One of the most urgent problems of East German cities at present time is the huge amount of vacant apartments. It is estimated that more than one million apartments (13 per cent of the housing stock) are unoccupied. The consequences for the cities are diverse: dilapidation, security problems, closing down of infrastructural facilities, out-migration of higher-income residents, social erosion etc. In districts with an overlapping of these problems, the urban life suffers and it influences the image of the whole city in a negative sense. In looking for strategies conteracting these trends, qualitative patterns of urban development have to become prior while overcoming the motion of quantitative growth. Opportunities and obstacles for sustainable reurbanisation processes need to be analysed, taking into account town-planning, economic, ecological and social aspects. First examples for such an approach are projects of detached family houses in the material cover of multi-storey tenement buildings or pulling down of vacant buildings and reshape the area in an attractive public green space. In order to find out the best ways for stabilising and improving the urban body, new alliances of and arrangements between urban players including the residents have to be established considering all interests and reaching concurrent aims for the future urban life.