How to Make a Better City: Reflections on Riga

Riga has always stood out among its Baltic neighbours — Tallinn and Vilnius — as a city with strong identity, rich history and creative energy. Yet in recent years, the city seems to be gradually losing this leading position in many aspects of what we call urban development.

To understand how Riga could evolve consciously and sustainably — rather than in fragments and impulses — it’s worth outlining the key issues that define its future.

By Julia Hana Dorfman, architect, urban strategist and founder of Neighborhood+.

Have a Vision and Stay Focused

Any city that aims to grow and improve needs a clear vision — one that is understandable not only to politicians and municipal planners, but also to residents.

For instance, if our goal is to create a “better city for tourists,” then we must focus on building new Points of Interest (POIs)—expanding pedestrian infrastructure and urban permeability, improving city navigation, increasing English usage, hosting more events and creating more public spaces.

Alternatively, if we aim to cater to “families with kids,” then we should prioritize building more public facilities and playgrounds, developing contemporary housing options, ensuring a safe and convenient environment (including barrier-free access for strollers), and promoting the use of public transport and micro-mobility solutions. We can continue this approach for other audience types, tailoring strategies accordingly. 

The key is to focus—focusing enables quicker progress and greater achievements. 

Currently, without a clear focus, it’s challenging to determine where our priorities lie. Understanding budget limitations, pursuing multiple objectives simultaneously may not yield noticeable results. By allocating budgets to specific strategies, we can achieve success in one area and then progress to the next, ensuring more significant impact over time.

We might endlessly speculate on a myriad of “audiences” for the city – the young professional, the artist, the retiree – each with their particular desires, and indeed, a thriving city accommodates them all organically. Yet, to force a fragmented, scattershot approach to development is to invite stagnation.

The true strength of a city’s growth lies in its ability to concentrate its energies, to nurture a particular, vital aspect with dedication before attempting to mend every frayed edge at once. Without such a clear and unwavering focus, without truly understanding where the practical, limited purse strings of the city’s budget are purposefully pulled, our efforts dissipate into a mere whisper of change, barely discernible amidst the existing urban complexities.

 It is a fundamental truth of city-making: a deliberate, concentrated investment, allowing a chosen street or a particular type of lively public space to genuinely flourish, will yield tangible success that can then ripple outwards, inspiring further, incremental improvements.

Almost none of it is possible in Riga. You can barely leave Old town and have a pedestrian walk without interruption, for sure not for hours. Limited options in public venues (especially contemporary ones) make the city boring for tourists and they prefer to stay less and afterwards travel to the next city. Places like Rotermanni, Noblessner, Teleskivi, Cruise Terminal in Tallinn have not even happened in Riga yet.

So coming back to the point we tried to define few simple steps:

Pedestrian Connectivity and Flow (Permeability)

It’s difficult to overestimate the importance of the pedestrian flow: if people cannot walk somewhere, the city location doesn’t exist, especially if we’re talking about tourists. If locals cannot walk or ride somewhere, they use private transport which brings more transport infrastructure and plays against the city.

Jane Jacobs, journalist, author, theorist, and activist who influenced urban studies, sociology, and economics, once described it as the “sidewalk ballet” — the continuous flow of people and encounters that animate a city. Walkability is what transforms isolated districts into a living organism.

When people can walk freely and safely, they become the eyes on the street, fostering safety and spontaneous connections.

Creating connected pedestrian routes engages the public to walk, explore new neighborhoods, and generate footfall for local businesses, which is extremely important for a sustainable inner market.

The next step is determining where to go.

Points of Interest

POI, Points of Interest—destination points for tourists and locals create diverse and vibrant city scenarios. Museum of contemporary art, public venues (promenades, squares, pocket parks, playgrounds, viewpoints, etc), sports grounds, art and craft kvartals, you name it—the long list of comfortable and developed urban solutions influencing public traffic and improving the environment engaging growth. These destinations, are the magnets that draw people out, encouraging the mixing of different uses and people, crucial for a healthy urban metabolism.

Today you can barely find enough destinations to go out of the very center and definitely not by foot (neighborhood.lv tries to explore them with love). And yet the city has almost no information even about existing spaces, let alone some sort of consolidated publicly accessible map.

Well-developed POIs contribute directly to a city’s global distinctiveness, attracting not only visitors but also creative industries and skilled labor, which are key components of advanced urbanization. They activate underutilized spaces, draw investment into neglected areas, and create a narrative for the city that extends beyond its historical core. 

By creating a compelling constellation of destinations, Riga can knit together disparate neighborhoods, transform neglected zones into buzzing hubs, and ultimately, elevate its entire urban ecosystem, fostering both economic vitality and a richer, more engaging experience for all who inhabit or visit its streets.

Density

It is a curious paradox of urban life that the density of people can often create a sense of spaciousness, a feeling of being part of something larger. A vibrant urban core, therefore, thrives not just on buildings but on the intricate dance of human interaction within and around them. Yet, this density must be cultivated with an understanding of human scale.

Gazing upon the urban landscape, it’s about the “slow accumulation of small particulars” that truly makes a place feel alive. Without a thoughtful approach, density can devolve into mere crowding, stifling the very vitality it seeks to ignite.

Riga, in its current state, often struggles with this delicate balance. While the Old Town pulses with activity, stepping beyond its well-trodden paths reveals a city that, at times, feels sparse, lacking the hum of continuous human presence that defines truly thriving urban environments.

The absence of a consistent, permeable urban fabric means that the density, when it exists, is often isolated, unable to ripple outwards and enrich the surrounding areas.

Neighborhoods Development

One of the maturity factors in city development is the level of neighborhood’s development. Following or not ideas of “15 min city” the necessity of basic human infrastructure in every single neighborhood is hard to overestimate. Many districts are missing even basic things, like public spaces, coffee shops and parks (UMGM did some research on parks LINK it).

We can learn from many Scandinavian neighborhoods how the local development makes them live and enjoy what they have even in very remote locations. This integrated development of neighborhoods aligns with the concept of complex territorial development, where each area is seen not in isolation but as part of a larger, interconnected urban system, contributing to the overall well-being and efficiency of the city.

Reuse and Revitalisation

Riga has a tremendous amount of abandoned buildings or land plots in the very city center. We are not talking about how reasonable the increased tax rate is or how effective what the city does about it. But it definitely requires some strategy behind when, while we are thinking about it, the city steadily turned into ruins—in some neighborhoods you can see whole streets where the missing houses prevail on existing. Such a decline leads to a general decline of the whole neighborhood, damaging its image and consumer appeal in general.

There ways and approaches how to deal with it with temporary and long term solutions: engaging developers and community to take care about it and then into something better. But still it’s a responsibility of the city to guide and foresee this important process.

The abandoned plots of Riga are not merely empty spaces; they are silent narratives, awaiting new chapters. The question is whether the city has the will and the vision to write them. It’s not about erasing the past, but about understanding how its remnants can inform a new future. 

Diverse Public Life

Riga has no shortage of charm, yet its public spaces could be activated more consistently and imaginatively. Too often, they remain underused, waiting for energy that only comes in brief bursts. To change this, Riga doesn’t need to build grand spectacles; it needs to create conditions where everyday culture can flourish. That might mean lowering barriers for small events, encouraging local communities to shape their surroundings, or designing spaces that are flexible enough to host both casual encounters and large gatherings.

The strength of a public program lies in its diversity: spontaneous performances alongside curated festivals, spaces that welcome children and seniors alike, and events that reflect both traditional culture and contemporary creativity. When citizens feel invited to use their city in many different ways, the result is more than lively squares—it is a living, breathing Riga, confident in its identity and open to the unexpected.

The path forward for Riga lies in a collective act of reimagining, a willingness to embrace experimentation while honoring its unique heritage. It means cultivating a city that is not only functional but also deeply human, a place where the everyday rhythms of life are enriched by thoughtful design, vibrant public spaces, and a shared sense of purpose. This aligns with the broader understanding of urbanization as not just growth, but a qualitative transformation of urban spaces and the lives within them, a process where cities become engines of innovation and cultural exchange.