Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign the City the Baba 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 am your host Tamlin Shimizu and I hope you will enjoy this episode and gain knowledge and connections to accelerate the change for a better urban life.
Smart in the City is brought to you by Babel Smart Cities. We enable processes from research and strategy development to co creation and implementation. To learn more about us, please visit the Babel platform at babel-smartcities eu.
So thank you all for tuning in again today to another episode of Smart in the City. I am at the RethinkCity summit, so of course I have to give a deep thank you to start us off to the organizers for allowing us to record here with some great, great speakers. Now the conversation that we're going to have today is following up on a conversation some of you might already remember. It wasn't with me though, it was with my colleague Alex, and I really love inviting some return guests, especially ones that are such great speakers, have so many interesting topics and are from really up and coming cities like this one.
And you've been really present across European front recently in a lot of discussion. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to Adam Pustonick. He's the first Deputy Mayor of Lodz in Poland.
Welcome back.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: It's lovely to be here with you.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Lovely to have you. We also got the chance to really catch up a lot actually at dinner last night and I really enjoyed that conversation already. So I love that.
[00:01:54] Speaker B: Especially regarding avocado.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: Yeah, we had some really great conversation last night. I said I was going to ask you some some interesting questions on the podcast today. I prom promise I won't do that. Instead, we're going to dive right into some of our topics that we brought for you today.
Now you might remember that we'd like to start off with a bit of a teaser question, get warmed up into the flow of things.
Alex asked you last time to describe would in three words.
Would in three words. It's hard to say.
And you chose vibrant, turbulent and not obvious as your words.
Four words, but you know I won't criticize you on that one.
Do those still feel right for you? Now? It's been at least probably half a year or so since you sat down with him. Do those words still resonate with you or do you have different words?
[00:02:51] Speaker B: I think I could substitute vibrant for future, but the rest of them are still relevant.
[00:02:59] Speaker A: Okay, why do you make that substitution?
[00:03:02] Speaker B: Because I simply think that future is more relevant. Vibrant is like innovation. Everyone wants to be called with that name. It's too common for the extravagance of the place. I have a privilege and honor to represent.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: And now you're very much future oriented, looking towards improved quality of life. You told me actually a little bit.
[00:03:26] Speaker B: Yesterday, maybe even sometimes preserve.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: Preserve quality of life in these turbulent times. Right?
[00:03:33] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:03:33] Speaker A: Yeah, sounds good.
Okay, so diving right in.
If you want to learn more about him, of course, go back to the previous episode, have a listen. We'll link to that in the show notes.
But basically, in Berlin you spoke about some of your priorities.
Tackling urban sprawl, reindustrialization, bringing rivers back into the city.
What has moved forward on some of these since we last heard from you?
[00:04:00] Speaker B: Actually, quite a lot.
[00:04:02] Speaker A: Good to hear.
[00:04:03] Speaker B: Maybe it would be good at some point to like we did this year with Urban Future, to do something similar, to show to people from outside what we managed to achieve besides some interactive narratives.
The river that we spoke about, it's going to be in the city center. I mean, it won't be as spectacular as Hudson river or some of the most important, recognizable, nice and spectacular rivers in Europe, but it will be something really spectacular from our perspective, because in a city center, we are uncovering, you know, one of the historic rivers on a relatively short distance because there will be not even one kilometer, but in the. In the very heart of the city.
So it's. It's something that costs us a lot of money and a lot of effort. And it was also so obvious from the political perspective, because many people were thinking, what does this guy want? I mean, we have so many more urgent needs than the river in the city center. But I am fully convinced, and I'll stick to my values, that this will be one of the most important projects for the city center dynamics in the years to come. And it will be ready next year. We already started digging, so there are many people who are doing the construction works and kind of, you know, six to nine months time it will be ready. But you or you can already see the works and with the big industrial zones. When we spoke, they were visualizations, some slides that I was showing to people, tried to convince the markets, tried to show people the potential of the place basing on, you know, on kind of a vision of the future.
And many people believed us. So I already owned huge amounts of lands, hundreds of hectares, hundreds of thousands of square meters. You see construction, growing factories you know, growing industrial parks. And for a place that still needs to rebuild its economic base, it's. It's really important.
With the urban sprawl, I have less spectacular successes because there you can see the results of your work in a long time, long perspective. The short one you mostly prevent people from.
You take away possibilities of building and consuming their own lands.
So what you experience is mostly political consequences and quite serious social unhappiness.
But I believe that in long term it will be one of the most important moves in political decisions that we have made.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: Thanks for the update. Really interesting.
I'm a big believer in having water in cities. There's actually a lot of psychological studies as well that show that if you're around water during your everyday commute or everyday life, that you have a heightened sense of peace and happiness in your life. So hopefully your residents also feel that from the river. I always want to live in a place that has a river or piece of water near it. That's just who I am. So I hope that's also brings your residents some of that peace and happiness as well.
So. Which has been getting a lot of attention also, you've been really raising the bar on really showing people and telling people what wood is doing in development. Your investment efforts. Have you noticed any concrete results or new opportunities coming out of this recognition?
[00:08:03] Speaker B: Yes and no.
There come a lot of initiatives like Urban Future, or as a result of this kind of drawing the attention of this kind of community, but it's not that suddenly hundreds of millions of euros will appear on some project.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: That would be great, right?
[00:08:27] Speaker B: That would be great.
But they were not even our expectations. We just wanted to draw attention on many level on some elements that we do. Because we are not London, we're not Vienna, we are not Paris, that everyone in the world, no matter if you're in Australia or Alaska, everyone knows those cities. Barcelona, Rome, Paris, London, if you're like us, if you're like Stuttgart, if you are like Birmingham, if you were like Lille, if you're like Liege, you have to do a lot of work to show that you're on the map. And it brings results. Sometimes even, you know, in long term.
There are a lot of people in communities that deal with cities or around cities who do a lot of projects, who have magnificent ideas. And a lot of ideas and a lot of projects have come back to us, you know, as a result of this kind of a marketing offensive, if you can say it like that. But it's a different type of gain than kind of infrastructural or more industrial investments.
[00:09:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm working a lot in the topic of urban identity and how that can accelerate innovation. So I'm really excited to see how your work on that front can accelerate innovation and also attract investment. So we'll be following along closely definitely in the coming years.
So you had a topic that you brought to the summit that you spoke about, I think mostly around green transformation. I unfortunately was doing another, or fortunately I was doing another podcast recording, so I didn't catch it, but I want you to tell me about it now. What did you talk about and yeah, tell the listeners kind of your approach there today. Yes, today, today.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: Paradoxically, I was optimistic, but at the first sight you could think it differently.
I was most intrigued.
I was mostly speaking about kind of obstacles and what are the challenges that we have to mitigate or think about.
And in my opinion, I'm quite deeply convinced to this opinion, the major obstacles in terms of kind of sustainability and making the cities more livable to take care of the nature of the environment.
So the major obstacles are political.
[00:11:06] Speaker A: So from your viewpoint, is there any solution then or what's missing to kind of push the political needle?
[00:11:17] Speaker B: You know, it's not. I have a very clear set of all ideas and solutions to the issues of the current political debate.
I hope I had this knowledge, but I don't. The things I'm convinced about is for us in leadership positions, for the world of academia, for the center element of the political spectrum is to finally and truly and genuinely become aware of the fact that we live in bubbles, big city middle class or upper middle class bubbles of people who are convinced that the entire world thinks like them or that what we think is right is the common feeling.
No. And in current political situation where you, when there are alternative right movements who question, oftenly they question climate change, they question a need of setting sustainability or, or focus on the environment in the center of political agenda, they, they said it's wrong, they have a different idea. I'm not, you know, we're not going to discuss if it's good or bad, but it's a fact.
It's a fact. And if, if you want to have a chance, tools and resources to implement and to push forward your political agenda, you need to have support.
And right now, when you see that previously often extreme opinions like promoting the consumption of fossil fuels or coming back to the old ways, drill baby, drill agenda and stuff like that, and they're right now mainstream and many political forces in Europe, I'm not speaking in the state of Tennessee or South Carolina or Georgia or whatever. But I'm speaking in France, Germany, Great Britain, Poland, Norway.
They're becoming mainstream, such views and they want to tackle and reverse a lot of accomplishments of the so called liberals, centrists, social Democrats, leftists, because they said it's ideological. And if we want to succeed and not lose the fruits of our work, we need to. I think the first step is to acknowledge and take seriously the fact that what we thought in the administration and the EU institutions and the environments around us is a bubble, is a bubble. And it's oftenly detached or does not take into account the opinions of the huge parts of not only European but generally societies.
And in democracy, if you want to succeed, you have to win support for your ideas. You cannot just think that you're right.
[00:14:41] Speaker A: Yeah, we could go down such a long conversation with this. But thank you so much for, for your thoughts there.
I'd like to ask you as well. We're doing a little mini episode today, so we've already come to the time when I give you a little bit of the open floor. Is there a topic that you think is super important, a project or anything that you'd like to tell the listeners about today?
[00:15:05] Speaker B: You know, I think that uncovering the rivers and the reindustrialization elements, those two projects are the most spectacular ones that we do.
There is no one single project that I would like to say because we did not have like one element that would be a blockbuster, but a combination of reindustrialization, bringing up the rivers and you know, setting the last stage of revitalization of our city center after a difficult historic time, after the collapse of communism. I think those are elements of historic gravity and really extraordinary scale. And if someone would like to see how you can rise from the ashes, City of Wood, Central Poland is a good place to visit.
[00:16:02] Speaker A: Absolutely. I've been now, so I think the last time I was interviewing your, your colleague Anna and I, I was at Urban Future in Rotterdam, I believe, and I hadn't yet been to which I just learned she taught me how to say it as well. I probably mispronounce it already a couple times on that podcast. Now I know how to say it. Now I have visited, now I want to come back.
So would love to come back sometime.
[00:16:27] Speaker B: You're always in.
[00:16:28] Speaker A: Thank you.
Now we get to our fun segment and the segment I have for you today is called Inspire Us.
Inspire Us just a little bit with a story, a quote, or anything that has inspired you recently.
I think you Already said some inspiration. But I want to ask you, have you been inspired by something recently, like a quote, a story, anything that has inspired you recently that you'd like to share?
[00:17:03] Speaker B: I think that a source of inspiration to me in recent times was a book of Barack Obama.
I had the Polish interpretation, so it's called Jimi Albietzana. I think that the most precise translation is Promised Land.
[00:17:25] Speaker A: Mm.
[00:17:26] Speaker B: It's basically Barak's story, how he rose to the position from which we all know him.
And it's not.
It's not some idyllic, idealistic story that's supposed to fit in into all the narratives.
So he doesn't tell us what we want to hear, but it's a pretty conscious story.
A conscious story and de. Romantized, but on the other hand, very honest and someone who managed to push some agendas and to reach what he reached against literally all the odds.
It's a huge source for inspiration to me that despite the fact that the wind does not always blow in the direction in which you would like to, you always have to keep moving forward. And I think in politics, but not only in many spheres, determination is by far the most important feature.
[00:18:41] Speaker A: Thank you for inspiring us a little bit then today.
Now we come to the final question, and it is the question we ask every single guest. You might remember it.
It's to you. What is a smart city? And I just want to remind you of your answer last time, because I'm guessing it's not directly in your head.
When you spoke to Alex in Berlin, you said it was about making cities simpler, more intuitive, and more convenient for citizens.
Has anything happened where your view has changed on that since then, and would you still define it in the same way today?
[00:19:15] Speaker B: You know, paradoxically, I'm a very.
I'm a very traditional person, and I don't change my views that often. I've had one wife since almost 20 years.
I'm in one political party. I support the same football club. So. And I don't change my views too oftenly. So I think, yes, I think that I would. I would still keep those words. That smart city is about making the life in a city easier, simpler, more intuitive, more pleasant and more convenient or more relevant. And so it's simplifying the reality.
[00:19:57] Speaker A: I love it. So thank you, Adam, for taking the time coming on with me. It was great to catch up with you here in person in the beautiful city of Sonderborg.
[00:20:05] Speaker B: It's wonderful.
[00:20:05] Speaker A: Yeah, it's amazing here. Definitely have to recommend also everyone to come here. Thank you again to the organizers and thank you to you, Adam.
[00:20:13] Speaker B: Thank you to you as well. Thank you to our audience and thank you for the organizers. The place is a little Nordic paradise.
[00:20:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I need to come back here also soon again. Definitely next summer.
And yes, I also have to give a big thank you to our listeners. None of this would happen also without you. Don't forget, you can always create a free account on Baba SmartCities, EU. You can find out about projects, people, solutions, implementations and more. Thank you very much.
[00:20:42] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:20:44] Speaker A: Thank you all for listening. I'll see you at the next stop on the journey to a better urban life.
