As part of a pilot phase for the “Small Town Academy” planned from 2023, various model projects have been running since last year in which approaches for future-proof small town development are being developed. As a project agency, aconium GmbH is supporting four small towns in the “Inner city life!” project. The multitude of social change and transformation processes present small towns with far-reaching challenges: Ageing and emigration, climate change, migration, digitalization and the associated structural change require far-reaching adjustments in urban development policy. However, the respective effects must always be considered locally: While some regions are faced with the task of maintaining infrastructures and counteracting a population exodus, the opposite trend is often evident, particularly in small towns near urban areas, in the form of immigration and an associated increase in demand for housing and infrastructure.
Solutions and exchange of experience for small towns
The “Small Town Academy”, which is currently in the pilot phase, aims to address local needs through cooperative and practical research. Based on the guiding principle of “urban development by small towns, with small towns, for small towns”, the aim is to create an open exchange and learning network for the more than 2,100 small towns in Germany. In order to achieve the goal of an open learning network, the formats, structures, content and topics of the Small Town Academy are to be developed and refined in three phases:
- Phase 1 (planning and design): Determination of rough content and formulation of questions
- Phase 2 (action and testing): Testing and documenting the approaches and plans
- Phase 3 (evaluation and reflection): Evaluating and reflecting on the content and structures
The diverse challenges faced by small towns are to be met with innovative ideas and the opportunity to share experiences. The pilot phase of the Small Town Academy has two main objectives: On the one hand, the small town associations in the pilot projects are to jointly develop as many approaches to solutions and actions for sustainable development as possible. On the other hand, the results are to be incorporated into the Small Town Academy from 2023 in the form of identified fields of work, methods and instruments. The pilot phase is therefore linked to a special research and knowledge interest on the part of the federal government. Above all, the participation of the population plays a decisive role: they should be able to contribute their ideas about the quality of life in small towns to a large extent.
aconium accompanies the model project “Inner city living!”
Participation in the pilot phase of the Small Town Academy not only allows the selected municipalities to work on their future viability with creative methods and strategic support. It also enables an intensive exchange with other small towns, access to specialist resources, knowledge transfer and networking between local stakeholders. As a project agency, aconium GmbH has been supporting the pilot project “Innenstadt (be)leben!” since January 2021. Together with the participating small towns of Bönen (NRW), Zwönitz (Saxony), Demmin (MV) and Münnerstadt (Bavaria), it is shaping the exchange of experience (intercollegiate coaching sessions in 2021) and the development of innovative solutions for revitalizing city centres. The German Institute of Urban Affairs (Difu) is supporting the entire pilot project as a scientific partner and is working together to develop ideas, methods and instruments for inner city development that are currently being tested in the four small towns.