The role of attractive public space in shrinking cities – the case of Valga

Challenges
The main challenge in Valga derives from its poor public space quality and the shrinkage of population, both together create a loss of civic pride of Valga’s inhabitants. As shrinking town, Valga needs more than ever to be developed sustainably and should offer the kind of quality of life that makes people want to live in the city and make businesses want to invest.
For historical reasons, Valga is too large for it´s population. Businesses and services are scattered and there is no attractive central area where people would like to spend their free time, which in turn affects the development of entepreneurship. Urban environment, predominantly built during Soviet-era, is car-oriented and does not offer opportunities for the different sustainable modes of transport or their convenient cross-use. Also, there is a need to make the urban environment greener and healthier.
Local government has not adapted to the situation where the person and his or her mobility preferences should be at the forefront of the planning process. But, in order to ensure a high-quality living environment, sustainable development and options for different modes of transport, careful planning with citizens involvement is at utmost importance before vast investments into infrastructure can be made.

Objectives
Valga sees the quality of urban space as a main tool to deal with outcomes of the population shrinkage. Attractive public space improves emotional bonds of locals towards their hometown and boosts the citizens activity. The aim of Valga Municipality is trough co-creation of stakeholders to change one of the city's main streets - Vabaduse Street - into an urban space that meets the needs of all user groups and supports the development of small businesses.

Valga Municipality has set specific objectives

• to improve urban space usability for commercial needs;
• to improve the attractiveness of public space in order to boost the mental connection of residents to their hometown;
• to improve accessibility for all by using principles of universal design;
• to adapt to climate change by adding greenery;
• to develop Valga into a walking-cycling oriented city.

In action
In 2021, Valga Municipality conducted a survey in a form of paper questionnaire delivered to citizens together with municipality newspaper and in a form of on-line map application on Vabaduse Street Transformation page (https://urbact-space4people-valga-valgavv.hub.arcgis.com/)  to find a new vision for Vabaduse Street. The aim was to gather citizens user experiences about the usability of the public space on Vabaduse Street, as well as thoughts on what could be different in the future. Also, all observations, ideas, thematic development and suggestions, as well as examples from other places were welcome.
The start of involvement activities came at a time when gathering people was restricted due to the Covid pandemic. Valga solved the situation by creating a separate website for the project, through which an online survey was conducted and information on the planned activities was provided. In parallel, it was possible to answer the survey with a paper questionnaire, which reached the mailbox of each resident as a leaflet added to the municipality newspaper.
In parallel, a space intervention was carried out on Vabaduse Street, during which part of the carriageway was allocated for pedestrians and for cafés summer terraces. The street space experiment sparked a lively discussion, which is why responding to the abovementioned survey was very active.
As the municipality has little experience in involving different stakeholders, an involvement expert was hired, who planned and conducted engagement events for target groups and the general public. Also, local ULG group held several meetings with stakeholders with the help of an expert - Vabaduse Street business owners, Valga Museum employees, Priimetsa school students and teachers, the general public, and Valga Youth Center.

Based on the results of the SSA and the involvement events a report was concluded, and the results were used to compile the terms of reference for the Vabaduse Street architectural competition to find the best design for the area. The competition is ongoing.

So, what did we find is wrong with Vabaduse Street? The street is about 16 meters wide with 12-meter-wide carriageway and two-meter-wide sidewalks on each side. The width of the two-way, standard carriageway typical of the city center is 6 meters. Our assumption is that a road twice as wide will encourage acceleration and high speeds will generate additional noise and dust. However, noise and dust, together with narrow sidewalks and lack of landscaping, do not invite people to use the street for walking. Due to this and the lack of parking on the street, we estimate that businesses in the area also have fewer customers.
Reconstructed Vabaduse street will have narrower road to limit the speed of car traffic and therefore dust and noise levels will decrease. Narrower road leaves more urban space for other activities. This space will be used for wider pedestrian and light traffic sidewalks, short time parking, greenery, urban furniture. Space for temporary cultural and commerce activities will be reserved as well. Wider sidewalks enable businesses to enlarge their activities on the street during the summertime. The reconstructed street will increase the number of people frequenting the area and the time they are spending there. This should result in higher revenue of local businesses on the street.

Conclusions
The space intervention in Vabaduse Street and the involvement activities helped us to understand if our assumptions are correct as well as if experiences from elsewhere are valid in Valga? During the summer, we tested whether the restricted roadway causes traffic chaos in the city or attracts people to use more street space and sit in the pop-up cafes. The experience gained is used as a basis for the future street redevelopment process.
Observing the situation on spot, having discussions with citizens on Vabaduse street, reading the comments on our posts in Facebook and having stakeholder meetings the ULG core group drew a number of conclusions as improvements to the next space experiment:

• improving communication with public to formulate the purpose and background of the experiment more clearly and using the language which is more understandable to citizens;
• linking physical change of space to organizing different activities for people in the area;
• better planning of space invention and faster installation;
• necessity to limit the traffic speed in order to achieve better effect.

However, the experiment produces valuable results for the further design steps and coming participation processes:

• the narrowing of the road did not lead to traffic congestion;
• a little irritation involved people even more and initiated discussion - a lot of negative and positive opinions;
• colours and plants increased attractiveness;
• knowing, that narrowing of motorways in the city in the future is approved by citizens;
• it takes time to get used to changes, but experiments also broaden the horizons of the citizens.

Lessons learnt and transferablility
A typical mistake in involvement is the assumption that all stakeholders are interested. Therefore, it may turn out to be an unpleasant surprise if not all stakeholders show up for the meetings. Very often the public will not be interested in things until something obvious changes in the urban space. Therefore, it is important to plan communication and space intervention very carefully. A slight irritation contributes greatly to the generation of interest.
The physical change of urban space alone may not trigger the desired interest. It is also necessary to plan some activities for people and to communicate the objectives. Our experience has shown that personal communication with citizens on the ground helped people to better understand why change in the urban space is needed.
The gradual implementation of spatial intervention does not work well. The whole area must be carefully thought out and all elements installed quickly and at once. Only minor additions and corrections can be made later.