Chapter 14: From Flow Analysis to Shared Insight to Planning for Impact: The Development Campaign of Altdorf (CH)

Developing places bears several challenging questions such as: “How can strategic initiatives be identified? How can we purposefully link businesses, attractions, and living spaces? How must we shape the environment of a place so that it allows for the emergence of a ‘good atmosphere’?” The case of Altdorf (CH) presents how a community first identified current activities by reconstructing flows of visitors. By doing so, they assessed the quality of services and the overall feeling about the town. Imminent new projects such as the enlargement of the main train station with the development of a new business centre as well as the new traffic concept in the town centre have triggered a new design of the place. This implied involving actors at different stages and combining spatial configuration and trajectories, infrastructure, services and heritage in a meaningful way. The case of Altdorf presents a practical and straightforward way of making the complexity and dynamics of a place well understandable to every person involved.