Digital Placemaking Tools for Strengthening the Development of Towns

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the potential of digital placemaking tools in strengthening the development of towns. With the increasing digitization and the influence of social media in everyday life, placemaking has undergone a transformation with successful outcomes in different cities worldwide. Digital placemaking offers new opportunities for urban regeneration by providing a multifaceted exchange of information and views and by boosting the social, cultural, environmental, and economic value of places (de Filippi et al., 2020; Freeman et al., 2019). Furthermore, the method of co-creation enables communities and their citizens to be involved in the process of detecting and solving problems from the beginning until the implementation of possible solutions. The paper focuses on small and medium cities along the Danube. Although these cities are shrinking, they have a specific potential to increase local prosperity and international tourist attractiveness by reactivating underused cultural heritage and resources. In the paper, several digital placemaking tools developed during the Interreg project DANUrB+ will be presented: (1) The digital Platform, an inclusive online communication tool containing data of different stakeholders, their products and services, as well as tangible and intangible cultural heritage; (2) The mobile applications with predefined tours of a city, which were designed to inform tourists of unusual, interesting and forgotten heritage places; (3) The interactive Digital Atlas with educational and promotional qualities for the Danubian region and (4) The variety of online surveys used during the design of Action plans and Pilot projects for small and medium Danube towns. The research results are presented as possible insights into the future of placemaking and the success stories about the development and implementation of different digital tools for enhancing the overall development of small and medium-sized cities in Europe facing the problem of depopulation and devastation.