Позитивные изменения. Города будущего. Тематический выпуск, 2022 / Positive changes. The cities of the future. Special issue, 2022 - Редакция журнала «Позитивные изменения»
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In the article "Participatory Design: Peculiarities of the Approach in Russia," experts Nadezhda Snegireva, Konstantin Kiyanenko, Yulia Bychkova, and Peter Ivanov note that existing practices of co-participation are limited in use, although they have a high potential in urban management, budgeting, and cultural systems. Because of this limited use, these practices ran into an obstacle — trying to integrate them into the vertical structures of state administration was ineffective. Another important issue is long-term co-participation: the participant must acquire subjectivity and responsibility that go beyond mere participation in the vote and extend to the future living scenarios of the local residents, so that the infrastructure developed continues to perform its social functions and "lives" beyond the construction period (Vereshchagina, 2021).
The general participatory development platform supports the main thesis: speaking of the city of the future, it is necessary to consider not just the design of beautification projects, but the broader context of community participation in all aspects of city governance. It is of a permanent nature, and also includes broader context of the items for which a collective decision is made. Participatory governance means that it is based on three key elements (Perezolova, 2018):
• civic participation;
• public discussions;
• empowerment of the public in governance.
Decision-making in this framework takes place after discussions with residents themselves, and with extensive accountability and feedback practices. Public participation in decision-making is presented as a pedagogical practice and serves to foster the values of self-governance, consociation, and responsibility for the common good.
Practices of public discussion of urban development projects are one of the key methods of engaging the public in governance, which can be accomplished, among other things, through participatory modeling to collectively address public problems. Modeling consists of the following stages: informing, public hearings, focus groups, opinion polls.
Interestingly, the wording "participatory modeling is a method of analyzing a problem by building a causal model with the involvement of stakeholders" clearly evokes associations with the theory of change, which similarly includes a causal model taking into account the interests of all parties involved and is used to implement socio-economic impact assessment on extended change projects (including cities of the future).
The greatest opportunities for public engagement in decision-making exist where the decisions directly and explicitly affect the lives of the people, and the consequences of said decisions are most obvious, that is, the threshold of expertise is relatively low. This area of government decision-making is commonly referred to as local governance. A key factor in the success and autonomy of local governance is access to the development of the local budget.
Thus, in addition to participatory modeling, participatory (initiative) budgeting is a key tool for public engagement in city governance.
Within the framework of the project of the Ministry of Finance of Russia and the World Bank to develop initiative budgeting in Russia, reviews of international best practices were collected. Practices of initiative budgeting in small towns form an important part of the reviews (Khachatryan et al., 2020).
It seems that the city of the future, respecting the concept of the 15-minute city, will be a small one. This type of city has the following positive features:
• existence of a dense network of social contacts;
• the local, not global, nature of urban identity;
• a relatively low level of exclusion for socially vulnerable categories;
• the ability to hold discussions with sufficient public representation;
• presence of direct communication channels between the local government and the public. As the authors note, the essence of participatory budgeting practices "lies in the development of an effective system of interaction between local government and the society through the activation of direct public participation in local development planning, including in determining priorities for local budget expenditures and in supporting public initiatives in addressing local issues.
In Russia, initiative budgeting is implemented mainly following the model of the Local Initiative Support Program (LISP). Under this model, the residents are involved in determining budget spending priorities, can co-finance projects that are important to them, and monitor the progress of their implementation. However, this model is regional, not local.
One example of the implementation of participatory budgeting practices in Russia at the local level is the experience of the urban district of Labytnangi (Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug). These projects are mostly related to developing the urban environment and creating the infrastructure for people with special needs. Interestingly, this project was peculiar in that it required the initiators to provide mandatory co-financing of at least 3 % for the activities budgeted. The projects are reviewed by the Project Office consisting of both experts and volunteers, and then put to a vote of the residents. The Project Office also plans activities, provides information and training, and is involved in preparing organizing the voting on the projects.
This culture of participation transforms the individual from a consumer into a co-owner of the product, a subject of urban development. These values contribute to the implementation of bottom-up innovations and allow stimulating the development of the local community, weaving the fabric of the cities of the future and ensuring the implementation of all the above elements of the existing concepts of the cities of the future.
REFERENCES
1. Latham, A., & Layton, J. (2019). Social infrastructure and the public life of cities: Studying urban sociality and public spaces. Geography Compass, 13(7), e12444. https://doi. org/10.1111/gec3.12444.
2. Moreno, C., Allam, Z., Chabaud, D., Gall, C., & Pratlong, F. (2021). Introducing the "15-Minute City": Sustainability, resilience and place identity in future post-pandemic cities. Smart Cities.
