Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] 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 am your host, Tamlyn 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 BABLE Smart Cities. We enable processes from research and strategy development to co creation and implementation. To learn more about us, please visit the BABLE platform@BABLE SmartCities EU.
Welcome back to another episode of Smart in the City, everyone. This is a special episode hosted by one of my colleagues. This time hosted by our CEO and founder, Alexander Schmidt. I hope you enjoy the change in voice and pace and I will catch you next time.
[00:01:02] Alexander Schmidt: Welcome to Smart in the City. We're continuing the exploration today on scaling smart solutions across regions, neighborhoods and buildings. We're recording from the Neext Future Summit at Motorwerk in Berlin. Today we are sitting in a lovely tiny house and here in this fair, experts and decision makers are moving from talk to action to tackle urban challenges with real world solutions. We're excited to welcome back a city that we've already talked about in the podcast. If you recall, the city of Lodz in Poland.
[00:01:31] Adam Pustelnik: Perfect pronunciation.
[00:01:33] Alexander Schmidt: Thank you for that. I did have to test that for a bit last time. We discussed how the city is rising from its industrial past, tackling climate issues, focusing on sustainable growth with Anna and the director of the City of Lodz. If you missed this episode, I strongly recommend you go back and listen to it. We'll link it in the notes. Today. I'm very, very happy to have Adam here, Adam Pustelnik, who is the mayor of the city of which we will be driving deeper into those initiatives. And thanks for joining us and welcome in Berlin.
[00:02:06] Adam Pustelnik: Wonderful to see you here. It's a great venue and it's a pleasure and honor at the same time for me to be here with you today.
[00:02:14] Alexander Schmidt: And an honor certainly ours, Adam. We are sitting here in, let's say, maybe like five and a half square meters, a house right outside the ven venue. Ever been in a tiny house before?
[00:02:25] Adam Pustelnik: Yeah. You know, in my previous job I used to frequently visit Hong Kong and Singapore, and actually many of my friends from that part of the world lived in spaces not radically bigger than this place. So I'm kind of used to that. And it even has some advantages. It's cozy.
[00:02:48] Alexander Schmidt: It is cozy, right? That's the word. That is a brilliant English worker. I love that a lot. Let's start into driving into to which if you would describe your town in just three words, how would you describe it?
[00:03:02] Adam Pustelnik: Vibrant, Turbulent.
Not obvious.
[00:03:09] Alexander Schmidt: Okay, okay, okay. Very interesting. I like to go deeper into those. And we'll get to that in just a minute. Maybe you can tell us a bit more about your own background and what led you to your current role of deputy mayor. We have listeners that are certainly also looking for, let's say, jobs in a career in public sector. So maybe you want to share a little bit of how you got where you are today.
[00:03:34] Adam Pustelnik: To be fully honest, when I was young, I thought that you can carefully plan your career and go from episode to episode and just tick the box.
And when I got fascinated with politics and you know, I got contaminated with this political virus, I learned that the crucial aspect is luck and coincidence.
And actually just a coincidence brought me to this position where I am right now. And if I would say clearly, even though I love the job, I would not say for certain that it was a lucky choice. It was a fascinating choice. But if someone is looking for comfort, if someone is looking for wealth, for calm, good, balanced life, I don't think politics is the most obvious choice.
[00:04:44] Alexander Schmidt: So you weren't looking for that. So what's the good part about the job then? What's keeping you in the position?
[00:04:52] Adam Pustelnik: It's addictive. It's addictive and the addiction is the ability to change things, the ability to influence the world around you.
And it's not necessarily related or connected to power. Power is one of those elements. But in local government, you know, power has. Joe Biden has power, but here you have also power, but it's a totally different version. Nevertheless, you can see the results of your work. You can touch them and you can directly affect the reality around you. When someone tastes that. It's really hard to go back to a corporate job after you get contaminated with this virus.
[00:05:39] Alexander Schmidt: Let's talk about your corporate puzzle, maybe just about your education and what you did before going into politics, before being addicted, becoming addicted.
[00:05:52] Adam Pustelnik: You know, I was born and raised in dad. Germany in a Polish family who escaped communist Poland.
Later on. We came back to Poland in mid-90s. It was a pretty challenging time because Poland in mid-90s was. It was a pretty harsh experience. It was right after the collapse of communist driven economy. It was a pretty. When you compared it to Germany, it was a pretty radical difference.
And later on I went to high school in Texas, United States. My dad has sent me there without too long Notice he just bought me tickets and called me to a program or, you know, bought me a place in a program in US and he said that I'll once thank him for that. And he basically said, you're going for two years to Texas. And actually, from the perspective, I think it was one of the best choices that I've made in my life. I've made in my life.
I studied law and international relations.
Later on, I've done my executive education in Oxford.
I also graduated from Visigrad School of Political Studies, which was one of the Visigrad Fund initiatives for, let's say, young leaders. And my most recent educational endeavor is a leadership academy for Poland, Harvard driven program done by center of Leadership. Very useful experience, especially for people who think that they already know a lot. It, it brutally takes you out of this comfort zone. And before, before going to politics directly, before going to politics, I was for two years an executive director in Savols in Poland, which is our real estate advisory company.
[00:07:54] Alexander Schmidt: Okay, very interesting background. And then as you said, some coincidences brought you in, into politics, but you've been in this role for quite some time now, four years, and you're overseeing key development projects. It's not the first time we meet. It's also, I have a feeling that we're hearing a lot more about what's happening in which now.
So what surprised you the most in position and what did you expect or didn't you expect when you, when you started it?
[00:08:23] Adam Pustelnik: I think that the biggest surprise or sometimes disappointment is that how hard it is to transform words into action and how brutally true and relevant is this sentence, that it's easier said than done, especially in politics. You think that you have a good plan, you have good people around you, you have a strategy, you even know what you want to do. And later on, this entire political ecosystem that surrounds you is you see or you don't even see. You experience tens of blocks of blockades here. Voters in the constituency are protesting against something. Later on, the city council wants to block something. And you have this clash with your view that you want to do something good, you have a good idea, and later on comes this very brutal reality check. So I think this is the, this is the, this is the most severe and, you know, intensive lesson, but it's actually also a great school for someone, no matter what you, what you plan to do in future later on, to do business, to do academia, to do NGOs, to, to join politics. This, this unique experience of transferring words into action in a very harsh and Very hostile environment, which Polish politics is these days. But I think that's always similar, always and everywhere similar. It's a perfect lesson of, you know, durability, character and it verifies your views on the world.
[00:10:14] Alexander Schmidt: Wow. And that's super interesting to hear and a lot of learnings in there. But you did get quite some things done also in the time. Let's maybe start with something that you just posted yesterday. I think that the city won an award for being an investor friendly city, which is a prestigious award from the Prime Property. So the prime property prize in 2024. First of all, congratulations. Thanks to that. Share a little bit about the process to get there. What were the changes necessary? What do you also hope for as a city by winning that award?
[00:10:52] Adam Pustelnik: You know, we experienced a lot of failures, but we also got a lot of things done and very grateful for the people that surround me because really this is one of the keys to have people that you can rely on. People oftenly smarter and better than you and getting things done without them, without Anna, without Mateusz, without a lot of my colleagues, I would not do anything. Politics is the most teamwork that you can imagine, paradoxically.
And this award is especially important to me because VO central Poland and a lot of Polish cities are in a very different position than Paris, London, Berlin, Menschen, Stuttgart or Cologne or Frankfurt am Main. Because after the collapse of communism, we had to build a lot of things from scratch, rebuild the city. We didn't have powerful public sector, we didn't have a lot of.
We didn't have a lot of capital, we didn't have resources. So a lot of Polish revitalization and growth was. Was based on.
On private money where on foreign direct investment. Because simply there was no local money, there was no accumulated capital. Over the years, like in London, Paris or many other cities, we were starting from zero, based on entrepreneurship and very dependent on external capital. And especially city like mine, which is like.
It's very similar in structure to Baltimore, Cleveland, Birmingham, industrial areas after. Or Manchester industrial areas after transformation.
It's very important when you manage such city to be credible for the market to build your good image. Because you're not attractive indigenously. You're not like London, New York or Berlin where things are happening, you know, no matter what you do and entire world wants to invest or wants to be there. You have to build a story, a narrative. So when you get a prestigious award by popular vote of the investors, it's.
It's really important for the team that their job makes sense. It Builds up the team spirit and shows that this huge effort in building credibility and good image among the investors, which is very important to us, made sense.
[00:13:25] Alexander Schmidt: And that is just one of the initiatives and of the activities that you're running. If you look at the kind of challenges that Lodz faces and the plans that you still have, what are the most important challenges and how do you plan on tackling them?
[00:13:39] Adam Pustelnik: I think tackling the effects and stopping urban sprawl.
This is a huge challenge because Poland is a very challenging area from this perspective. Because Poland for many years did not have a coherent and effective public spatial planning tool.
Because there was a rule, a gap in the law that when you did not have a valid master plan, you could build basically anything, anywhere.
Polish economy for many years was very American in this, in this context and not always a positive context in this aspect.
And when we inherited the city, the current administration in 2010, the city was covered with master plans, I think 3, 3 or 3.5%. So basically when 96.5% of the city area you had fall free market, not necessarily in the, in the good way. And I assumed the office four years ago. And the results of the urban sprawl and the impact of cities economies future is huge. And this is my priority to still in the places where I can and where I have the tools to combat the effects of those last years to preserve the most valuable natural resources of the city. Because parks, forests, rivers are something that make the city vibrant, attractive. So everyone lose it. It's a game over. You kind of restore that. So that's why protecting those valuable areas is one of my priorities. Plus reindustrialization of the city. So combining sustainability with economic growth, because we're still at a stage where we have to grow.
And after these years of de industrialization, after the collapse of communism, we have to regain our economic stability and durability.
However, while industrializing and while spreading the economic growth, we cannot lose what's important and what makes the city vibrant and valuable and livable for the city, for the people.
[00:16:13] Alexander Schmidt: Wow. And there's lots of very interesting things that you just mentioned. Let's talk about the economic part in just a few minutes, but stay with the planning element because that's, you know, what we have seen also causing flood disasters, this kind of unsupervised sprawl of urbanism. And you did have significant floods in Poland as well, just very, very recently. Is there something, is there something very particular about the kind of combination of urban sprawl, natural disaster, climate change, where you have like plants that you are, that you are tackling, like opening up parks again, creating green blue infrastructures. They're like dedicated plans now in place for this after, you know, 15 years of, of change.
[00:17:00] Adam Pustelnik: Actually. I'm very happy that you touched this issue because there is a one of the biggest and Polish contemporary history floods going on in the south western parts of the country by the borders with Czech Republic, in Germany. Luckily for my area, central Poland.
We are pretty lucky from this perspective. And no significant floods had touched the city and this issue because of the fact that huge rivers are not going through the city.
We have different circumstances in this thing, but a huge flood is happening in Poland and I think that parts of it are a result of long term trends and in economic development and in urbanization and many issues that are result or human activity or human inactivity.
In my area we also had significant challenges when it comes to flooding, but on a totally different scale. It was mostly the issues with absorbing the water from heavy rains from the streets. But it was not, you know, a severe flood. It's nothing that we could compare to what's happening right now in southwestern Poland where people are losing their homes and everything. Put their head in a couple minutes.
Nevertheless, we are doing a very interesting project, mostly because of the funding from EU Parliament.
We used to have a lot of rivers, but after the years of rapid industrialization that went underground. And we are uncovering one of them because it's a very important tool for the citizens from the quality of life for people to gather some community. And we are uncovering a river in the city center. I mean it will not be like Rodden river or you know, Hudson Rivers. It won't be a very huge part. It will be relatively small, but visible and is the first project. And we want to uncover at least four to five rivers in the upcoming four years. It's something really desired by our citizens and a really great tool to get water from the city because besides their natural sources, they are insufficient to make those rivers relatively big. So we want to store and take water to them were in places where the city is ineffective to, you know, to maintain the water needs and to prevent some areas from flooding. And we'll see how it goes. Right now it's a pilot with the EU Parliament and we're starting this, this year, finishing next year. So when you come to urban future 2025, there should be a new river already in town.
[00:20:16] Alexander Schmidt: I'll certainly be there and I hope lots of our listeners will be too. Those are very Expensive endeavors often, right? This uncovering of rivers, do you have like a budget for that? For this and next year for the river uncovered? Just if you have a number that's always curious to know because it's a big change in the city.
[00:20:36] Adam Pustelnik: It's a big change and they are very expensive indeed. Right now, without the money from EU Parliament, we would be never able to do this pilot project.
So we are starting with this project, one which we have the majority of financing from directly from EU Parliament. And we'll start, we'll see how it goes. Because it's very complex and pioneer, we've never done that.
And the following three to four projects that we plan to conclude in this term, they are for this green and blue infrastructure. You have external funding from the redevelopment funds and what we see in this new EU programming, there are available external funds for debt and to be fully honest, without external funding it's not going to happen. So if we will not get external funding, those are too expensive projects that we could bear from the operational city budget.
[00:21:38] Alexander Schmidt: Okay, very interesting. Now we've talked about greening and improving the life of citizens. Greening infrastructure, blue infrastructure. Let's go back to the economy, because you also mentioned that this is a process of upgrading, changing the economy of the town. So where do you come from? You said there was the industrialization during the communist period, deindustrialization. And now where is it you're planning to go.
[00:22:06] Adam Pustelnik: After Covid and after we as a West, we as Europe experience badly what it, what it means and what are the effects of broken supply chains and how global logistics when it's not, when it's not durable, when it's not sustainable, how it can badly affect us, how dependent many of our businesses, industries and segments of lives are on things that can stop over minute overnight because of objective or political reasons. And a lot of European leaders started to speak about reindustrialization because there was once a narrative that will base our American and EU states on services, on modern economy and industry. Manufacturing production will outsource to most cost more cost effective countries. And I think the recent years showed how fragile such situation might be. And that Europe needs to be more proof, more durable, more immune to external shakes. And we see our chance there because we were always like some of the cities in rural area in Germany or in northern Italy. We are very industrial region.
Our huge strategic advantage is the intersection of all communication routes and all logistic channels. So for obvious reasons it predestines us to an industrial manufacturing hub. And we are actually Proud of our industrial heritage.
And we want to invest into this reindustrialization based on near shoring, French shoring, a lot. Plus we are the most tight or intertangled with German economy in Europe. Without Germany and our very close partnership, our economy would be in a way worse position. So we want to build on things that are already existing and existent, not something totally new from scratch. However, we cannot lose what's important, we cannot lose our most valuable assets in this process. And we need to take care for the new next generations. Because in a couple of years I'll be out of office and the city will exist. And if we, in this process of chasing economic growth, if we will lose what's valuable, natural resources, some things that preserve the future of the city in the country, it would be a huge sin, huge neglection and a huge mistake.
[00:25:02] Alexander Schmidt: I love that element, but I also love that you're building the future based on the DNA on the past of the town, which is just amazing. Now, if you think about all the things that you are doing at the moment, if you could wish for something to accelerate the activities that you are doing in this environment that you have described, what was it would it be that you wish for?
[00:25:25] Adam Pustelnik: I don't think I'm able to mention one element, but I wish for the war in Ukraine to end possibly soon, on the terms that satisfy Ukraine and respect its position. Because I think it's something that affects our part of the world strongly and affects public debate, affects societies, affects the political spectrum. And Poland will be, will be strong and will have a good future in Europe. This at least my opinion and opinion of my political environment, when Ukraine will be a strong sovereign state. And it's really important from the strategic purpose that we maintain this and this.
The other element would be that EU will regain its indigenous attractiveness, its indigenous vibe and its indigenous soft power. Because I think Poland, Germany and we as a cities, we as a community can be only strong and prosperous in a strong and united, cooperating Europe.
And as banal as it may sound, I think that many people in the contemporary reality forgotten how it's important and how weak and vulnerable and fragile we are when we're separated and when we act in this complicated global game as individual states.
[00:27:28] Alexander Schmidt: Those are very good wishes. I hope the right people are listening to that and we'll make sure to share these messages. Very deep, but totally, totally important. Before we move into the next section, is there anything that you would like to still share with our listeners? Something that's close to your heart, that we didn't get the chance to talk about in the last 20 minutes yet.
[00:27:52] Adam Pustelnik: Act.
Do things change worlds and maybe not necessarily try to change the whole world because it might frustrate you, but try to change the worlds around you and step out of comfort zone. Because I think that especially in a turbulent reality like we in dynamic how we see it right now, people, people of action, people with big hearts and brave are really needed. And I think Europe, your countries, your cities, needs you. So be brave, act and do good things.
[00:28:30] Alexander Schmidt: And we give that a moment to sink in because that's a super, super strong notion to all of us, the generation that's now taking over the leadership in the world to really move forward there. Thank you for this great note.
Let's move to the second to last of our segments and that today was chosen to be Flip the script.
[00:28:51] Tamlyn Shimizu: Flip the script.
You are the one asking the questions and I'll be the one answering them.
[00:29:00] Alexander Schmidt: If there is any topics that you want to discuss, any questions that you would also ask, discuss with me now anything that you think we should spend a couple of minutes on discussing here.
[00:29:12] Adam Pustelnik: Actually, Alexander, I would also do kind of steal some knowledge and perspective from you.
You know, we as a city and we as a community, we are driven by some certain, sometimes patterns, sometimes stereotypes. We think that we do good things. But if we changed seats, you were mayor of a Polish city that tries to grow, tries to regain its previous glory. What would you focus on having in mind? Your German, your wider perspective?
[00:29:49] Alexander Schmidt: Well, that's, that's a super good question. And honestly, the things, there's a lot of the things that you are doing, I think are absolutely the right things to do. Right. So you're, you're creating a pride about what the city can do. You're working on international awards to bring the city on the map. You're hosting the urban future, which will bring lots of young people to town. So there's lots of elements that I think are super strong already. It all starts with kind of a drive and intent of the community to make a change and putting that into a wide enough group with enough people at the right spots. I think that's something that's, that's super, super strong. And continuing to talk positively about a message, about a vision is a core part of that. Being visible to the outside world, to the citizens, but also to international investors, partners and using the resources available. I think that's something that you're doing very strongly as well. Already the EU has a. And we all have a political and just Natural desire for a strong and equal Europe and using these resources like the ones that you mentioned of the EU funding and international foreign direct investments to just create a better life, not just for ourselves, but for the generations to come. I think we are both fathers, so that's the kind of the activities that, that go beyond kind of lines of political parties. And that I think is, is the thing that you are doing very well. And that is, I think I wouldn't change a lot their focus on those things that unite us. We all want to create better futures for, for the children, for the generations to come. That has a, that has an element. There's work to be done on that. I think that's the thing. I'm never going to get bored of saying that the world doesn't change because we think of it. You said that very nicely. Do it change the bit around you that you can do and then widen your circle. And so that's, I think everything that you can do and everything that you're doing already.
[00:32:13] Adam Pustelnik: And what do you think is the biggest challenge for Europe and for European cities these days?
[00:32:18] Alexander Schmidt: Well, there is this kind of crisis after crisis element and we kind of don't get into what used to be maybe 15 years ago, a business as usual, but we haven't really changed the way we look at this. We are just looking at it as the next crisis, not as a continuous kind of necessity to change. And we have become, especially in the richer parts of Europe, comfortable with the situation that we were, that we were in. So it was a very comfortable situation. I'm not going to say we, we don't change and innovate, but we didn't change and innovate in the, in the, in the speed that is necessary under kind of the world shifting along us. There is a lot of. You called it soft power, but a. Lots of economic power moving away from, from Europe. And that is, that is something that we haven't in the breadth that's necessary in the, in the width of the population and administrations as well understood and then acted on that we are not in a period anymore where it's about keeping the status quo, but that we are in a period if we want to leave a better world to our children, that we really have to massively innovate and change and continuously innovate and change as a society, as administrations and as European.
[00:33:38] Adam Pustelnik: Right. I fully agree with that. I got my answer, so I'm satisfied.
[00:33:43] Alexander Schmidt: Oh my God. This is a. I love this. I would do, I like to do it to that A few hours more. What's your. What's your poison of choice? So do we do that over a beer? Do we do that over a glass of wine?
[00:33:53] Adam Pustelnik: We can combine that.
[00:33:54] Alexander Schmidt: Okay, that sounds. That sounds great. So thank you for this. There is this last element which we ask all our guests, and I'm very curious about your definition, because it's about a definition. It's about the definition of the term smart city. How would you, for yourself, define it?
[00:34:10] Adam Pustelnik: I think it's a simpler, more intuitive and more convenient and more approachable cities for the city, for the citizens. I think that the definition of smart city is making and simplifying things.
[00:34:27] Alexander Schmidt: And then again, perfect answer. Adam, this has been a pleasure from start to end. I'm really, really happy to see you here again. We'll meet up again by the lake. Latest again for every one of our listeners next year at the Urban Future in Lodz in Poland. Put that in your diary. Great city to explore.
I approve this message and all the best in your endeavors. We're all looking forward to hear a lot more positive stories out of VUC in Europe.
[00:34:59] Adam Pustelnik: It was great to speak with you, Alexander. Thank you all the guys who listened and went through our conversation.
[00:35:04] Alexander Schmidt: Thank you. Have a good day, everyone.
[00:35:07] Tamlyn Shimizu: Thank you all for listening. I'll see you at the next stop on the journey to a better urban life.
