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MOYA MOSKVA Toolbox for urban activism Philipp Kats
PROJECT DESCRIPTION Contemporary Russian society can be specified by extreme segregation and low level of trust. Due to the research started (and still continuing) by LEVADA center in 90-th , level of trust was similar to the level in Germany after a World War II. In last ten years the situation became better, but still society is divided into small groups and communities according to income and social status of people. Still there are no principle changes. This lack of trust had no chance not to influence physical space. Top-down urban development approach, ineffectiveness of the management, poverty, criminal wars and “bespredel” (absence of rules, total illegality) – just some of the reasons , which led to the absolute people`s passivity in the aspects of public or communal space. All our historical experience tells that any public activity can do much more harm than passive position. Through that, we have a strong division between two general types of space in the way how people sense it. If the first type, private space, gives people the sense of overall freedom of action, the second one, “public”, actually represents everything but the private, and gives the feeling of no rights and ways to influence it .Some reflection of this can be seen in the World Values Survey value maps , and the trend the trend we can see there, is not optimistic . To proof that, the investigation of space perception was made through analysis of the data, gathered from popular geospatial service Foursquare. Data about 10 different cities in Russia and over the world was collected. As a main research model I used a graph of different venue categories for each city. Through this I was able to compare differentiation of spaces in each city by their “publicity”, and also to compare differences between the cities. There are different patterns, seen clearly and similar in the cities with equal economic and cultural parameters. Pattern, similar for Moscow and Kiev, has a specific of extremely (in comparisement) differentiated types space, with the extremes on categories like ”home, private”, “Malls” and others. Moreover, this pattern has a unique property – instead of one base linear group of category points, we have here two, what can be interpreted as two, very segregated from each other general types of spaces. But the real situation is not that trivial. There is no doubt that bureaucracy ineffectiveness of management are serious problems on the way of activity in public spaces. In the current
urban development and management approaches, there are just no place for urban environment and public space development. However, this is not just an error of current urban management. The whole society had no experience of bottom-up activities for a long period of time. Back from October revolution, all kinds of activities were continuously removed. In the process of confrontation with administration activists become protesters, marginalizing, in the eyes of government and the society, themselves and, eventually, their ideas. In general, the most serious reason of passivity here is just a lack of experience and examples of what we can do there in public spaces. But public activities are important for the city. This gives people continuing indirect interaction between different social groups. By that, permanent process of society union, a dialogue is realized. That what Walter Benjamin called “porosity” of the space . For sure, people communicate a lot here. But communication is based, in general, in internet - According to last researches, Russia is on the second place after on activity in social networks. But this type if communication do not support indirect communication – we actually do not know anything about other people in the city, other than our friends and friends of our friends. We do not know how they live and what they think – the only place we meet them is a city space. This problem has also additional effects. The lack of public activity makes city opaque, untransparent. It does affect citizens, but more
Saint Petersburg, some initiatives, like guerilla bicycle roads design were started. But wide culture of public activity can`t develop that rapidly. Experience grows slowly, and for active involvement of citizens specific institutions and social agreements basis are required. But in some cases social agreements can be formed ore surrogated with technology (The best example here is electronic line). In this case technology works as an justly arbiter and distributor, acting in accordance with objective reasons. This articulated correctness plus mechanical preciseness can be used to improve or surrogate public agreements, institutions. Some examples give us a think that this effect can be predesigned. This idea inspired me to develop a technical platform, which helps people to act in city in an easy and safe way, and giving them, at the same time, some ideas of what they can do there and in how different ways can public spaces be used. I think of it in a way of platform for social institutions establishing. I call this project MoyaMoskva – my Moscow. Practically, this project will give users an extremely easy way to design, manage and approve all kinds of events in public spaces. It can be any kind of events – from private bbq parties and picnics to public events like lectures, concerts or even huge festivals. At the same time it is an open platform to vote for different public actions, discuss and influence them. It is all about the “content” of the public spaces, but can be used also for bottom-up design solutions advocating and development.
The whole society had no experience of public activities for a long time. important, It has an extreme importance for tourism. All activities are hidden, and without any connections, people from outside cannot be involved in them. Through that, city is losing it identity, soil, and can`t attract tourists. In a last couple of years situation started to change to better. Number of civic initiatives, movements and events, including those targeting urban environment improvements, arises. For example, this year guerilla design “sammits” were made both in Moscow and
Apart from management and discussions, the same tool can help activists to fundraise their projects and find right people for outsource some services for events. This tool will be useful for all actors. It will provide city parks with additional activities and help park supervisors to manage them. It will give activists to do their work and connect business and people. Even the strangers from outside, tourists can be involved into the process, or just have some experience of being inside Moscow`s streaming life.
In my opinion, this tool can really advocate the idea of public action, help people to manage their activities and collaborate. Through this we`ll reinforce the links between different social groups, moreover we`ll visualize them, adding this “porosity” to the city space and, at the end, start the establishment of the united civic society. Without revolutions and painful demolishment of existing bureaucracy we can make city life better for everyone.
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