CityCentreDoctor

Centres of smaller cities offer environments that attract people to work, visit and live. People spend their free time there and build up emotional connections with the place. In previous eras the catchment population depended on their city centres for work, social, cultural and commercial activity. Today, as connectivity and mobility of the population increased, city centres have to meet several key challenges in order to survive and thrive. 

The above trends are accentuated in smaller cities, whose centres have deteriorated considerably over the past decade. In particular, smaller cities located in commuting distance to large cities or to more developed countries are affected by specific challenges. 

The project idea was conceived with the conviction that smaller cities can be resilient and prosperous even in the ‘shadow’ of larger cities if their city centres are able to retain a good proportion of the custom and spend of the local population as well as being perceived as an attractive place to start or expand a business.