Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Tamlyn Shimizu: Welcome to Smart in the City, the BABLE podcast, where we bring together top actors in the smart city arena, sparking dialogues and interactions around the stakeholders and themes most prevalent for today's citizens and tomorrow's generations. I'm your host,Tamlyn Shimizu, and I hope you'll enjoy this episode and gain knowledge and connections to accelerate the change for a better urban life.
So I am here with you today from Urban Future Conference in W, Poland. It's one of my favorite events every year and we are partnering with the organizers once again to interview top experts in the field from their event.
So thank you so much to Urban Future, first and foremost, for having me here again this year, facilitating mini sessions and meeting amazing people. Just like my guest sitting across from me today.
His name is Marco Buemi, as he is the senior expert and project manager at Verona Municipality in Italy. Welcome, Marco.
[00:00:56] Marco Buemi: Thank you very much.
[00:00:58] Tamlyn Shimizu: It's a pleasure to have you. I'm really excited to dig into your work and your perspectives on all of these interesting topics. But before we get started on that, I like to warm up a bit.
And so the little teaser question I have for you today is if Verona were an animal, which animal would it be and why?
[00:01:17] Marco Buemi: Okay. These nice questions can characterize a lot the city of Verona.
I will answer the mastiff that is a dog. He's an allergic and faithful dog.
This dog is big and strong, with an imposing physical presence usually and is also a calm and loyal character. And why I say the mastiff? Because has been one of the symbols of verona since the 13th century, when the government of the city was alternate between the lords of La Scala. La Scala was a health family that created Verona.
Can Grande de La Scala was the creator of the city of Verona. And the symbol was exactly the mastiff.
So this symbol you can also find in the logo of Ella S Verona, the football club, as two mastiff one opposite the other one. And in the middle there is the La Scala. That is the. The stars. Don't know. So the stars with the two mastiffs that symbolize also the character of the Verona city.
[00:02:34] Tamlyn Shimizu: Ah, cool. I. I love dogs. I'm a huge dog fan. I grew up with so many dogs. I have a dog now. Do you have a mastiff?
[00:02:42] Marco Buemi: No, actually I don't. It's a big one. I live in an apartment, so it's.
[00:02:46] Tamlyn Shimizu: It's a quite big one.
Yeah, exact.
[00:02:49] Marco Buemi: Even if it's calm, it's loyal. Can be also aggressive. If they touch the owner and touch the case, you know, I receive it.
[00:02:59] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, sounds good. I want to learn a little bit more about you as a person too. So can you tell me a bit more about what is your background? Where did you come from? How did you end up in this role and in this topic today?
[00:03:12] Marco Buemi: Yeah, my background I studied between Bologna University, that is the oldest university in the world, and Stockholm University.
I was starting as an exchange students and then I stayed over one year more. So totally I stayed two years there in the Stockholm University and then I wrote my final thesis or on welfare policies.
Sweden as a model, as many knows. I mean, Sweden has been a model since years as a. As a welfare state model.
And after this I started to work with the Ombudsman against Discrimination in the human rights field in the Swedish government, so under the Ministry for Equal Opportunities.
And I worked there for two years.
Then a ministry from Italy asked me if I wanted to come back to the country to start up the office.
This office has been implementing during the EU directive and also Italy was implementing the office and I was, you know, experiencing, you know, probably the only talent that was experien this. This path. And so I came back to Italy and supposing to stay one year there. And yeah, and then I stayed, you know, even now I'm still there and I start up with the office there.
And then I started to realize that my field was not only to work in the human rights, but also in sustainable development for the cities. That's why I stepped into, you know, the urban development and sustainable urban development. And I tried to connect the human rights of social inclusion, social innovation with the regeneration of cities. Okay. So also the project that I will talk about is about this, you know, try to have this links between the two cross cutting times.
[00:05:28] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, I can imagine your background in equity really lends its hand in these types of projects. I want to go straight into the project. It's called Regen, right?
[00:05:38] Marco Buemi: Yes.
[00:05:39] Tamlyn Shimizu: And it's around reimagining public spaces through international collaboration.
Can you share the core vision behind Regen and some tangible outcomes from the implementation so far?
[00:05:50] Marco Buemi: Yeah, I start from the name Regen. Talk about regeneration, but talk about also generations, young generations.
Because we wanted to have a participative project from bottom up.
So with involvement of the youngsters from 10 to 18 years old.
And the project, it aims to support sustainable urban and social inclusion.
Thanks also to the protagonism of the secondary schools, students from disadvantaged backgrounds. And that comes, you know, the. The social inclusion part as well.
What we wanted to involve them was to involve them in the transformation of abandoned public areas can be a park, but can be also an overpass, or can be streets, or can be square into urban sports hub. Why, why we choose a sports hub? Because in the city usually I travel a lot for my work and I usually. I usually notice that in the city there is not enough space for youngsters to practice sports.
Not the classics one, you know, like football, volleyball, basketball, that you usually pay for participating in a club, but in the streets. So the street sports.
But I wanted also to highlight street sports because in 2024, five street sports were added in the Olympic Games and that I realized that in the next Olympic Games that's Verona together with Milan. So Milano, Cortina and Verona will, will organize in February 2026.
I wanted to highlight the importance of street sports and the importance to public spaces for youngsters. Also to take them off from gangs, from, you know, from, from, you know, particularly problems inside the neighborhoods that usually involve youngsters when bored. They don't know what to do and they are not engaged in something. And sports is always a social inclusion, you know, a social inclusion, a path to get in, in the social inclusion perspective and, and, and to better also the. The area and the neighborhood.
[00:08:30] Tamlyn Shimizu: And health. Right. The health outcomes are also really important to notice.
[00:08:35] Marco Buemi: Delta is really connected to this project as well because we want to work with tactical urbanism and inclusion of green and gender with criterion architectures.
AALTA is also part of this because youngsters usually are not aware about how sports and health are really connected with each other and, and with Internet, with telephones, you know, this part usually is really not developed.
So the importance of sport is totally connected with the importance of healthy food, but also healthy lifestyle. Because if you move your body also you can burn calories, but you can also be involved in an approach, sustainable approach of the neighborhood.
[00:09:39] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, absolutely.
I want to get more into kind of the people aspect and the participatory. But first, just to understand where are you at in the project?
Have you already seen some outcomes from the project implementations? Just to show kind of the timeline on what we're talking about.
[00:09:58] Marco Buemi: Yes, we are almost at the end of the project, actually. We have six months to spend more to finish the project.
So we have been developing very interesting parts of the project. We have good outputs and deliverables already through the project.
And the project talk about tactical urbanism, as I mentioned, is a core of the project. Because tactical urbanism is a low cost, short term approach to neighborhood building and activation, using a quicker scalable intervention to create long Term changes in public spaces.
And usually youngsters don't approach this methodology because to approach this methodology you have to be accompanied by architects or urban planners. So in our project we have several of urban planners and architects, but also social inclusion activists that can help, you know, the approach of the tactical urbanism. I came back, I mean, I just finished.
It was last Sunday, the second sport festival in a park was really successful. A lot of kids and a lot of youngsters were participating with trying several street sports like street basket, parkour and skateboarding.
And on last Sunday, actually we regenerated an abandoned area in a critical neighborhood is the. Is situated in the southern part of the city.
It's called Borgoroma. And the area and we painted all, you know, the parking in a. In a. In a perspective to regenerate the area, to keep the area lively. And the, the colors and the painting that we add there with the help of the kids made this approach, you know, also for the citizens that were just showing us a painting. They just came down from, you know, from, from the. The apartments and helped us, you know, to paint also their own area. And this is approach that I like very much because you work for your own area and usually if you don't push this, you know, these, this concept among the citizens. The citizens, they don't do much.
[00:12:47] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah.
[00:12:48] Marco Buemi: And this I think is a very participative approach. The tactical urbanism. You build the area through, you know, low cost and quick interventions.
[00:12:59] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, absolutely. And with involving young people in this planning, what methods have you found have been most effective with involving.
Can you expand upon what you were already starting to talk about?
Yeah. How do you really get them involved?
[00:13:16] Marco Buemi: Yeah. This is very interesting because the process has not been easy because you must first enthusiasm them to the approach, explain them about urban generation regeneration issues, try to make them, you know, part of the. Of the project immediately.
It took us probably six months to get in. In the school.
First of all, we.
We ask the association, sports association to come with us.
And, and bro, they brought, you know, the, the skateboarding, they brought to the parkour, you know, cubes, they. They brought the balls for the. The street basketball. And then. And, and we. We tried to involve the. The youngsters through participating and trying the. These new sports. Okay. For many of them it was the first time, you know, to use, you know, the skateboard, for example, or to jump in a parkour, you know, Cuba or whatever.
And this was a practical approach to enthusiasm them and to have their immediate feedback what they would like to do in the area that we choose as a regeneration area. The second approach, and that I think was the really important approach was to get in the school, in the secondary school, with youngsters from 17 to 18 years old that are more mature about this approach.
We work with them for classes, two hours every, every week to explain all the different phases of the project, to give them ideas together with architects and social inclusion experts, because there is a social part also included in the project. And then we organize a final hackathon that was really successful, you know, with where they put their ideas in a pitch and they present the pitch during the akaton. The pitch could be a pitch that we will use to regenerate the area. So through the pitch you can see, you know, a lot of ideas from them. And yeah, that is the best part.
[00:15:52] Tamlyn Shimizu: And you. And you saw a lot of excitement with the youth. Like a lot of, like they really wanted to engage or how was your impression?
[00:15:59] Marco Buemi: Yes, my pressure was really. I was amazed about how youngsters can be part of the process.
But they don't want just to give you an idea. They wanted this idea will be implemented and they ask for this pushing from the municipality to implement their ideas. So it's not just. Okay, it's an exercise. It's not just an exercise, is really a pitch that they want to realize.
Lively, you know?
[00:16:33] Tamlyn Shimizu: Absolutely. Yeah, I know. That's really encouraging to hear. I think it's clear that we start from a people approach and a participatory approach.
Now I want to talk a little bit more about the space, the place itself, itself, on transforming these abandoned areas. So we're sitting in Poland and there's a lot of amazing. We're sitting in a beautiful area that's been totally revitalized, also from an old textile manufacturing hub.
But there are still many abandoned buildings across Europe, European cities. Right.
So how.
How do we strategize, how do we build effective strategies to transform these areas?
[00:17:13] Marco Buemi: Yeah, but the area where we are also in Verona, but I think there are similar with areas here that I saw in. In loads are degradated, are abandoned, and there is no participation of citizens. So I think everything starts from the citizens, because the citizens, they know exactly much about the area.
They know the history of the area, what can be regenerate, but also what you can keep as it was, you know, because there are. You have to consider that there are. There is an historical, you know, path also in this. You cannot, you know, regenerate without to think about the historical, you know, the story of the. Of the Area.
And you have to take into consideration from day one, you cannot, you know, pretend an idea or the involvement, you know, after, you know, one year or six months from the project. Yeah, because they, they will, they will feel apart and they will feel not involved in the. In the project, but they will feel only that they will jump just to give you an idea and then, and then they won't be considered anymore.
So I think the strategy is the involvement of the citizens through, you know, a participatory process.
And there are a lot of, you know, strategies around these.
For me, the hackathon worked really much because in the hackathon you can really have for a long time the people to, you know, express themselves to be, be able and have the time to, you know, put something concrete on paper or in a. In a pitch.
[00:19:26] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, absolutely.
Let's talk about the money aspect now with the Regen project that was European financing.
But of course there's many other different ways that we need to utilize different mechanisms to revitalize these places to push forward on these community projects. So how do you think that cities can attract and manage better public private investments or other different mechanisms to.
To be able to push forward on these projects?
[00:19:58] Marco Buemi: Yes, everyone, I think is a concrete example how we approach this.
Because of course the money are not enough to have a concrete results Usually.
One of the area decided for the urban intervention. We have a couple of urban intervention in Verona is an overpass close to the International Verona fair. So it's a very famous interpass overpass where is it was a degradated area for many years, where also homeless were sleeping.
But then started to be a very crucial area because there. There is the entrance of the general warehouses.
And there have been a lot of interventions in that specific area.
And one company specifically that work is an electronical company investing in fast electric recharging for cars.
They were interested to open a recharging area exactly in that point.
So they contacted them the municipality and the municipality gave me the contact, I mean, the deputy mayor, so I work in collaboration with them, gave me immediately their contacts to see which kind of partnership public privates could.
Could born from. From this and was successful. Actually we are in the phase now that we are deciding to. To build a street sport area under the overpass. And they will donate money because they wanted to regenerate and they are interested to regenerate the area because they cannot accept as it is now because it's degradated. So we are thinking to have, you know, like a Morales there graffiti. We Are thinking to put lighting, a lighting system that can overlooked and can be the secure area we can talk about. Also ramps for skateboarding, probably a street basket as well can can be can be done in that area. So from now starting this collaboration, private, public collaboration for the regeneration of the area. So I think for this kind of projects it usually has no much money to. For intervention everywhere with the structures as well.
The. The private can be a really boost for the. For the project.
[00:22:43] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, absolutely. So with regeneration, sometimes that also goes hand in hand a little bit with gentrification, perhaps with, you know, when you transform areas and you make them beautiful, they're more attractive for wealthier families to come in. It also makes it perhaps a place for tourists and maybe those local communities that were originally in the neighborhoods are pushed out. This is a challenge that we have. Right. With regenerating areas.
[00:23:13] Marco Buemi: Yes.
[00:23:14] Tamlyn Shimizu: How do you see this and how do you ensure that when you're doing these gen regeneration projects that you have the local community in mind?
[00:23:23] Marco Buemi: I think when. When you put as a particular.
In a particular position, important position, the local community, this gentrification process cannot be done and cannot exist because the local community make things much better than private investors. That may be they regenerate the areas with a perspective or make money, make money, make profits.
But the local community, the aims of the. The local community is not to make money mature regenerated in a good way for themselves.
So when there is this discussion with the local community, usually the gentrification process doesn't exist anymore.
[00:24:15] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, yeah, no good point. So starting from. From that aspect.
So I know with this project also almost being finished, you also aim to transfer this knowledge to other cities.
What mechanisms are in place to really ensure that you're getting those best practices out there. And yeah, how are you kind of transferring this knowledge?
[00:24:37] Marco Buemi: Yeah, I think it was through podcasts.
[00:24:40] Tamlyn Shimizu: Right.
[00:24:42] Marco Buemi: Really interesting.
And first of all, I made a contact.
We made a contact. The city of Verona organized a study visit to Paris. We have this collaboration with the Grand Metropolitan Paris through European Urban Initiative Program. There is a city to city, city to city call for proposal. You can apply and you can transfer or can be transferred by another city. So we thought that the experience of the how the Grand Metropolitan Paris organized the Olympic Games in the gradated area and in the neighbors in what is called ballet in French was really interesting for us. So we've been three full day just to study their processes, their involvement with the citizens, to try to get more ideas and to organize also our events during the Sports Olympic Games better.
And then I made a collaboration also with Extreme Days Festival, that is a festival of urban street sports, where an entire city that is called Sachila will close all the city to organize a very big urban street festival with champions that will come there. Olympic champions, but also with local people. They want to try several urban street sports, you know, from Slackline to, you know, to. To climbing to skateboard, BMX and what. Whatever. That is considered a street sport.
And the. The interesting part, and the interesting collaboration is to work also there with youngsters.
So I asked them to organize a workshop with the youngsters together with. With an artist to make a morale.
And the day during the. The streets festival that will be not this weekend, but next one.
So we had this workshop during May and then we realized that the. The painting during the. The festival. So I will be there and with them and to address also.
[00:27:26] Tamlyn Shimizu: Sounds fun.
[00:27:27] Marco Buemi: Yeah, it will be really fun.
[00:27:29] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah. Cool.
And in more general terms, I also like to ask, Ask for Verona. What tools do you feel like are really missing in the city to accelerate the changes that you're trying to push forward? So it could be funding, for example, but I don't know if you have other ideas, but you feel like you.
[00:27:48] Marco Buemi: Really need funding for sure. Is the. The biggest problem.
[00:27:51] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah.
[00:27:52] Marco Buemi: And that's why we are trying to apply for more funding.
Because gave us their perspective and that they're challenging to have something concrete to do.
But also their transnational part is very important.
And they. With this major. I mean, we are working a lot with the transnationality and to make, you know, these international, you know, aspects and collaboration with other cities all around Europe.
Also we. We should have procedure, accelerating the procedure for the investments to. To be able to spend the money quickly. Because usually it's not just about funding, but also it's just also about how you spend the money.
[00:28:45] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah.
[00:28:45] Marco Buemi: And how quick you are to spend the money to take actions. Okay. Because sometimes you are really slow and you lose the possibility to spend the money. So I would like really to quicker the process, the bureaucratic process to spend the money.
And everything can be done in the quicker way.
[00:29:06] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, absolutely. I think so often we see cities will say there's not enough funding, but they're not actually able to capitalize on the funding that they do have fast enough. Right. So it's this parallel problem. Yeah, exactly.
Now, we talked about a lot of things and I really, really love your insights into this project.
I'd like to ask you if there's anything that we missed this Is the open floor that we can give you. It's if you think that there's a really important topic that we didn't yet get the chance to talk about. Do you have anything?
[00:29:40] Marco Buemi: We talk about a lot of things.
I think all the projects that have this cross cutting aspects are really crucial, important nowadays.
If you can put in every project the greener part, the social inclusion, social innovation part and the gender part that I think is very important in every project you do together also with the process of digitalization because it's an important process.
I think you will have, you realize a really concrete and profitable project and successful for sure projects. So keep in mind also these three, four aspects and put together and try to put together when you apply, when you apply for a project or when you work in a concrete project.
[00:30:34] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, good advice.
With that we get to go into our fun segment and the segment that I have for you today is one called Top or Flop. It's where you respond quickly with your positive or negative review on a variety of topics. Are you ready?
[00:30:50] Marco Buemi: Yes.
[00:30:51] Tamlyn Shimizu: Okay, let's do it. Pop up. Urban gardens and city centers.
[00:30:56] Marco Buemi: Top.
[00:30:57] Tamlyn Shimizu: Top. Okay. Electric scooters for last mile mobility can be top. Yeah. Okay.
Urban art installations as tools for regeneration.
[00:31:08] Marco Buemi: A very top.
[00:31:09] Tamlyn Shimizu: Car free city zones.
[00:31:11] Marco Buemi: Super. Top.
[00:31:13] Tamlyn Shimizu: Vertical farming in abandoned buildings.
[00:31:15] Marco Buemi: Oh really? Top. Yeah.
[00:31:17] Tamlyn Shimizu: Dynamic road pricing for traffic reduction.
[00:31:20] Marco Buemi: Top.
[00:31:22] Tamlyn Shimizu: AI powered surveillance for public safety.
[00:31:26] Marco Buemi: It can be flop.
[00:31:29] Tamlyn Shimizu: Privatized public space.
[00:31:31] Marco Buemi: Flop.
[00:31:33] Tamlyn Shimizu: Smart benches.
[00:31:35] Marco Buemi: Top.
[00:31:35] Tamlyn Shimizu: Copy Paste urbanism.
[00:31:38] Marco Buemi: Flop.
[00:31:38] Tamlyn Shimizu: Okay, good.
Do you want to explain any of your answers? No, I think it's self explanatory.
[00:31:45] Marco Buemi: Yeah, I think it's self explanatory. But I want to highlight something that I usually talk about a lot when I go around.
I usually see people that are complaining for why the majors or the cities decide to close and to make pedestrian. Certain areas always complain about we don't have any more place to park the cars. We don't have. We cannot anymore go directly to that shop. And I always, you know, fight for this and saying, you know, this is the only way to have a livable cities, greener cities and net zero cities.
And yes, I want just to highlight this really fundamental for me concept of the city.
[00:32:37] Tamlyn Shimizu: I completely agree. I think we have a communication problem with it. I actually hate this phrasing that I put in here which is car free.
Because car free naturally gets people a little bit riled up. I feel like when you say that I really like to put the business case on, oh this, you know, a pedestrian or like walking friendly places is really good for local business and to bring it back to the economy because then that speaks the language for everyone as well. So just to also throw that out.
[00:33:08] Marco Buemi: Exactly. Research say. Exactly. So that if you have a pedestrian. Cities, pedestrians, areas, and, you know, the commercial, it will increase.
[00:33:16] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah.
[00:33:17] Marco Buemi: And the. The area will be less polluted.
[00:33:21] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah.
[00:33:21] Marco Buemi: There is a reduction of, you know, CO2 emissions.
And. And the people will be. Will feel better, you know, because it's a little more vibrant. Vibrant.
[00:33:33] Tamlyn Shimizu: Nice.
[00:33:33] Marco Buemi: And you can organize, you know, festival. You can organize, you know, events. People can be more engaged, you know, than, you know, park on the sidewalk or in the second lines, you know, that make people crazy and make people fighting a lot for a park, you know.
[00:33:52] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, absolutely.
Completely in agreement.
Now, it's the final question. It's a question we ask every single guest that comes onto the podcast and it is to you. What is a smart city?
[00:34:06] Marco Buemi: A smart city is a place where people feel considered, that their needs feel considered.
It's not about a process of digitalization that usually people think about smart city in digital approach, but it's a city that consider every diversity.
So disabled people with a gender perspective that work for social inclusion in a neighborhood where there is a criticism of migrants that live there, for example, is a place where really all the needs are taken into account.
And in this way, I can be smart for who is planning the city, but also smart for who is leaving the city.
[00:35:06] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, I really like that first sentence that you said. It's where everybody feels considered and I'd like to end it on that. So thank you very much for. For coming on. It was really interesting to learn all about it and I. I'm sure our listeners will also be very intrigued to learn more. So also thank you to all of our listeners too for coming on.
Yeah, thank you.
[00:35:28] Marco Buemi: Thank you. Thank you very, very much for inviting me.
[00:35:31] Tamlyn Shimizu: Absolutely. Anytime. Welcome back too.
And of course, to all of our listeners. Thank you. And don't forget, you can always create a free account on BABLE-SmartCities EU. You can find out a lot more about different projects, initiatives, solutions, implementations, and more. Thank you very much.
[00:35:47] Marco Buemi: Thank you, BABLE.
