On April 5, representatives of the professional community of urban planners, experts from related industries and people simply interested in urban studies met at the HSE cultural center to discuss the task of politicizing territorial planning and forms of participation of residents in the formation of the urban environment. I want to share my thoughts and impressions of this event, which has become a landmark for me.
"The closeness of the current Moscow government is no less than the previous one," said Alexander Vysokovsky, Chairman of the Presidium of the Association of Planners, Dean of the Higher School of Urbanism at the Higher School of Economics, in his opening remarks. - It is obvious that the authorities are afraid to talk about their plans. Today's management in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other major cities does not set the task of forming and implementing an internally coordinated policy. On the contrary, the task is to solve local issues related to this or that understanding of specific situations by specific people. The management system still considers itself free from obligations both in relation to professional communities and in relation to the opinions of people. From the point of view of our profession - urbanism, it is disastrous."
As it became clear from a number of speeches at the conference (see the program, some experts regard the territorial planning process as a dialogue of two equal parties: experts and citizens, who listen to the opinions of each other. Of course, each party is "stewing in its own juice" and proceeds from the logic of their own interests, knowledge and tasks. The desires of the townspeople a priori are very diverse and, as a rule, are motivated by narrowly selfish interests. Experts also do not act as a united front and look at the problem from different sides. Therefore, the process of public hearings becomes a battlefield for the opposing sides. And this is great. It is in such a clash of opposite, often mutually exclusive positions that the final proposal should be formed. Moreover, the opinion of the townspeople recorded in the protocols should be taken into account when forming a specific decision, or reasonably rejected, and all this - not behind the scenes, but in public space. it says if the result All the participants were not completely satisfied with the negotiations, which means that the negotiations were successful. The final decision is made by the authority, which acts as an arbitrator and is formally responsible for the chosen outcome. Sounds like the perfect model? You will laugh, but this is exactly the spirit of the RF Urban Development Code. And all this, alas, is far from how things really are in our country.
Today, public hearings are a meaningless formal stage in the legal procedure, at least in Moscow. However, at the conference examples were discussed when public hearings became an instrument of public discussion on the goals and prospects of urban development. There are few such examples so far, the most striking of them is Perm, where, according to one of the conference participants, residents show a constant interest in participating in the planning of the urban environment, whether it concerns long-term strategies or small transformations at the level of an individual courtyard. But this is hard (and unpaid) work that requires genuine involvement in the process of shaping one's own everyday life, a desire to understand the intricacies of Russian legislation, the ability to formulate one's point of view, listen and hear others.
Talking about the foreign practice of involving citizens in planning processes, Alexander Antonov, chief architect of projects at the Research and Development Institute for Urban Development of the Moscow Region, cited the experience of a number of European cities, where working groups with the participation of the population are formed at the municipal level. The groups, along with representatives of the administration and experts, include representatives of the local community of townspeople - the so-called opinion leaders, nominated at meetings of residents. These are the ones who are trusted by the neighbors. Over the course of several weeks, they undergo a series of trainings in the municipality before taking part in the decision-making process on an equal basis with other experts. During this time, they not only master professional vocabulary and begin to understand the level of complexity of certain problems, but also move from the philistine point of view to a step higher, when a person not only proceeds from his own selfish interest, but also recognizes a similar interest in a neighbor, and thinks about it. how to achieve a win-win solution (a solution that benefits both parties). This model of involving the population in the planning of the urban environment is attractive from many points of view. For example, it disarms "system experts" who tend to underestimate the mental abilities of city dwellers, who, allegedly, are unable to see beyond their noses, do not understand anything about the real complexity of organizing the urban environment. Who believe that "it is not inherent in the crowd to be a philosopher." However, the experience of public hearings in Perm and a number of other cities, which were mentioned at the conference, testifies to the opposite. Surprisingly for the experts themselves, but city dwellers - all the same ordinary grandmothers, young mothers, bright youth, zealous householders - are quite capable of reading laws, hearing others, and thinking one step ahead.
How can this be achieved? It's not an easy question. This requires a conscious desire of the city administration for a real, not fictitious, dialogue with residents and experts, the ability to moderate the discussion, and most importantly - the willingness to implement the public's decision without distortion. We need modern technologies of self-organization, interactive tools of modern Western urbanism, an excursion into which was presented in their presentations by Mikhail Klimovsky, head of the NGO "Free Space", and Yegor Korobeinikov, author of the UrbanUrban blog. You need a professional attitude of experts to their work, the desire and ability to “educate”, as Igor Schneider, director of architecture, urban planning and design work of JSC “Giprogor” put it, the desire to translate from the “bird” language into the human language, to explain what threatens this or that perspective of everyday life of people. We need motivated participation of citizens in the formation of the surrounding urban environment and their own lives, a willingness to spend time and mental efforts on this. In short, all this is long, difficult, dreary, ultimately not cheap and does not pay off immediately.
In the short term, the status quo is generally the most energy-saving strategy, at least at first glance. The question is how the way of making decisions is reflected on the quality of the urban environment, and ultimately on the quality of life of people, the duration of their life, the feeling of happiness. Ultimately, the question is who benefits most from maintaining the status quo and who does not, especially in the long run. It’s easy to guess that those who push buttons today are the least interested in change. It is naive to wait for the first step on their part. In fact, it is irresponsible.
All this may seem a little trivial, but you need to understand the context of the situation. A significant part of the conference participants are employees of successful SUEs and OJSCs that are not deprived of state orders. To formulate for themselves and declare out loud that they are as far from the people as the authorities are far from them, and all this presents an acute, burning problem, is a very painful business for "systemic" experts. I must say that this community is extremely conservative, because directly depends on the favor of the authorities, and is accustomed to working in a bureaucratic regime, where form prevails over content. Therefore, the situation here is very interesting.
Apparently, the planned expansion of Moscow was the last straw for active representatives of the professional community. The decision to expand the territory of Moscow in the south-west direction, up to the border of the Kaluga region, is a gross interference of the power vertical in the lives of millions of people, a "new oprichnina", which once again showed the expert community where they belong. These decisions were not submitted to the public, they were adopted bypassing existing legislative norms and procedures prescribed by the City Planning Code, including, by the way, public hearings. This whole story was a slap in the face for the expert community of Russian architects, urban planners and urbanists, many of whom are ready to serve the decisions of the authorities, but (at least formally) on an equal footing, while maintaining their status of experts. Against the background of what is happening with the expansion of Moscow, it turns out that the current General Plan of Moscow is not so bad, if only because from the moment of its adoption, the procedure for amending it comes into force, and public hearings are prescribed by law, it remains to make this system work effectively. It turns out that the Urban Planning Code is one of our most advanced laws, the main thing is to stay within the legal framework it offers. It is precisely in the discrepancy between the real urban planning policy not only the spirit, but also the letter of this basic law of Russian urbanism that Oleg Baevsky, deputy director of the Research and Development Institute of the General Plan of Moscow, sees the main problem, and many professionals agree with him. It turns out that bureaucratic procedures are not at all an absolute evil, that they can be a defense against an even greater evil - the uncontrolled arbitrariness of the vertical of power.
In addition to involving citizens in urban planning processes, the conference formulated the task of politicizing the professionals of the urban planning industry. “About a year ago, we created a professional association of developers of urban planning documentation,” Alexander Vysokovsky told us after the end of the conference. “But it turned out that they didn’t hear us, they don’t hear us for the first time, they don’t hear not only us, they don’t hear our“elder brothers”- the Union of Architects. In general, actions in the city, actions in the urban community are always political activities. The conference became a demonstration of this new ideological platform for Russian reality. Professionals must become part of the political process. And that means we have to make some commitments. These obligations, which we undertake, are called the politicization of the professional community. On the whole, I got the impression that the experts, like many residents of big cities in the last six months, have been experiencing a painful but necessary change in their consciousness.
It is indicative and damn nice to see that some “bison” of the expert community mentally turn to “the guys from Bolotnaya” for “psychological help”. In general, the theme of the protest movement, which has escalated in Moscow since the fall, sounded from the stage several times. It seems that thanks to this wave that shook the city and refreshed all of us, the experts felt like a part of something larger, which they had talked about before, but in a whisper and with a fair amount of skepticism. Whatever you call it - a civil society, a community of "angry townspeople" - but solidarity, the opportunity to unite to achieve common goals, was felt not only by "individuals", individual city dwellers. It was felt by professionals with authority and vested with a certain power within their competence. And even if not all of them know exactly what to do, at least the problem is formulated aloud. In the words of the professionals, one could hardly hear the habitual arrogance of the esoteric community towards the “commoners”. On the contrary, they feel the recognition of their responsibility, and the feeling of common danger, and the desire to think and act in concert with the townspeople, to be a part of the living mind of a big city.
Of course, so far we are talking about the vanguard of the professional community. But, in my opinion, this is a good symptom.
