Abstract
With increasing trends of suburbanization and polycentric growth, many cities worldwide experience shifts in economic activities to the outskirts leaving inner-city areas blighted with unemployment, inadequate services, substandard housing, and deteriorating streets and public spaces. Urban regeneration strategies looking to revamp these dying underutilized urban centers into thriving communities face complex challenges ranging from innovative design and funding models to public participation in planning and ensuring affordable and accessible housing and services. This study explores how sustainable urban regeneration projects can leverage digital technologies to create opportunities for creative government-community collaborations to enable residents with opportunities to contribute to the prosperity of their neighborhoods and cities. Our paper specifically demonstrates the application of powerful digital twin technology within a case study of a Moroccan neighborhood undergoing rapid degradation, presenting a socially sustainable yet technologically innovative approach to co-creating urban regeneration strategies based on collaborative citizen engagement. We employ a focus group and in-depth interviews with local policymakers leading Moroccan urban regeneration projects to identify key issues and challenges in the design, implementation, and impact evaluation processes and subsequently examine how the newly developed digital twin platform can bridge these gaps identified by policymakers. This study advances knowledge for researchers and local governments worldwide who seek to harness digital twins for design, collaboration, and synergistic strategies in the urban sector.
•Collaboration across communities and stakeholders is vital yet challenging in urban regeneration projects.•Focus groups and interviews with Moroccan policymakers reveal key challenges in urban regeneration.•A digital twin platform is designed to integrate 3D buildings, BIM, and responsive data visualizations.•Digital twin use in collaborative decision-making is assessed across design, implementation, and evaluation stages.