Grevesmühlen on the way to becoming a smart city

In 2017, when Lars Prahler had just been elected as the new mayor of Grevesmühlen in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, he had a conversation with one of the town's residents: "The town should make a conscious and active effort to address issues of digital added value for urban society." Prahler was quickly convinced and the "Digital City" working group was founded shortly afterwards. Interested parties met regularly and developed a masterplan in several workshops. This master plan was ultimately the basis for Grevesmühlen becoming one of the first cities in the "Smart Cities Model Projects" funding programme from the Federal Ministry of the Interior and for Homeland in 2019.

Experience Grevesmühlen

The hub of Smart City Grevesmühlen is the municipal website www.grevesmuehlen-erleben.de. A digital image of the town has been created here in the broadest sense - with sights, schools, kindergartens, doctors' surgeries and 90% of all businesses in the town. In some cases, citizens can order directly from the companies via the platform. News and event information is also posted on the website and is accessed by many people in Grevesmühlen, says Prahler: "On the days of the town festival, the site had over 1,000 hits. This means that every tenth visitor to the town festival used this tool to access the dates, content and locations of the individual events on their smartphone without it being explicitly advertised." Prahler himself was surprised that the site is used by so many citizens: on average, 150 pages are accessed per day - with around 10,000 inhabitants in Grevesmühlen.

Another important point for the mayor is that various partners of the town have access to the platform. For example, the fire brigade can also publish incident reports on the municipal page and other websites, share them on social media and share them on numerous screens in businesses and retail establishments. "We are focussing on bundling content that was either already available or has been digitally processed in the process," says Prahler.

The mayor also recommends this joint approach to other cities dealing with the topic of smart cities: "The approach of the broadest possible network is what makes it possible to bundle content in the first place. In my view, this is only possible in a city that already sees itself as a community and the population as a common target group in the analogue world."

End of the funding phase but not the end of the Smart City

The "Smart Cities Model Projects" funding programme in Grevesmühlen comes to an end this year. However, the city will not simply stop with its digital development: "The project is set for permanent further development. We deliberately regarded and designed the 5-year pilot phase as a start-up period."

You can talk to the mayor himself about what happens next in Grevesmühlen: Lars Prahler will be at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern stand at the Smart Country Convention from 15 to 17 October 2024.