XR for Communities
Beyond Tourism and Museums
Extended Reality (XR) is often associated with big-budget museums, immersive exhibitions, or tourism experiences designed to attract visitors. Yet its potential stretches far beyond those spaces. XR can be a tool for communities, helping residents engage with local issues, shape shared spaces, and preserve cultural memory in ways that feel personal and participatory.
What makes XR particularly valuable in this context is its accessibility of storytelling. It allows complex ideas, like urban development plans, flood risks, or conservation strategies, to be communicated visually and interactively. Rather than handing communities dense reports or static maps, XR enables people to “step inside” the issue and experience it directly.
By doing so, XR not only enriches public understanding but also levels the playing field between technical experts and local voices. A resident who has never studied planning law or data modelling can still walk through a 3D street model or visualise how changes might affect their neighbourhood. This shift empowers communities to participate more meaningfully in conversations that affect their daily lives.
Participatory Applications
One of the most promising uses of XR is in local planning and consultation. Councils and developers often struggle to make their proposals accessible to residents. Traditional consultation methods, noticeboards, PDFs, or evening meetings, tend to attract limited participation, often from a narrow demographic.
XR provides an alternative. By deploying mobile-friendly 3D models or AR visualisations, organisations can meet communities where they are, on smartphones, in libraries, or at pop-up consultation events. Imagine a resident being able to hold up their phone and see how a proposed development might alter the skyline from their own street. This kind of tangible, visual experience can cut through the jargon and foster more constructive feedback.
More importantly, XR-based consultation is inclusive. It allows people with limited time, mobility challenges, or language barriers to engage in new ways. In some pilots across Europe, councils have used XR walk-throughs of proposed housing or park redevelopments to engage younger audiences who might otherwise feel excluded from civic processes.
For decision-makers, these approaches can yield better data. Instead of a handful of written objections, they receive detailed feedback from a broader cross-section of the community, often accompanied by richer insights into how residents actually use spaces. This can lead to more responsive planning and stronger public trust.
Community-Led Heritage and Local Narratives
XR also offers powerful tools for community-led heritage projects. While many high-profile XR heritage initiatives focus on grand monuments or nationally significant sites, smaller community projects can use XR to document everyday histories, from oral traditions to local landmarks that may not make it into the national archive.
Local groups can create their own 3D trails, combining scanned environments with stories contributed by residents. For example, an AR walking tour of a neighbourhood could blend historic photos, community anecdotes, and reconstructed buildings that no longer exist. These projects don’t just preserve heritage; they make it living and participatory, with residents actively shaping how their community’s story is told.
Importantly, XR heritage projects can be scaled to local resources. Open-source tools and affordable hardware make it possible for small organisations, schools, or volunteer groups to build meaningful projects without requiring museum-scale budgets. In many cases, the emphasis is less on photorealism and more on authenticity of perspective. A rough 3D model combined with compelling community voices can be far more impactful than a polished reconstruction designed without local input.
Such approaches also strengthen intergenerational connections. Younger people who are already comfortable with XR technologies can collaborate with older residents who bring memories and stories. This cross-generational collaboration not only deepens heritage preservation but also fosters community cohesion.
XR as a Tool for Social Inclusion
Beyond planning and heritage, XR can help address social inclusion by making abstract or inaccessible topics more engaging. For example, XR can be used in libraries or community centres to simulate climate impacts in local areas, helping residents understand risks and prepare responses. Similarly, hospitals or care centres can use XR experiences to bring local history and culture into therapeutic settings, supporting memory care or patient wellbeing.
These kinds of initiatives highlight that XR is not just a tool for entertainment or marketing, it is a social technology. When deployed thoughtfully, it bridges gaps in knowledge, access, and participation. It helps communities explore issues that are often hard to grasp through words alone, such as environmental change, transport planning, or health risks.
For marginalised groups, XR can provide a voice in civic life. Communities that have historically been excluded from consultation processes may find XR a more accessible entry point for engaging with institutions. By lowering barriers to participation, XR supports more equitable decision-making.
Final Thought
XR is often presented as a glamorous add-on for museums or tourism boards, but its true potential lies in everyday community life. From neighbourhood planning to local storytelling and inclusive engagement, XR can empower people to shape the spaces they live in and the histories they carry forward.
Aralia is providing XR capabilities for fund raising, delivered via smartphones through micro-blogging applications. Funding requirements can be visualised as 3D models showing the current state of a building or facility, and how the funds will be used to bring about change that will benefit the wider community.
The challenge now is not technological, XR tools are increasingly affordable and accessible, but organisational. Councils, cultural bodies, and community groups must invest in the skills, partnerships, and strategies needed to embed XR into their work. When they do, the impact goes far beyond immersive entertainment. It becomes a way to democratise knowledge, amplify local voices, and strengthen civic participation.
For communities, XR is not just a window into new realities, it’s a way to reimagine the shared reality we live in together.
