The State Duma held a round table on involving citizens in improving the environment

The State Duma on Monday discussed the experience of involving residents in the design of urban spaces: a round table on this topic was held by the “New People” faction. The speakers assessed the emerging practice of partnership between government and citizens mostly positively. It followed from the speeches that participation in the design of public spaces guarantees citizens their first experience of citizenship, and activists a “springboard” for starting a political career. However, the latest bonus, as it turned out, does not please the officials responsible for this area too much.

The federal center introduced the topic of “participatory design” into management practice together with the national project “Formation of a Comfortable Urban Environment” (FCES) in 2019. The developers indicated that the result of its implementation should be both a “dramatic increase in the comfort” of cities and “the creation of a mechanism for the direct participation of citizens” in these processes. However, urban planning was included in public policy long before this. The topic was exploited by both the opposition (one of the striking examples is the City Projects Foundation, included in the register of foreign agents Ilya Varlamov and Maxim Katz), and the authorities: back in 2014, Dmitry Medvedev, as chairman of United Russia (UR), recommended that regional nominees use the experience of Moscow on the introduction of urbanism into big politics.

Participants round table in the State Duma clearly intended to focus exclusively on the practical side of the issue. Thus, the deputy chairman of the Duma Committee on Construction and Housing and Communal Services Svetlana Razvorotneva (ER) thanked her colleagues from “New People” for their interest in the topic and emphasized that the participation of citizens in the design of public spaces is the most important component of all work: “Public spaces that are created (in this way .— “Kommersant”), themselves generate social activity: territories that have won competitions launch some kind of activity thanks to their improvement.”

Deputy Speaker of the State Duma Vladislav Davankov (“New People”) supported his colleague and advised more actively informing citizens about changes in the urban space: “I was faced with the fact that even the good things that are being done are not explained, people do not feel their influence on what is happening.” what’s going on in their yard.”

Numerous representatives of regional relevant departments who spoke next took turns bragging about their own successes in “participatory design” and most often noted that the methodology promotes residents’ responsibility for the work performed.

Although some dissatisfaction associated with the excessive activity of the citizens who had acquired a taste, officials were unable to hide.

“With each subsequent session, the citizen wants to have more and more tools to influence decisions made, so it is important to correctly set the boundaries of involvement and understand the range of issues where the citizen and his participation are appropriate, and where this matter should be left to professionals,” advised, for example, the Minister of Architecture and urban planning of the Voronezh region Andrey Erenkov.

The officials were no less outraged by the politicization of the process, which they, however, did not directly state. “After involvement occurs, local interests begin to inflate this agenda: people usually do not write positive comments, but they begin to write negative comments,” noted the Minister of Architecture of the Orenburg Region Natalya Ibragimova.

“Very often municipal deputies act as agents and subjects of participation. And this is good: we are a sensitive layer, the first to respond to the needs and pains of people in cities and other populated areas,” confirmed municipal deputy from Yasenevo Maxim Zharkov (“New People”). Best of all, according to him, young people are involved in the topic: “For them, this is the first experience of citizenship, contact with decision-making at the level of their district, their city.” The need for political moderation of the process was emphasized by the organizer of the round table, Oleg Leonov (“New People”): “The expression “residents want” is a literary form, because residents want different things. Therefore, a team of mediators is needed here to systematize these “wants.”

“Most of our activists started by working in their yard, organizing neighbors, communicating with district authorities, resolving minor issues in the area,” Anna Drobot, leader of the capital’s branch of New People, told Kommersant after the event. “The classic path of an activist.” our party in Moscow looks something like this: first an active resident of the district, then a municipal deputy, then a leader of public opinion on his topic at the level of all of Moscow.”

The experience of creating district communities will be one of the criteria for selecting party candidates for the 2024 Moscow City Duma elections, added Ms. Drobot, immediately listing the three Moscow politicians who already have such competencies.

The importance of these competencies at the “open microphone” was confirmed by invited Moscow residents, who tried to draw the attention of the round table participants to specific cases in their districts, districts and even homes. And some suggested scaling the practice of delegating responsibility to residents far beyond issues of improvement. “The local community is not formed, does not mature, does not take responsibility, because in participatory design there are no issues of self-government,” explained urbanist Stanislav Murunov. “I would turn the focus not on involvement, but on the key goal of communication procedures with citizens. Do we want citizens to take responsibility? Then this is called self-organization, self-government.” These goals are achieved and measured “in a completely different way,” the expert concluded.

Grigory Leiba