[Music]
so
[Music]
hello everybody welcome to our next
session today cities in
lockdown my name is joshua pesana i'm a
senior
policy reporter based usually in berlin
for political europe
i'm delighted to host this session which
really gets to the heart of an issue
that's
crucial for many if not most of us
that's living in cities
urban centers and how these areas are
changing under the pandemic so
we have three people on the panel to
discuss these issues
naturally we have matoshvalo he's the
mayor of bratislava since 2018
he's a trained architect and an urban
planner we have vit
rakushan he's the leader of the mayors
and independence party in the czech
republic
he's also the mayor of colin from 2010
to 2019
and joining us from budapest is the
budapest mayor guillerme caraconiere
he's been mayor of budapest since 2019
and is also a leading opposition figure
in hungarian politics
he's joining us via video link from
budapest with
we hope flawless simultaneous
translation
so i should just remind you before we
get underway with the questions
that we are taking questions also from
the audience via slido
that's in the globe sec app as well we
have
40 minutes to get through a lot of
ground so let's get straight
underway i think a good place to start
this conversation would be
with you matush as you're the host of
this summit here in bradislava
um when we look at the pandemic and the
impact on urban centers
what kind of capacity have cities needed
to build quickly
to counter these evolving crises can you
give us the experience from bredeslava
yes thank you very much and firstly let
me welcome you
all of you in our beautiful city
bratislava i say
thanks again globsec you did it again
very nice and
fantastic level so i'm happy we have
globsec in our city
uh to ask for your question i mean
the the the first thing is that you you
are not ready for
such a crisis nobody was ready for such
a crisis as
uh as we are living now and uh
i need to go through very quick uh i'm
making fun of it the lessons about the
the how about management in crisis which
is something completely different i was
trained
in i'm a trained architect with 15 years
of experience
so the first thing was uh uh
maybe not first in the list of
importance but one of very important
thing was to build a
good communication channel we are
always spending a lot of time to explain
to our citizen
and to inhabitants of brazil was
happening and we were ready for that we
have very good
communication team so there was maybe
the first thing
to to completely open every bit of
information we were sure of and to
communicate to explain to make
make them feel safer in terms of having
uh
right and exact informations that was
the one of the first thing
and of course after there you have a
group of citizens
you are taking care of which are for us
the most
uh uh group of these citizens in danger
where
elderly people that's very important you
know how
covet is working so this is our focus
straight away and i need to say
before we had any case of covet in
slovakia
during the march during the february of
2020
we already did a special training for uh
for employees in our older houses we did
a special measurement
in these older houses to to be ready and
to to start protection very soon and i'm
glad we did it and
it shows uh how good team
we have in bratislava in this case and
of course the second group of citizens
are
uh people without homes that's very
important they cannot go
to have current teams somewhere they
don't just don't have a place to be
14 000 people we built very very soon
a year ago in march 2020 we built
we are calling it also today village
quarantine village
so we build a temporary structure where
people without homes
can spend day two or three weeks of
kovit
and so they can don't need to be in the
streets where
and in danger of to other people but
also to themselves
of course uh so this was the
i mean all if you are talking about what
we
what we were forced to build what kind
of capacities
is it was like all of them all of
possible capacities i
i'm thinking now and you have this real
question about the
the role of city administrations in
providing just the services you talked
about in a time of crisis
but then what is the what is the gap
between central government and city
administrations vit
you obviously work on this issue very
closely your political party and the
czech republic is
set up to represent the interests of of
mayors and and independents i wonder do
you think the balance is right right now
between city administrations and central
government or the cities need more power
so firstly thank you for the invitation
i am not
the mayor and i used to be the mayor of
colleen so of the middle
size city of small city 30 000
inhabitants
it's my big pleasure to communicate here
with the
mayors of capitals of their countries
but i have to say
the smaller cities it was really a huge
challenge
for them because they are not in direct
contact
with the state government and every
good solution had to grow up from the
bottom
and the real responsibility was really
by the time of the covet crisis on the
local government and when you see the
numbers of the trust of the people in
the czech republic now
the trust in the local government
increased the trust in the state's
government
decreased and i think it's the best
proof
that we all the mayors around the world
we did really a great job by this time
and i have to say something to your
answer yes communication and you
have to see all different groups of
people in your city because
you want to communicate fast you have
some smart
applications and you can communicate
fast with the
younger people but you have to find the
right way
how to communicate with all people
if you're in your town you have to see
the needs
of all groups of citizens in your
community
and it was big challenge because you
have to use
the old towns radio
you have to get the information to the
people in the streets
because also the older people can hear
them
you have to use the towns magazine and
you have to communicate
also the decisions of your government
because by the time of crisis
you as the mayor you as the member of
the city council
you are responsible for everything you
are you you
you have become the crisis manager
not the mayor more and you have to
manage
everything in your time you have to be
all the day
on the phone and the people call you and
ask you really everything it was
something very new
and you have to do your usual agenda
and you don't have time for it you have
a lot of stress by
this moment and you don't have
any crisis scenarios for
the crisis like this one was
it was everything new and i have to say
the local level didn't
fail by this situation and it's
important message
for the citizens of the cities and it
was also
the best way how to show you are real
responsible for the town and uh the
states level the communication sorry for
it
was horrible well well let's get on to
that now and actually switch to budapest
because
there's a huge issue the conflict
between the people that have to manage
the crisis on a ground level
and then the central government which
largely allocates the resources to do
that job and
it's switching to budapest and the mayor
there you know
how difficult is it to do your job when
you're an open conflict with the
government and can you speak a little
bit about your experience dealing with
the pandemic over the last year and a
half
well heartfelt welcome to everyone i'm
really glad to be here
at this very very high level event
when there is a crisis it is very very
important
to have good cooperation between the
different actors between the different
protagonists now in our situation there
were three different parties
that should have collaborated central
government
and also the pandemic institutions or
healthcare institutions
and then the municipalities budapest
municipality and district municipalities
and the third party is the citizens the
inhabitants so there should have been a
very good cooper
collaboration between all of them now
i have to say that the relationship the
collaboration between the city
management and the city inhabitants was
excellent
and we also thought what bratislava said
that every information had to be shared
whether it was sad information
bad information negative information and
if we were not sure about something we
would also
share our doubts with the people i think
that this really worked
and in budapest the statistics have
shown
that uh within the entire country
budapest were
the most the ones who most respected the
rules
like if you look at google statistics
and google location statistics
uh or network uh gsm network statistics
that showed that budapest people were
were very very disciplined despite the
fact that normally an
urban population according to certain
theories is much less
law obedient and much less tolerant to
these
limitations but statistics show that
budapest were very disciplined
however the cooperation between the
central government
and the municipality now that didn't
really work
and i was very sad i'm very sad to say
that in the most difficult situation
when we're supposed to to
stand together in that situation there
were very very
nasty political debates uh uh i also got
a
supporting letter from uh bayer
matusvallo when there was a
a uh hate campaign launched against
the budapest to add early homes and i'm
just telling you statistics
it was the the elderly homes of the
budapest of budapest
where the mortality rate was much less
than
in state institutions or national
institutions because we
actually gathered all international
experience and they said that okay
if our government is not talking to us
we would talk to other mayors
and we tried to make everything in a
timely manner all of the
measures now this was true for the
austerity measures
and also after the crisis was over
we also started to make the
ease down the easing of the lockdown
faster than the central government let
me give you a particular example
when prague made mask a wearing mask
compulsory on mass transportation
this was like last march march 2020
maybe first in europe then
the hungarian government's official
position was
that mask should not be worn there were
different billboards in hungarian
hospitals saying that wearing masks is
negative
only ill sick people should wear masks
now under these a
very odd circle absurd circumstances we
had to
work and i have to say that the
unpreparedness of the government and the
fact that they did not share
information they were just uh entering
into
a success propaganda
as opposed to our very um
true communication so this resulted in
the fact that a lot of people in the
countryside did not take
the pandemic seriously they were not
following the rules they were not
wearing the masks
and as a result of that there were much
more death cases
mortality was much higher in the
countryside despite the fact that
budapest is a very dense city
is an international metropolis there is
a lot of communication a lot of
traveling
despite that there were much more death
rates in the countryside
and this really shows that holding back
information
um spreading not spreading information
this is really life-threatening in such
a crisis
so you you talked a lot about
collaboration as well and lessons
learned and talking to your colleagues
in prague or bratislava about the
situation and
bringing policies composite to that but
i wonder if we could address one of the
specific problems that all of you have
in managing cities and that's mobility
and transport
now there is a huge fight everywhere
pandemic or no pandemic about
the space for cars on the street whether
or not cycling lanes should be
buttressed all of you are having to deal
with that separately in your urban areas
specifically how are you facing this
situation because on the one hand all
cities are investing in cycle lanes all
cities know they need to improve air
pollution levels
however motorists are very angry about
this and they want to be able to freely
commute into urban centers
what can you do to stop this war between
the two sides
i mean we are the city which decided to
never stop public transport you have
like the city divided in two parts
there were a few cities which completely
stopped public transport we decided not
to do that
and we are losing still losing a lot of
a lot of euros a month and
i need to say that in the worst it was
january
2021 where we had like 10 or
15 of people in our public transport in
comparison of
of two years ago uh but
i spent first a year and a half of my of
my
of my work as a mayor in brazil to
to invite people into the public
transport we are pouring money into it
we
we changing it for better and uh and
it's very difficult for us to say
don't use public transport it's not safe
but where it was necessary
we did it but we also keep it working
because
there are still people who need it and
this is also our only answer to two
problems with
with transport in general transparent
bratislava
we need to return when it's going to be
safe to do public transport because uh
we cannot we cannot travel in the city
by cars
it's never going to work we cannot make
streets bigger
it's not working in this way and
and it's again connected with our
campaign for vaccination
because that's the that's the way how we
can in safeway
return to public transport i need to say
when we are talking about cycling
of course is our desire to to use this
situation or
it was our desire to use this situation
to have
and to be more radical in terms of new
message
cycleways and so on but i need to say
maybe in comparison
with other cities the fact
that we are installing or building a new
uh cycleway or in the end
must be decided but state police
and and they don't have in bratislava
are not at all understanding for bus
lines or cyclones so this is the fight
we are doing
if uh even before kovit yeah
and just to switch to budapest in gergia
uh you know
you are facing big problems there i
understand because of course you also
are very favorable to cycling lanes you
want to roll out clean mobility
infrastructure there
but the motorists are battling back how
can you solve this situation in budapest
in the wake of the pandemic
has that has that changed the perception
of many of the city population about
public transport and about cycle lanes
and the need for
clean open air mobility
similar processes were there in budapest
similar to what we've heard about
bratislava
the decision was to reduce
mass transportation not to stop mass
transportation just like
in bratislava we didn't stop it and
again there was a huge drop
in our revenues and there were some
other economic and financial problems as
well but as
i said a community transportation mass
transportation revenues dropped
dramatically
we were also very very um worried
that uh public transportation is a
source of danger under the pandemic but
now we can see
from the statistics that only one or two
percent of the infections came from
public transportation
there were much more dangerous uh things
uh because you know there were
no in our case most of the people
respected the mask
obligation mask wearing obligation and
normally you know people do not
have a chat in the metro or in the bus
so it didn't really spread in the
uh public transportation so i fully
agree with matus
that on the long run motorization
has to be replaced by an alternative you
cannot use just cars in the city
and this is going to be a long-term
effort to bring back people to mass
transportation
now as far as not only from the terms of
revenues but
in terms of using so using it we had
some ad hoc
interventions in the city in the city
we
made interventions preparing mass
transportation and
cycling so in budapest we doubled the
number of cycle
of a bicycle riders in a year we doubled
the number
and also we have created a new public
bike sharing system so we have a bike
sharing system a new system now
uh quite quickly we managed to build
that up which is very popular now
and apparently uh the demand
even says that we should double or
triple the capacity but now that life
is back in the city and a lot of people
most of people work again do work again
and there is commun
commuting there is movement yes indeed
there is a conflict
between motorists so cars
and others because now
you know the entire um transportation
and traffic is increasing and there is a
conflict but on the long run i think
it is a mass transportation and the
clean forms of transportation that will
work in such a big city
and this conflict is also increased by
the fact that a lot of
investments that we had to stop during
the pandemic because the
construction industry also stopped we
have to relaunch these investments it is
just today this very day that we are
closing one of the bridges of budapest
which was the first permanent bridge on
the danube in in hungary
and for one and a half years we'll have
to close down this bridge and the cars
will not be able to uh cross it
right i want to come back at you because
you you made an interesting point about
returning cities to
to volatile great normal life on the
streets with bars and cafes open but
just first to go to vit
i come to you last on this point because
you obviously have a national view and i
wonder
from your party perspective and having
been a town mayor do you think it should
be
only up to city administrations how they
invest in their public transport systems
after the pandemic we're talking about
the building of new cycle lanes
investing in public
mass transit infrastructure is this a
question for cities or do you think
there should be a national push
everywhere to really roll out cycle
lanes and such like
so i'm sure you have to have the state
strategy
uh you have to have the regional
strategy and the city strategy
but i'm afraid of big power of
local governments i have really we are
close to the people
and i love the decision-making
close to the people it's the wonder
of local governing because you know the
real needs of people
you are in touch with people and you can
prepare
the town strategy for the particular
needs of your
own town and it's the right way
in the case of my town we tried to
support a public
transport we try to prepare the
infrastructure
for electro mobility it's a big
challenge for the next
years in every city not only
in the capitals of the lands and what we
try to do is to speak to all group of
citizens
and to be mediator uh
in this conflict between car drivers
and bikers and it's the huge discussion
in every town in the czech republic
and you have to have some vision for
future
our very simple vision is everything for
our children
and for our parents is the official
vision of our town
and when we want to do everything for
our children
we have to create the
streets which are full of green and
which are full
of bikers lines in the town
because it's the time of living we
prefer
in our city but you have to come with
the situation
the number of the cars is really huge
you have to find the right solution
for parking capacities but you have to
prepare the best infrastructure for the
bikers
we did we we built a new parking
house for bikers in front of the
river station in korean and it helped
it helped a lot because we have this
parking house full of bikes every
morning
so it goes slowly but you have to find
the right solution i think
and matosh how do we get back to normal
life now in cities and then looking
ahead
you think in five years time what will
you look back at brad osava and say
okay now we do this really differently
to
to what we did before the pandemic so
what elements of normal life will be
completely different
to what they were two years ago
yeah the this one is tough one because
uh
of course uh i i need to say that
uh the first thing i understand that
uh that we did something right because
the team
of my colleagues uh it proves uh
itself to be a very good one you never
know
the real the the real situation you have
in your team
uh in a good situation you cannot see
that and
uh what i did in uh what we did in right
good way
is to choose right people which are
governing bratislav with me or with us
you know and that's very important
in crisis we thought that it it's it's
the team is absolutely one of the the
pivotal things
so in five years i will be sure like
today that
uh that the the people around me uh
are good choosing and that that's very
important
what is going to be different of course
it's
how we are looking in our
situation in general way uh you know
it's never we it's never going to be
like before
because we know that some this kind of
crisis
can come and uh completely stop the
world
it wasn't about bratislava it wasn't
about europe this this is a whole
planet uh which stops for a few months
and and
this crack the crisis is very serious
one
and so of course i will always keep in
mind that we need to have some back door
not in on not only in terms of money or
in the situation we are
actually in but in terms of what maybe
there are
some kind of list of values should be uh
we're going to to do more for of course
these two group of our citizen
even if we're doing a lot for for
elderly people and
homeless people because we we thought i
saw that
that it's so it's the the thing a bit
the
line between definitely alive and dead
is
so so thin and and was was so difficult
to to
to keep it straight this light so um
this is
uh this is real and actually people
wants to go to back to the normal we
saw it in during the first uh first dead
where
the the restriction was uh was uh
was in the end and and people were crazy
in the street everybody was
celebrating drinking and people are
going back to the normal i think it's
our uh
task uh municipalities for example
to have always in mind that the
situation can change in
in few few months yeah very radically uh
we're rapidly running out of time but i
just want to go to you vit with the same
question you know
what's the path back to normality in
cities now and also
what in five years will you look back
and say this is completely different to
what we had before the pandemic
so we should divide it into what we will
see in reality and to what we should see
and i think we should see much more
power for the local sphere in decision
making also much more money
for the local investments from the site
of
state and much bigger
trust from the side of the state's
government
in the local governments it will be a
big
discussion of the next years and
you know the time was really challenging
and it had a lot of different sides
one of them we have in our town a huge
vietnamese community
and they were so helpful
in the time of pandemic so active
financial and they were prepared to
help to everybody and it helped us
in reality to overcome some prejudices
in our city so it's one of the positive
results of this time it was also
challenging in the question of
developing
some new types of communication
with citizens we have special we have
special
uh town cities application
and we can deliver the information
to the citizen very fast and
it still works it's the positive result
of this pandemic time so i think the
communication between the local
government
and the citizen is after the pandemic
time
much more closer and also the
conservative representatives of the
towns
are able and ready to come communicate
on networks are able to be
in touch with people every day and it's
one of the positive results of the
pandemic and
it's also the future of the governing of
cities yeah
that's an interesting point let's go
back to budapest to address this because
you know more than any other mayor i
think you you're swimming very much
against uh
central government on a number of issues
in the context of the lg
bt law that was passed this week in
hungary i mean
pride is coming up on july the 3rd how
do you as a mayor
try to bring norman life back into
budapest while maintaining its
reputation as you know a huge vibrant
capital of
europe in the context of a really
rancorous political debate at the
national level
too
again you know
one of the findings of the pandemic that
the old green thinking of think globally
act
locally this is prime probably even more
true after the pandemic than it was
before i fully agree
that governance of tomorrow has to
have much more weight on the local
governments
because it is more democratic on the one
hand and it is more effective on the
other hand
so the municipal level the hungarian
government quite often
just tries to confront
um you know effective governors and
democratic governors they say that
if it's not democratic governors it is
much more effective
but this is just the contrary and just
the opposite as it turned out
during the pandemic if you're closer to
the people you can
just govern much more effectively now
the other thing
once we are talking about global issues
in this panel
the exposure of the world the world is
exposed
this exposure is is not
sustainable on long-term realm actually
the
supply chains has to be smaller because
if there is a crisis in china everything
stops
if there is a ship that blocks the sewer
scanner
then everything stops so i think the
world will have to focus on
local economy more and will have to
create much shorter supply chains i
think this is one of the global lessons
learned and probably there's another
thing
and please allow me to
allow me to because i'm so bored of
hungarian internal politics that i
rather like to talk about the global
things and not hungarian internal
politics
but again as far as cities are concerned
it is during the pandemic
we learned to value the most important
asset of the city which is public spaces
it turned out during the pandemic
that everyone needs more public space
it is the catering the caterers would
like to open terraces
the mother with a small kid would like
to have place for the
uh for the straw to push the kid
the grandmother would like to have a
tree which has a shadow where you can
sit under and you can be on open air
and these demands cannot be met at the
same time
so we need to just strike a priority
how to use our public spaces and what to
do with them
shall we just turn our cities into
parking lots or shall we turn our cities
into parks
now this is two different things and
this is a major division
and here you need a lot of discussion a
lot of empathy
but i think people start to feel how
high the stake is
concerning the public spaces of cities
and i'm sure in certain that
the cities of the world will have to be
greener and that requires
space okay and i just want to take
we're fast running out of time now but
this is a really interesting question
that we've got over the globe set
app which is about how a city's
better place to to make the the changes
necessary to battle
for example the climate crisis than
national authorities
you know is there a lot more
collaboration that can happen between
you
all three of you here today may be
speaking on a more regular basis sharing
experience with
other mayors as well should should this
be a platform for combating major global
crises
and maybe matosh i can start with you on
that
i mean uh it's very important to say
that uh
the cities and and mayors are more
countable so so it's mean we are more
closer to people
it already was said and of course it's
the things are
we are i don't want to say we are maybe
under the big pressure because
it's true but if i promise that
something must be done
or i'm going to deliver something people
just want
just that i can meet them on the streets
they can ask me on the street
if the things are done and and and this
is just a small scale of the
of maybe for the bigger solution to the
big problem of climate change for
example
we uh and i think all other mayors
and also the mayors from our park the
free cities
which uh girl founded uh
we have we are sharing the same
experience uh
we cannot do a false or empty promises
that's the main thing we we if we are
promising something we need to deliver
that and that's the the small in a small
scale
solution which must of course go to the
bigger scale
great thank you and vit so it's very
easy so i think the cooperation and the
sharing
of good practice uh it's one it's also
one of the very positive results of this
covet crisis
because all mayors were communicated it
wasn't
important from which part they they are
the cooperation was very close
uh it's the experience from the czech
republic
and it was something what i really
missed at the very beginning
of my mayor's career it was
in the corporation and
i was 32 years old without
experience with politics and i
always try to find some information
and some possibility how to share
the good information and do good
practice with
my colleagues and it's in the small
things in the cities we can discuss
together
about by clients in the cities but also
about the big challenges for the future
climate change and so on so the good
practice sharing
is the future and go yeah in budapest
do you think there should be a lot more
collaboration between city mayors across
europe maybe even beyond
to figure out ways to to battle the
crisis all cities are facing
and you know and hidalgo in paris talks
about the 15-minute city a lot
is this an interesting proposal for you
guys as well
you can um you have a new day in
well yes during the pandemic very very
scarce information coming from the
central authorities was very scarce we
hardly got any information from the
central government
but we got a lot of information
from other mayors from europe and
outside europe as well
there were good practices and best
practices that we could adopt
and we also saw that we are not left
alone because all the other cities were
suffering of the same problems
and this was a very very important for
all city leaders
and i think that the cities really just
managed to share experience and this was
not about party politics uh this was
beyond party politics
and also climate change accommodation uh
social
exclusion these are problems that
accumulate in big cities
and we can only be effective in fighting
these problems and
and encountering these problems if we
work together
and we share our experiences so the
the city governance so local governments
and municipal municipalities should be
the pillars of these
fights so i think the european union the
right thing to do
would be to consider the cities to be an
important level of decision making
obviously the european union is
primarily an alliance of countries of
nation
nations states but again crisis
management is more effective on the city
level on the local level the municipal
level
and not only because problems do come on
these
levels but also because uh
in these
settlements there is a much more support
for
the measures against these global
problems because
city inhabitants feel these problems on
their very skin
so i think local economy local politics
local communities
this is going to be the better and nice
new future
uh the building of which is one of the
topic of this conference so i think
locality has to play an important role
in this better future
okay thanks and we have got about a
minute and 10 seconds left so
i'm going to put each of the three of
you on the spot and ask you
to do a little pitch for your own city
in 15 20 seconds specifically telling
everybody externally what what your city
has done right
and how best to build back better from
the pandemic matush i'll put you on the
spot first
so what we did right right that's the
question uh
i mean it's always difficult to talk
about what we did right other people
should tell it
let's tell this but i'm sure we
we today bratislava is a city
uh which 50 percent of each citizen with
vaccine
we have more than 75 percent of our
elderly people
also vaccinated we did a campaign we did
two campaign
and i think we did it right uh the first
one was the
the the our only vaccine is discipline
the second
one is uh it's the time to hack again
of course and now we're doing a campaign
for vaccination which is important we
maintain a good level of communication
we were able to manage
the crisis for the citizen who
we are taking care of of this group
people i i talk
already before and uh we what we do
what is what is new for us that we uh
make a new relationship with private
businesses
with big private businesses for ikea at
one of the biggest slovak banks
and and we're building uh on it and we
continue to co
cooperate with them thank you thank you
we're now stealing time so vit i'm gonna
have to just uh
get you to give us one sentence as
opposed to 15 seconds and same for you
okay the most important thing was the
community encouragement
it was the biggest success okay thank
you and good yeah
this is an open frank
uh communication that considered the
citizens as
adults and included them so
participative and inclusion population
which is very important in the crisis i
think we did this right
although we also probably made mistakes
as well thank you very much and i very
much like that our
discipline is our only vaccine that's uh
it's a great phrase
so thank you not anymore yeah now we
have a real vaccine but thank you the
three of you
for your time on this panel i hope
everybody enjoyed it and i'm sorry we
couldn't take more questions
uh in just a moment we will go straight
into our next session that's radislav
danilak from tachyum
we'll talk about a new processor they
say is so powerful it'll revolutionize
ai
let's have a look at that you most
likely have a phone
you