubertz will open the congress on 15 September 2026 at 10:30 AM together with Cologne's Lord Mayor Torsten Burmester. During the subsequent welcoming discussion, specific local challenges will be debated, including heat protection, climate adaptation, the provision of affordable housing, and ensuring efficient infrastructure. Furthermore, it will be discussed how political design can be successfully implemented under difficult framework conditions.
The keynote speech by Professor Dr. Uwe Schneidewind, former Lord Mayor of the city of Wuppertal, will address the question of how cities can regain their capacity for action and strategy. In the subsequent panel, Federal Minister Hubertz will discuss new forms of cooperation, procedural acceleration, and the prerequisites for sustainable urban development with Professor Dr. Schneidewind, Lord Mayor Tristan Vitt from Siegen, Sarah Dungs from the Greyfield Group, and Andrea Gebhard, President of the Federal Chamber of Architects. The focus here is on identifying mechanisms that enable a more efficient implementation of projects.
On the evening of the first day of the congress, the political perspective will be deepened. In a “Late Night Talk”, municipal experiences will be compared with the federal government's possibilities for action. Sören Bartol, Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister for Housing, Urban Development and Building, will discuss with Members of the Bundestag Dr. Katja Strauss-Köster and Sylvia Rietenberg, as well as Lord Mayor Torsten Burmester, how the federal government and municipalities can better cooperate. A further focus of this discussion is strengthening trust and the political capacity for action in times of populism, polarisation, and increased pressure for change.
The second day of the congress, 16 September 2026, broadens the view to the level of the federal states and concrete implementation on the ground. Ina Scharrenbach, Minister for Home Affairs, Municipal Affairs, Building and Digitalisation of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, will deliver an impulse speech on the challenges and political initiatives of the federal states. In a subsequent panel of partners of the National Urban Development Policy, she will debate planning acceleration, municipal strategic capability, and necessary investments with Parliamentary State Secretary Sören Bartol, representatives of the leading municipal associations, and the city of Cologne. The central question here is how new scopes for action can lead to concrete changes locally. The congress thus brings together the perspectives of the federal government, federal states, and municipalities to answer a key question: Which adjustments are required at the various levels so that cities can act more efficiently and simultaneously be designed to be sustainable, community-oriented, and inclusive?
