The Ruhr area was an engine of economic growth in Germany since the 1900s. However, the area has gone through a serious process of de-industrialzation since the early 1970s. The City of Dortmund, a core city of the Ruhr, lost 70 thousand jobs in its traditional sectors, such as coal-mining, iron and steel-making, and brewery, during the decades between 1960 and 1990. As a result, the City has been suffering from social, economic, and environmental problems. To tackle such problems, the City has attempted innovative approaches to urban and economic regeneration since the 1990s. This paper analyses and evaluates the processes and performance of the City’s policies of urban renewal, using two case study areas: Stadtkrone Ost and Pheonix Ost/West.