Germany's first small town academy comes to Wittenberge
By small towns, with small towns, for small towns! With the Small Town Academy in Wittenberge, the BMWSB is promoting sustainable solutions for small towns in Germany. Find out more about the successes to date and future opportunities of the pilot project.
Yes, you read that right: Wittenberge in the district of Prignitz in Brandenburg with a population of around 17,000 will be home to Germany's first small town academy.
This is remarkable in that large cities are usually at the centre of political and social debates such as affordable housing, land issues and development strategies. The concerns of small towns often take a back seat, even though almost 25 million people live in over 2,100 small towns in Germany alone. As residential and living locations, but also as economic centres of the regions, they make an important contribution to the equality of living conditions.
By small towns, with small towns, for small towns!
Small towns develop their very own solutions together with their inhabitants to tackle the major challenges of the future. However, there is often a lack of space and time for experimentation, dialogue and networking. With the idea of the Small Town Academy the Federal Ministry of Housing, Urban Development and Building (BMWSB) is promoting the specific needs for the sustainable development of small towns in Germany. On the one hand, small towns are given the opportunity to formulate their concerns and ideas on urban development in a self-determined manner and to anchor their issues more firmly in the public eye. More attention, a common voice and thus a greater voice in politics and society. On the other hand, the focus is on promoting co-operation and the exchange of experience. A wide range of advisory and networking services are intended to bring together the numerous players in small town development in order to learn from each other, work together and support each other.
Reaching the goal together
The wide range of advisory and networking services with experience sharing and knowledge transfer as key activities was developed in a pilot phase (2019-2023). In addition to event formats and the promotion of six model projects on the topics of housing and mobility, digital working environments, inner city development and inner city revitalisation, participation and sustainability from the perspective of young people, the task was to set up an internet platform with a virtual collection of tried and tested instruments and formats. After all, a central principle of the Small Town Academy is ‘helping people to help themselves’. From the city tour, which offers the opportunity to view potentials from different perspectives, to the intervention of a pop-up laboratory, which tests new uses for a limited period of time, to the format of the randomly selected citizens' council, which develops recommendations for political action with the diversity of citizens.
The next phase of the project is now beginning with the official founding of the Small Town Academy in Wittenberge. The establishment of the academy will be financed from the federal budget with up to 2 million euros for the year 2024, with further funding planned for 2025.