This study investigates how governance processes around public space developments

in Berlin have been discursively shaped, with particular attention to the redevelopment

of Potsdamer Platz in the 1990s and Tempelhofer Feld in the early 200s around the

time of the former airport’s closure in 2008. The study employs a Critical Discourse

Analysis to examine how language, narratives, and framing strategies have been used

to legitimise urban development and reflect broader tensions concerning publicness,

privatisation, and urban democracy.

The findings demonstrate that the redevelopment of Potsdamer Platz was

characterised by investor-influenced governance, urgency narratives, and the

marginalisation of public participation. In contrast, the discourse around Tempelhofer

Feld was centred on social justice, and collective rights, fostering more participatory

planning forms while remaining contested under neoliberal pressure. Across both

cases, discursive strategies emerge as central instrument of governance, showing who

is involved in urban development and how the city is imagined, negotiated, and

claimed. The study underscores the political nature of urban planning, highlighting the

need of critical research on whose visions shape urban areas and for whom the city is

made.