How can a deserted city center become a meeting place again? Zwönitz, Demmin, Münnerstadt and Bönen are developing solutions together in “Innenstadt (be)leben!”. The German Institute of Urban Affairs and atene KOM are supporting the project.
Vacancies and a lack of offers in small towns are not only an expression of the difficult situation of the stationary retail trade. It is also becoming increasingly rare for city centers to serve as cultural and social meeting places. To reverse this process, local authorities are trying some unconventional approaches. Examples include the small towns of Zwönitz (Saxony), Demmin (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania), Münnerstadt (Bavaria) and Bönen (North Rhine-Westphalia). In four transfer workshops, representatives of the municipalities have now exchanged ideas for future-proof inner city development on site for the first time. To this end, each of the municipalities hosted an “intercollegial coaching session”: following a joint city tour, this format offers a protected space to openly discuss local challenges and to pass on experiences and suggestions.
BMI and BBSR want to support small towns in the long term
In the further course of the project, the participants want to translate the initial approaches to inner city revitalization that have been discussed into concrete urban development measures. The German Institute of Urban Affairs (difu) will moderate and support this process. aconium, which set up the small town network as part of the project development, coordinates and is responsible for project management. The four municipalities are part of the pilot project “Innenstadt (be)leben!” of the Small Town Academy pilot phase. With the Small Town Academy, the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) and the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development (BBSR) want to create permanent, institutionalized support for small town development from 2023. They are funding the project as part of the “Experimental Housing and Urban Development” (ExWost) program.
Learning from the perspectives of others
Some of the four small towns taking part in the study exhibit major structural differences. The approaches and strategies for inner city revitalization are correspondingly diverse. At the same time, the first project phase showed that many challenges – for example in property management or the involvement of stakeholder groups – are often comparable:
- “Old mountain town with a future” – with this slogan, the town of Zwönitz in the Ore Mountains emphasizes its traditions as well as its development into a Smart City model municipality. Active vacancy management could be an innovative solution: Zwönitz wants to identify impending vacancies in the retail sector as early as possible and support store owners in their search for successors. New approaches to marketing and innovative participation formats also offer opportunities for development.
- The urban structure of the Hanseatic town of Demmin in Western Pomerania sometimes lacks a “typical” town center. This situation is exacerbated by major highways that cross the town center and lead to high traffic congestion. A planned reorganization of traffic management should bring positive development to Demmin. This also applies to attractive properties, such as the warehouse area on the Peene or open spaces on the market square, for which new concepts and creative solutions must be found. The involvement of citizens and specific stakeholder groups (e.g. municipal businesses) will play a particularly important role in this process.
- In a broad participatory process, Münnerstadt in Lower Franconia is developing an integrated urban development concept (ISEK) and a community development concept (GEK), which also focuses on the role of the town center. A particular challenge: most citizens live outside the city center. The pull effect of larger surrounding centers also means that the city center benefits little from the purchasing power of the region. One strategy is to develop the city center as a cultural center and create a variety of uses in order to make the people of Münnerstadt more enthusiastic about their attractive city center.
- Bönen’s location in the belt of the Ruhr region means that many citizens commute to the major centers every day. Many investments have improved the quality of life in the pedestrian zone in the city center. Innovative formats for activation and participation should provide fresh impetus to encourage citizens to identify with their center. One challenge will be to win over the heterogeneous urban society in the former coal mining area for integrative urban development and to develop a wide range of offers for them.
What happens next?
In the coming weeks, the municipalities will work with difu and aconium GmbH to develop formats and projects for inner city revitalization based on the results of the transfer workshops. To this end, local events will be held, for example for citizen participation, and smaller urban development projects will be implemented. The partners also want to develop further formats in which they can continue to work together on solutions.