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The document of the city of Bergamo to start again: from mobility, to new schedules, to services for families.
“The need to coexist with the coronavirus in the coming months, writes the Board in the document” Bergamo 2020 “, in addition to facing the consequences of the long suspension of many productive activities, calls the municipal administration of Bergamo to the responsibility of developing an articulated strategy that covers all areas of city life. On the one hand, it is about developing a series of options aimed at “recovering” what has been damaged by the blockade and, on the other, at imagining a strong change in many aspects of our daily life, radically impacted, even if perhaps only provisionally – of the need to protect the health of citizens and prevent a further spread of the epidemic. We are called to change our way of life and imagine a different organization from the city. Obviously, many decisions will derive from national and regional institutions, for their respective competences, but already We know that at the local level it will also be necessary to redesign activities and services, to compose a “new normal” marked by coexistence with the virus. ” This is how the city of Bergamo presents the document “Bergamo 2020, relaunch and adaptation strategy” published on the City’s website on the afternoon of Monday, May 11.
READ HERE THE DOCUMENT OF THE MUNICIPALITY OF BERGAMO
“This exercise necessarily requires a new reading of the Board’s mandate plan, whose objectives are still in force but which cannot fail to be affected by the new scenario. Therefore, it is mainly the political component of the administration, the Board, along with its majority, that should be involved. But we believe that the process of adapting Bergamo to the post-Covid context can be focused and implemented more effectively if a comprehensive and inclusive confrontational process that sees the whole city, through the different forms of representations, can carry out his contribution
. Therefore, this document must be understood as a first-position document prepared by the municipal council, useful to start a confrontation that we hope will be intense and fruitful. ”
Bergamo, we know, is not just any city facing the crisis caused by the coronavirus. Bergamo has been found and is the epicenter of this scourge. Bergamo is one of the cities in the world that has paid the highest price proportionally, with the highest mortality caused by the epidemic and with very heavy economic and social consequences.. The company called Bergamo, the entire city community, not just the municipal administration, must recover after the bankruptcy, finding in the new phase of reconstruction the same energies and the same cohesion capacity that were used to resist and fight in the weeks of extreme health emergencies ». It is about rebuilding what was destroyed in just over two months, reversing the image of the city, now universally linked to the name of the virus, to make it attractive, also from a tourist point of view.
“Bergamo remains a manufacturing land, but in recent years tourism, thanks also to the extraordinary development of the airport, has become an essential component of our economy.” Today it restarts. Therefore, a great job awaits us, in which the capital, and not only with respect to tourism, is called to a role of reference for the entire provincial territory, equally affected ».
“We believe that a fundamental lever for sharing can be culture. Despite the limitations to which the sector will be forced in the coming months. In fact, the tourist development of Bergamo has taken place around its cultural flags, from Donizetti to Carrara, from the UNESCO World Heritage Walls to its architecture, through the numerous events that have enriched its calendar. Many of these will have to be rethought, at the time of the coronavirus, and yet we believe that the revitalization of the city can only happen from a particular vitality of the rich culture system that the city is capable of expressing, accompanied by the requirement of ” safe city” ” .
“meThe economic fabric of the city, made up mainly of services, commerce and small artisan companies, has been seriously affected by the health emergency and the limitations that this has implied. To avoid the definitive cessation of many of these activities, support and revitalization interventions are necessary, far beyond the liquidity offered by the measures launched by the government so far, also because it is very likely that even when the limitations appear gradually. Losing many of these activities must, over a long period, have to deal with a sharp contraction in demand. “
“The soul of the city is at stake, made up of relationships, sociability and sharing. There is liveliness, decorum and security of places. But, above all, there is the entry of thousands of families, in various capacities involved in the occupations that characterize to these sectors and that the loss of many jobs would lead to an immediate precarious situation. Therefore, it is necessary to equip the city, in addition to the devices activated by the government, with economic intervention tools to support the productive fabric of the city, and in particular for small and very small companies in the most affected sectors ” .
“To remedy the forced reduction of the capacity of many activities, from those of restoration and administration to the cultural, recreational and sports activities that normally take place in closed structures, we will be called to redefine the use of public spaces: squares, streets, parks and green spaces, trying to combine physical distancing, safeguarding social relations and the economic sustainability of these functions. This will call us to a great commitment also in terms of supervision. However, we consider that the experience acquired in recent months, in which we have seen the Local Police partially reconvert their functions, will allow us to accompany the progressive recovery, from mobility to the use of green spaces and squares, effectively monitoring compliance with regulations for the safety of citizens. “
It will also be necessary to operate, as far as possible, to streamline procedures, with the dual objective of accelerating the performance of public works already planned to the greatest extent possible, which is also relevant for the benefits it will bring to the construction and related companies. – and to simplify the relationship between companies and public administration; and so Given the capacity limitations to which public transport will be subject, in order to favor intelligent work in any way and the compensation of the schedules of many activities, starting with municipal services aimed at the public, to avoid concentrations in movements and traffic spikes. It is as if the two main dimensions of our life, time and space, were once again revised.
“The need to dilute attendance in various parts of the city to avoid meetings and risks of contagion pushes us towards an expansion of” useful time “on a daily basis, with the adoption of different schedules and shifts. Intelligent work, with which Tens of thousands of citizens of Bergamo have become familiar in recent weeks, thanks also to recently spread technologies, which in turn contains an experience of space contraction and substantial reduction of movements, so it will be important not to withdraw in the next months “.
“We already know that mobility will be one of the most complex fields of management, also from a political point of view. The strategy of progressive “transfer” of mobility actions from the private vehicle (automobile) to public transport is greatly undermined by the need for health protection that is imposed today. Until a vaccine is available, public transportation will be subject to significant capacity limitations (up to 75%) and will likely be perceived as unsafe locations. It will no longer be possible to encourage its use, just as car sharing will no longer be promoted and car sharing will likely be penalized. Using the private car (understandably) will be perceived as the safest way to get around. Therefore, it is clear that we are at great risk of “decline” with respect to the path towards sustainable mobility that we had undertaken. To protect our citizens from contagion, we risk finding ourselves in the midst of insane traffic and a dramatic deterioration in air conditions. We absolutely must avoid it, but it won’t be easy. The only option we have is to focus strongly on smooth mobility, but it will not be enough to do it in “ideological” terms: we will convince our citizens to use the bicycle, or the electric bicycle, the electric scooters or the electric scooters. More if we take concrete measures to promote these solutions, starting with the creation of new bicycle lanes, safe routes and forms of direct incentives. “
“There is one other thing that we are clear about, even here, about how space changes. If we have to avoid overcrowding and reduce the demand for mobility; However, if we want to guarantee full accessibility to our services to all citizens, and in fact To strengthen the dimension of proximity that allows us to avoid the isolation of many people and generate greater inclusion, we must focus strongly on neighborhoods.
For Bergamo, this is not a change of course. Precisely, this direction of travel was well highlighted in the 2019 electoral program and in subsequent mandate lines. Decentralization of municipal services, neighborhood well-being (including street or condominium), full participation of active citizens based on the happy experience of neighborhood networks, revaluation of decentralized meeting places (the project “one place in each neighborhood” “), improvement of the generalized culture: this was already our idea. But now we are even more convinced.
Furthermore, the epidemic has especially exposed the vulnerability of older citizens, and not only from the point of view of health. The condition of loneliness that characterizes the lives of many of them has proven to be an additional fragility factor that will have to be sought to fill with the strengthening of home services and an acceleration of the territorial welfare project begun in recent months. The same could be said for childcare, in this Phase 2 release perhaps one of the most overlooked and critical issues. Here too, given the complexity that could characterize the restart of school activities, and even more educational activities for group 0-6, neighborhoods seem to be the dimension of a possible organization “from below”, based on exchange and mutuality. .
Even for these projects additional resources will be needed, and it goes without saying that the starting condition is worrying, with the municipal coffers heavily penalized for the lower income of these months. In the same way that technology will be needed, in this case to activate platforms that allow the supply and demand of services to be added: another part of our idea of ”new well-being” that the Covid emergency pushes us to anticipate.
After all, this is the impression we are developing: that the forced exercise of creativity and concretion to which we are called to face the crisis unleashed by the coronavirus can be, beyond suffering and difficulties, a great opportunity for transformation, an accelerator of change Some factors play in our favor, such as the drive towards the dimension of the neighborhood, others, such as the instinctive return to car use, seem to push us back; but they could compel us to anticipate elections that would otherwise have taken many years and would therefore be useful. Of course, the complexity of the challenge is great. And that is why it seems important to open a discussion about the ideas presented in this document.
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