City squares, as places for democratic and cultural expression in contemporary cities and focal points for civil and social relations, are a vital stimulus to entrepreneurship and development of the cities.
However, over the last two decades, the urban transformations of Balkan cities under the duress of neo-liberal rebuilding projects and globalisation desires in continuation demonstrate a remarkable neglect of the public functions of city squares as public spaces. This neglect takes different forms. A common one is the physical neglect and neglect of the soft infrastructure: the role that different communities play in the city, the space where exchange takes place, the grounds where people express their identity through culture and arts. Another is: politicians using city squares for (personal) political experiments and a rehearsal for populist politics (best example of such behaviour of politicians is the latest decision about the City Square in Skopje (Skopje 2014 project) that provoked citizens to react or the ongoing debate between local and central government for the main square in Tirana).
The issue of city squares has to be understood in a much broader fashion. City squares (and here we think not only of the main square, but of all open public places /city squares) embody the energies of people and therefore we have to understand what city squares mean for the social and cultural expression of citizens and what is needed to bring life back to the city squares.
With this in mind, the project seeks to meaningfully add a share towards creating solid bridges between various actors and facilitate a community-based process that engages a full range of local stakeholders (citizens, professionals, policy makers), and brings people with diverse ideas into dialogue in an inclusive process that produces workable recommendations with significant impacts.
I am happy that the project can start, it is a great, difficult theme and hopefully planeers, architects can team up with social workers, people from arts, etc., and of course the potential users of the squares.
ReplyDeleteA point: in 2010/2011 the main square of Tirana was indeed used as a stage for a political battle. Whether you like the political battle or not, it brings life to the main city square. And the political battle in Albania is part of life. Central squares everywhere are being used for all sorts of events - also in Balkan cities -, more interesting are the secondary squares and the neighbourhood squares. How to improve the function of these squares, knowing that big investments in physical improvement cannot be expected and that the emphasis should be in the social dynamics.