Daring the city again: 11 approaches for the revival of ground floors

While the mission statement of urbanity after the 1970s was still decisively shaped by the ideal of mix of uses and centrality — almost synonymous with a functioning shopping city including central social and cultural functions — the emergence of shopping malls and sophisticated retail systems on the outskirts of cities and in the mail-order business began almost at the same time. The creeping disappearance of the urban city, which was able to offer diversity, trade and facilities, took its course. Stimulating forces and giving space: This is not a matter of course, but an attitude and also a commitment to social participation and cooperation. The following factors could break down which forces can undermine our beloved urbanity and urban community and which shape it as the city of the future: A distinction must be made between how attractiveness is established for a desired target group and also the general public and which sustainable business models can be integrated. And more generally speaking, where is city better than other options? Who are your competitors? And which actors can advance urbanism and the city?

11 key approaches to decisively think about change and make it feasible:

1 Living and working

Public lobbies with cafes, showrooms and semi-public meeting spaces as well as new forms of community and living on the ground floor should be considered. Hybrid spaces contribute to generating urbanity. With the awareness that an attractive, overall socially balanced city can be a worthwhile livelihood. The most obvious uses of the city, namely how we live and how we work, must share more of its quality.

2 The hardware of cities

Elements such as sports and health facilities, restaurants, showrooms, event venues, but also test laboratories and clean production facilities must be tied to the city and made compatible with the ground floors. They are the hardware for which no faster and more efficient translation through digitization can be carried out. Ideally, it can be improved when combined with a digital connection. Nevertheless, we must remember that the human body as the basis of a fulfilling life is hopefully barely digitalizable.

3 New networking

Places of science and education, such as universities and schools, are often hermetic institutions. They should open up and transform themselves into spaces of encounter. Education and lifelong learning have become a central task for society. It could be understood more playfully and across generations. The decentralized distribution of large educational institutions, such as universities, into urban life also offers new opportunities.

4 Local actors

If an entrepreneur cares about his city and derives added value from it, he should be supported in his commitment to promoting the urban environment. This creates both local identity and lively facilities. In general, it is important to specifically open up spaces for residents of a city and to revive them. This requires bridging the now often deep divides between investment and social and cultural urban development.

5 New Social Hubs

Social media, sharing and mobility should be identified as driving forces of the technological revolution and better understood as networks in their impact on urbanity. They represent newly created urban synapses and ensure the exchange of goods and vehicles. New facilities such as mobility hubs, sharing hubs or maker's hubs need to be enriched and used for new sources of urban life.

6 Superspaces

They are highly attractive anchors and attractive magnets in the city center, drawing on the movements of gamification, culturization and urbanization. Major brands such as Tesla, Apple and Samsung are already starting to build spaces in many places that are changing the traditional uses of retail, culture and health. Flaneur 2.0 is mentioned here. He navigates virtually and strolls in real life on the high street, which should aim at a return to the place of discovery, testing and less of direct purchase.

7 Place Management

Don't leave everything to chance. The development of lively and interesting ground floors and urbanity should be curated. Proven forms of district and urban management must be promoted and new things developed. General tenants and commercial management of larger ground floor zones could achieve more in a concentrated presence and avoid vacancy. By correctly arranging and networking sub-tenants, a successful mix of uses is created. Public companies such as housing companies could implement urban services to promote neighborhoods, provided that they each succeed in creating functioning business models behind them.

8 New understanding of urban landscapes

The power of the unurban in the urban: sophisticated green spaces interspersed with attractive uses instead of asphalt deserts for a new city model. The park as a space for shared experience and new qualities of living and working.

9 More density

Classic urbanity is created by density. On this basis, conventional mixed-use models can work. This is where a vertical understanding of the city begins, with public ground floors moving up to other levels and allowing passage — as connections to the city. They are becoming a key level because they show whether a positively lively city is possible.

10 Top class & exclusivity

The network is primarily mediocre, anti-elitist and broad. Extra class, on the other hand, is often unique, location-specific and physical. Especially in our time, people strive for singularity, for something special, for what is unique for them. Paradoxically, promoting top class and exclusivity can create an interesting impetus for the city.

11 Identity Building

Cities need new fundamental ways of thinking and visually strong mission statements to convey an understanding of urbanity and the use of ground floor spaces. What is needed now is not so much the consumer city, which offers spaces of culture, action, education and science, but the city as a communicator that activates and brings actors together. In order to invent places of society and community, a stimulating communicative process involving social media, local press and, in particular, visualizations of new urban spaces is required.

So why “used places”, i.e. ground floors whose original purpose is a thing of the past, can be attractive to project makers, is shown by these 11 solutions. Nowadays, new buildings no longer stand alone as a symbol of progress. Reactivation provides identity. However, tailor-made concepts are required! Because whether it's a core or peripheral city, a large or small town — there are often global differences in between. The transformation of society and the understanding of the city as an urban ecosystem depends on a variety of factors, behind which there are just as many opportunities to improve the city.