Client: City of Karben (Hesse)
Project period: September 2022 – July 2023
The project in brief
Place marketing and city center development are the two key words for our cooperation with the city of Karben in Hesse (Wetterau district). We work for this medium-sized town with around 23,000 inhabitants:
- the strategic development of the city center in terms of content, and
- on the overarching vision for the Neue Mitte Karben.
Ideas and approaches for the new center of Karben developed in the workshop
Task and background
The town of Karben with its 7 decentralized districts has invested in the development of a “new center” in recent years; existing and new offerings have been consolidated around the S-Bahn station. The development of this new center with retail, gastronomy, library, fitness studio and outdoor area is both a challenge and an opportunity for the city, as the changes in people’s working habits (keywords: home office, decentralized working) offer considerable potential for the positioning of the new center for the city, which is very well connected to Frankfurt.
The aim is to develop a holistic concept to activate and revitalize the new center – as an attractive central area with a wide range of offers for citizens and visitors. In addition to this, ideas and approaches are also required to make the 7 district centers more attractive, improve the quality of stay and offer services. The city center and districts should complement each other perfectly in the future.
Our approach: Strategy, communication and co-creation
How and where should Karben develop? In order to actively shape the future, the goals and the path to get there must be defined. To do this, we work with strategic tools such as mission statements and objectives, but also with communication tools such as stakeholder management, participation and co-creation. This makes it possible to embed the planned measures step by step in new structures and processes and pave the way to achieving the goals.
Our consulting methodology:
- Analysis of the current situation in terms of attractiveness and quality of stay, including (supplementary) infrastructural consideration of Karben’s new center
- Business inventory survey for the entire city
- Cross-disciplinary analyses (with an empirical background if required) with a focus on the user perspective
- Process control within the framework of a lead steering group
- Individual discussions with key persons
- Workshop to develop a positioning approach for the city as a whole
- Development of fields of action and measures for the further development and activation of the “Neue Mitte Karben” based on the positioning developed
- Workshops with various stakeholders, including using the persona methodology and world café format
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Development of a mission statement and concept for the “new center”
Together the Developing the future: Workshop with stakeholders in Karben
The result: clear profile, great mission statement, concrete measures
- Target image and profile for the Neue Mitte Karben
- Assignment of fields of action and measures, prioritization of measures and selection of pilot projects for “quick wins”
- Definition of responsibilities, interfaces and opportunities for cooperation
As the project progresses, the aim is to further develop and expand the necessary structures and processes and to put the measures into practice. The strategic basis – and the effectiveness of the overarching mission statement – will be measured by its success.
