Ilsur Metshin: "We would appreciate the opinion of all representatives of the Kazan agglomeration"

(Kazan City KZN.RU, June 10, Zilya Gayfi). The first results of work on the Strategy of socio-economic development of Kazan up to 2030 were presented today to the Mayor of the city Ilsur Metshin. At a meeting in the capital's City Hall experts have summed up the work of several dozen of expert sites, held in Kazan in the last two months. Several scenarios in the field of economy, environment and human capital were offered to the city.

The meeting, chaired by Ilsur Metshin, was attended by about 30 participants - representatives of municipal authorities, banks, research centers and universities of the city. The discussion was attended by the head of the Executive Committee Denis Kalinkin, Deputy Head of the Executive Committee on urban policy Azat Nigmatzyanov, chief architect Tatiana Prokofieva, district heads, heads of departments of the Executive Committee and experts. "Thank you all for the fact that we are conducting this work actively in all directions. We would appreciate the opinion of all representatives of the Kazan agglomeration. Involvement of residents and experts, students, representatives of the public sector and business in the process pleases,"- the Mayor said, opening the meeting.

Director of Resource Centre on Strategic Planning under Leontief Centre Boris Zhikharevich, speaking as a moderator of the meeting, thanked Kazan leadership for the opportunity to work with the city on behalf of all the experts. Development of Strategy of Kazan-2030 is conducted taking into account features of a similar document for the development of Tatarstan. Three expert groups on the basis of Kazan leading universities - K(V)FU, KSTU and KSACU - conducted discussion platforms in three areas: human capital, space and economy. Database compiled on the basis of monitoring and population surveys became the result of the work. "Huge amount of requests and complaints from residents is accumulated. The data is important to generalize, to make, for example, the electronic edition. We are willing to conduct this work,"- Boris Zhikharevich said.

The head of the department of management and entrepreneurship, the director of the Institute of Management Innovation of KSTU Rushaniya Zinurova introduced the outcome of the expert platform "Human capital". Experts have identified the system calls, the first group of which is associated with low social mobility of Kazan residents and the problem of defining of their identity. "By 2030, the traditional identity will give way to more extensive variants. Migration from rural settlements and the surrounding areas will lead to an erosion of established urban practices. At the same time, the flow of migration from eastern countries can change the cultural image of the city, aggravating the threat of ethnic conflict", - the expert explained the essence of the problem. The second group of challenges includes the problems associated with a lack of civic activity of the population, which is fraught with "fatigue syndrome" - when there is no response to the offers of residents, civic activity decreases. All this may lead to the fact that in the future Kazan may become a huge sleeping area. The third groups of calls experts consider as the lack of conditions for the development of an innovation culture - the city responds to the changing needs of the people too slowly.

In accordance with the problems experts created three scenarios for development of the sphere of human capital in the city. Among them, the natural scenario without active measures (search of employment, the desire of citizens to work in state institutions, low social activity) and the script focused on human capital development through inter-municipal programs (involving training, self-employment, multicultural society, controlled migration flows, the creation of centers of innovation culture). In this scenario Kazan should create fashion for other cities. The third scenario focuses on attracting competent personnel to the industrial sectors. The experts suggest the flagship project "Kazan - the capital of culture of innovation".

Head of the Department of Urban Development and planning of rural populated areas of KSACU Alexander Dembich and assistant professor of theory and methodology of geographical and environmental education of K(V)FU Svetlana Khusnutdinova shared the results of work of site "Space". "Trends suggest that the key factors of living in the city for the citizens are the mobility and diversity. The better network of communications between people is developed, more comfortably is to live in the city", - Alexander Dembich said.

Based on this trend, three scenarios for the development of the urban environment in Kazan until 2030 were formed. According to experts, the economy of the modern city is an economy of the pedestrian. The problems and the same time points of growth for Kazan are a functional saturation of the center, the lack of a single green frame, the accumulated environmental damage. The first scenario involves a controlled management of the city, the development of existing resources. The second scenario (the best, according to experts) is based on the replication of the experience of the center into districts. If the third scenario will be chosen, the city will continue to create point-centers and promote them to visitors. In general, experts believe that Kazan should become the standard of comfortable urban environment, where the priority is given to pedestrians, not cars.

Tatiana Prokofieva expressed her opinion on the script on this unit; she believes that Kazan has the right to claim for the status of the architectural capital of the country. According to her, in the scenarios the conservation of the historic environment and innovative approaches to the development of the transport network were not offered. In turn, Deputy Head of the Executive Committee - Chairman of the Committee of improvements Igor Kulyazhev drew attention to the fact that in a script nothing is said about the waters and coastal areas, although today there is an environmental problem - land for the construction of sewage treatment plants is not reserved. Concreted river banks are also a problem - the citizens do not have access to water and river recreation. I.Kulyazhev also noted that street culture is not supported in the city - conditions for the expression not created for Kazan residents.

The participants of the expert platform "Economy" proposed their scenarios of city development. According to the head of the department of state and municipal administration, associate professor of K(V)FU Irina Glebova, more than 260 urban problems with detailed character were formulated. Among them are the low level of creativity and financial literacy of businesses, the existence of administrative barriers, the lack of effective interaction between big business and the authorities, the demise of the traditional banking system, imbalance of demand in the labor market, the lack of a real mechanism of society in urban management.

The first scenario is based on the way of the Soviet economy, when business is not interested in innovation because it increases costs. The second scenario involves the differentiation of services and trade and enhancing of customer focus. As an example, experts give the possibility of obtaining exclusive rights to produce halal products within Russia. The third scenario is focused on the creation of a "smart" city and digital economy, the cultivation of talented, highly adapted workforce. Also, according to experts, Kazan needs the center for 1.5-2 thousand places; it will carry out major economic forums and make the city attractive for investors.

Supporting the principle that the strategy should be ambitious, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Vice-President of "Bank of Kazan" Oscar Prokopiev expressed the opinion that Kazan has all chances to become the financial capital of Russia. "We can set a goal to drag head offices of large companies to Kazan. This will create new jobs. To become the financial capital we have a valuable human capital, affordable housing, well-developed transport network and the glance,"- he said. Also, according to O.Prokopev, Kazan needs to develop a public-private partnership in all sectors of the economy, the city rarely acts as the customer of such projects.

All voiced during the meeting of the proposal for the development of the city received a lively response from the participants; the scenarios will be discussed in detail shortly in the composition of expert groups.