Mayor of Kazan charged to carry out a large-scale study

(Kazan City KZN.RU, March 14, Zilya Gayfi). Start of developing of the basic document of the strategic planning of the city has been given a month ago. The deputy head of the Executive Committee for Economic Development Ivan Kuznetsov told the Mayor of Kazan about what has already been done. "A preliminary methodological work was done; "road map" and proposals on organizational structure were developed. On the basis of the proposals of the Executive Committee structures and public organizations the project structure of the Public Council is formed. Forming of the teams of experts and moderators is finishing. We set a goal to create a document that will be not a list of theories and dreams, but really working tool for the development of the city", - Ivan Kuznetsov said.

The first step to develop a strategy will be to carry out three major industry project sites - "Society", "Environment", "Economy", which will discuss the issues of urban development, business, education, health, transport infrastructure, employment, society, and other topics. About 50 meetings with experts and scientists, representatives of industry trends will be held. Their recommendations will fall in the text of the document concept. According to Ivan Kuznetsov, it is planned to involve the universally recognized specialists to the implementation of the document - Rector of the Moscow School of Management "Skolkovo" Andrei Sharonov, a former Deputy Minister of Economy Andrei Klepach, the architect Jose Acebillo, head of the Institute of New York Enrique Peñalos, urbanists Michael Blinkina and Ian Gale, a number of other key figures with whom negotiations have already started. Kazan residents themselves, of course, should be the main authors of the strategy of the city.

To know the opinion of citizens on how to develop the city, the official portal of Kazan has launched a survey (http://www.kzn.ru/kzn-2030), in which about 400 residents have already taken part. According to Ivan Kuznetsov, despite the fact that the survey is anonymous, every second respondent (52.5%) stated his desire to become personally involved in developing of the strategy and left contact details. Kazan citizens are invited to answer 13 questions to assess the current state of the city and its development priorities on a scale. “Basically "five" and "four" were given to such industries as physical education and sport, the scope of leisure, culture and higher education. Residents set satisfactory assessment for the work of public transport and preservation of historical heritage. More than half of the respondents rated high school education as "four" and "five", but almost a third of respondents put only "three" to our schools. Road infrastructure and industrial development in the assessments of citizens balance between "four" and "three" and health care, employment and business climate are the greatest concern to the people. This first and not a complete cross-section of public opinion is an important starting point for moving forward"- Ivan Kuznetsov shared the results of the poll.

In general, as shown by the survey results, Kazan residents are satisfied with the pace of development. It is significant that at the question of how the city has changed over the past 10 years, 98% of respondents said that it has changed for the better, and 76.1% answered that they are not going to leave. According to most respondents, capital of Tatarstan should become green, comfortable and eco-friendly city with a lot of gardens, parks and pedestrian zones, a developed network of underground, high-quality health care and education, a system of separate waste collection. According to Ivan Kuznetsov, all incoming proposals today are scrutinized.

Residents aged 21 to 30 years were the most active of survey respondents. Ilsur Metshin urged not by limited by the Internet capabilities and to connect all categories of the population to survey. "The complexity of the development of the strategy is that it needs to collect the views of many people, representatives of different social groups - entrepreneurs, young people, industrialists, pensioners, public figures, figures of culture and sports. The more a platform for discussion will be, the more valuable the work on the document will be and the work will be done better. Of course, we all now have gadgets, but not our entire active part of the population lives in the Internet. It is necessary to organize discussion platforms. For example, at a forum of young people, which is taking place these days in Kazan, our seniors students will perform. They will present their vision of the future of the city", - the Mayor cited the example of and instructed to prepare a schedule of sites.

To the majority opinions of the inhabitants of the city were taken into account in the strategy, Ilsur Metshin instructed to carry out a large-scale sociological research. "The more population will be coverage, the more viable strategy will be. We will take together the decision on how the city will look like in 2030 with the residents and also will implement it together. We must draw all the power to make the cut of public opinion in order to understand where we are now and where we need to move. We need recommendations, creative and bold ideas,"- Mayor said.