(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.