The CINEMA project aims to foster urban regeneration by collaborating with creative industries and revitalising urban areas and city centres, a key challenge for social cohesion and competitiveness in the Danube Region. From the Danube Transnational Programme, we interview one of the project partners: Carolin Schnaidt, Project Manager at the Public Administration of the City of Herrenberg (Germany), to know how the project made a positive impact on the city.

What was the situation before?

The city of Herrenberg (Germany) is with approximately 32000 inhabitants a middle-sized city in the Stuttgart Region and is situated at the foothills of the “Schönbuch” woodlands, 30 kilometres southwest of Stuttgart.

Although it has always been a city of trade and is still showing a diverse landscape of privately-owned shops in the inner city center. There is an increasing number of empty floor spaces, especially around the historic market square. The city administration recognized this problem a few years ago and was planning a strategy process in order to fill empty shops with new life and to include the citizens, start-ups, as well as the local cultural and creative scene.

Pretty much by a coincidence we, the municipal unit for economic and cultural development, were contacted around this time by the CINEMA project partners, the Stuttgart Region Economic Development Corporation (WRS) and the Stuttgart Media University, who were looking for a suitable pilot location for their EU funding project.

The CINEMA project aims to revitalise inner cities with the help of the creative industries and tests out different tools and methods in the pilot locations of the partner regions. We got together and immediately hit it off! It was then decided to work together on the revitalisation of the Herrenberg City Center and to proceed with the different steps of the project. So – different problems were solved with this cooperation and after 1.5 years we still think it was a great idea!

What difference did the project make?

Together with the CINEMA project a lot has already happened. With a virtual hackathon including Herrenberg citizens, retailers and creatives together with students from the Stuttgart Media University we have developed a concept which has already been tested last November and will be piloted a second time this spring. This concept is called “Chamäleon Spaces” and offer a flexible combination of arts and culture, events, coworking spaces, popup stores and gastronomy. It can be adapted to different locations, to different times of the year, to already existing events and offers therefore a great possibility to include also our local creative scene.

With the help of the CINEMA project we profit not only financially, but our activities gain a lot more relevance on a larger level. The citizens of Herrenberg got to know the concept and like the flexible combination of the Chamäleon Spaces very much. There is something for every age group and it gives further impetus to the revitalization of the city center. The first pilot phase was also able to draw attention to the entire project, which will benefit the second pilot phase. Many of those involved in the first pilot have already signed up for the second pilot. This clearly shows that the concept has potential.

Also, we are quite proud that the City of Herrenberg is now known as a successful pilot location in the Danube Region and is promoted via many European social media channels. It is great to work together with the regional project partners in this, we learn a lot from each other and it’s wonderful to see how a common idea is being realised and will hopefully leave a lasting impact on our beautiful city.

Comment from the project partners

Being project partners for the Stuttgart Region in the CINEMA project we feel very lucky that we found a great pilot location with the City of Herrenberg. We are very optimistic that we can achieve our project goal of reviving the inner city center together and develop our concept “Chamäleon Spaces” into a sustainable and transferable concept of which hopefully many more cities will profit. We appreciate also the input and advice from our very diverse partnership in this project, it’s really great to exchange views and experiences and to develop common tools and methods. We are sure that the CINEMA project will leave its positive traces throughout the Danube Region and are grateful for the support and possibilities this program offers.

Project Managers: Margit Wolf, Stuttgart Region Economic Development Corporation, and Viktoria Heinzel, Stuttgart Media University