5 Health and prevention
Diagnosis 5: What's worse: smog or depression? What do we really suffer from?
City authorities on health policy are limited by national policy. We are constantly fed with health care problems, lack of money, scary oncology statistics. The threat of lung disease caused by poor air quality in the city, coronary heart disease, poor lifestyles and stress, only cause compulsive purchases of paramedics, which are a cure for every disease we hear about in the media.
Pharmakos 5 Prevention of a healthy mind. It's cheaper this way
It's true that statistically the percentage of people with cancer is increasing. Why is this happening? Is it an epidemic of cancer as a disease of civilization and we are doomed to a great wave of cases of this often incurable disease? It was enough to talk to a prominent oncologist from Łódź: drugs for cancer are getting better and better, in the past one used to die after three months, and today people live with the disease for many years and „spoil” our statistics; the average age is getting longer and also the risk of contracting this disease increases with age. And one more thing: common causes that increase the risk of cancer and its negative course are stress, workaholism and an unhealthy lifestyle. And in the event of this disease, mental well-being is important in the fight for life. Can it be simpler? So, before the city authorities open up the need to form a proper preventive policy, health education. If, in addition, we take as a priority the fight against depression, occupational burnout or workaholism, and focus action on vulnerable groups, we can achieve a lasting, surprising improvement in the quality of life and satisfaction with life in the city, causing a competitive advantage over other centers.
Greenery at every turn and sustainable transportation are key elements of a modern city—East Street in Łódź, proj.: 3darchitekci
photo: Jakub Krzysztofik
6 Transport
Diagnosis 6. The parley war of streetcars against buses and bicycles against cars
The story of the transportation wars in our cities continues in earnest and is being radicalized. There is an ongoing sterile dispute over which is better: the streetcar or the bus? Or perhaps a trolley bus? Will the battle between cars and cyclists ever end? Maybe eclectic scooters will reconcile everyone? I don't think so. The bitterness of urban traffic jams is completed by couriers delivering tiny packages with our whims to the walls of „parcel machines” disfiguring more and more space, tearing up nearby lawns along with customers of their services. And painting the boxes of the vending machines green and planting them with ivy won't help here. It seems obvious that there is no room in the city for all-inclusive parking, for bicycle paths in every direction. I observe with dismay the program of building multi-level parking lots in Łódź on the principle: we are short of a thousand spaces, so let's build two parking lots with five hundred spaces and problem solved! Łódź's digital traffic management system, on which we supposedly spent a fortune, is helpless during rush hour, when the entire city is stuck in traffic.
Pharmakos 6. A vision for innovative sustainable urban transportation
Perhaps the solution is an eclectic public vehicle moving mostly in a dedicated lane, charged as it travels like a streetcar from the grid, but moving independently of traction and powered by a battery when needed, squeezing into the narrowest urban alleys (even on passenger demand). Rolling stock should be varied, from small to large vehicles, but in a modular system. If such a system were integrated with agglomeration rail, electric public bicycles, scooters, would there be any point in using cars so often? As for parking, I propose creating a bank of parking spaces and managing them with a central digital system, replacing anachronistic large multi-story parking lots with small automated ones scattered around public and private properties. Why can we track our shipments almost in real time, but we can't monitor the occupancy of parking spaces throughout the city and manage them like parcels in a logistics center? Is it really so difficult to see that many parking spaces stand empty almost 24 hours a day? If I have a private parking space in a garage, worth a fortune, isn't it worth including it in the parking system and when I don't use it, someone else can use it and incidentally pay the owner for this service? Maybe there should be a research team in Łódź developing such a vision in cooperation with local universities and the logistics business throughout the province? Or maybe we are too tired of being stuck in traffic jams, nervous about finding parking spaces and depressed about paying installments on the lease of our four-wheel-drive electric toys? Or are we waiting for a package with another whim from across the seven seas, meant to make us feel better?...I've read this somewhere, in some philosophical book....
7. science and education
Diagnosis 7: Publish, score and beg. The nightmare of scientific work
Anyone who has come into contact with the university environment knows the absurdities of scientific and teaching work. Punctuation. The requirements are the same for all disciplines, and the specifics of each are different. We uncritically implement Western models. Working at a university is no longer associated with prestige, and the frustration of the scientific community is exacerbated by the rift with the commercial world of research, where one can achieve not only the results of work, but also financial satisfaction. The hermetic bubble of the scientific community is not bursting. The crisis is exacerbated by the frustration of many graduates whose competencies do not match market demand. The situation is temporarily rescued by low unemployment, but the specter of the wider use of artificial intelligence is causing stress, among the young it creates fear for the future....I have already read this somewhere in some philosophical book....
Pharmakos 7. Additional role of science in meeting city needs
It is difficult from the perspective of the challenges of cities to expect changes in the education system, for which the central government is responsible. However, if the impasse from both sides were broken, it might be possible to begin the process of synchronizing the development of science and urban structures. This is what has been the essence of the development of our civilization. If city governments were bolder in establishing cooperation with universities, and rectors were more open to analyzing the needs of the residents of the centers where their universities are located, perhaps it would be possible to resolve the crisis of impossibility and embark on the path of sustainable synergistic cooperation between local governments and the scientific community. I'm not just talking about the sciences, which do best in cooperation with industry and business, but the humanities and arts, whose regression in the competitive market is most evident.
Without culture, the city cannot develop; Passage of Roses, art installation by Joanna Rajkowska, architecture by 3darchitekci
photo: Rafal Tomczak
8 Culture
Diagnosis 8: Art in the courtroom, a brief study of the crisis.
As an architect, I feel that I am part of the world of culture, but my long-standing attempts to establish professional contact with art creators have so far yielded no tangible results. I am not a proponent of the thesis that contemporary art is in crisis, that it has become too hermetic for the average viewer. I don't know whether court arguments about what is art and what is not are necessary. I am convinced that art, and more broadly culture, is an essential component of the proper development of a modern city. Łódź has been and is a center of modern art and alternative culture, but from the institutional side, successive reforms of the city's structures responsible for culture raise serious doubts among creative circles. The matter concerns the financing of specific artistic initiatives, support for festivals and cultural centers. Against this background, the dispute between two prominent Polish economists Prof. Leszek Balcerowicz and Prof. Jerzy Hausner took a symbolic form at the 2009 Culture Congress. It was then that the words of the author of the Polish political transformation addressed to the creative circles about their alleged „Soviet activist mentality” were uttered. These harsh words were unequivocally interpreted as a neoliberal approach to financing culture on the principle of „good art will sustain itself in the market.” Well, it seems obvious to me that Balcerowicz must come.... to the art gallery!
Pharmakos 8. Why is culture so important?
It is clear to me that without the leading role of culture, any development of a modern city cannot take place. In this section, as a prescription for the healing of culture, I will allow myself to freely interpret the views of Professor Jerzy Hausner, whose March lecture at the University of Łódź I listened to attentively. In many publications, lectures and speeches, Jerzy Hausner argues that positive change in culture must be institutional, but the decisive impetus must come from outside the existing structures. This means that cultural institutions managing budgets and the organizational framework of cultural life should be open to the external component of unfettered creativity and must have the ability to accommodate it. This is a condition for unleashing cultural energy in the space of collective communication, which must allow for multiple cognitive perspectives and languages of social communication. This can be contrasted with the hegemony of one-sided communication generated by both ossified cultural institutions and developmentally closed and hermetic creative communities. Jerzy Hausner distinguishes three basic models of cultural management by urban institutions. The first, dominant, focused on improving efficiency and preventing environmental conflicts. The second, focusing on diversity and stimulating cultural activity, with the role of authorities being to ensure balance and take care of the artistic level. Finally, the third model, advocating making culture a key dimension and mechanism of city development. This third model seems most befitting of the challenges of contemporary urban societies and their local government elites, which should place culture on each of the city's development axes. Such a strategic imagination is capable of realizing an „economy of value, not greed.”...I read about this somewhere, in some philosophy book....
9 Economy and entrepreneurship
Diagnosis 9 The limits of growth, consumption and other challenges of the modern economy
The Polish economy, in addition to large national and multinational companies, has a strong component of local, small micro-enterprises, often family-owned. The recent crises that have shaken not only Polish, but also cities around the world: the pandemic, the political and economic crisis caused by the Russian-Ukrainian war, and the worldwide inflation resulting from both of the aforementioned major crises, have prompted deep reflection on the tools that national and local governments have in overcoming the effects of such shocks. The resilience (resilience) of cities, postulated by Prof. Tadeusz Markowski, in the face of failing to keep up and reacting too late to undesirable changes in economic and social matter, remains as timely and pressing a challenge as possible, which must be met by city authorities in the face of the volatile and unpredictable challenges of modern times.
Pharmakos 9. The local business of the innovative city: unpromised land
From a small, but nevertheless already visible today, after the recent crises, it is possible to outline the thesis that an extremely important ingredient for resilience and rapid adaptation to negative changes is local business, which is able to adapt most quickly to the new socio-economic situation. However, it has the significant barrier of low reserves and limited capacity to absorb external financial sources. Here comes the role of local government and state administration as the primary links that bind dispersed network systems of small businesses in modeling broader organized processes that allow small businesses to regain market balance. In doing so, it is important to distinguish the key role of local governments in organizing assistance and direct support to specific recipients from the general role of national authorities with broad stabilization, political or economic-financial tools, including fast-track legislation. The experience of recent years and months gives cause for optimism in assessing the adaptability of Polish local urban enterprises to completely unforeseen crises of supra-local scale.
here was once a wild parking lot, and today a model urban space—Hilary Majewski Passage, proj.: 3darchitekci
photo: Rafał Tomczak
10 City management
Diagnosis 10 Urban Sisyphean work. From crisis to crisis
In the last diagnosis, it is worth trying to capture all of the above themes within the framework of the general challenges facing the authorities of any major city. The problem of fatigue and burnout affects not only the rank and file individuals who are the links of urban society, but also the elites who manage the modern polis. Lack of time for reflection and analysis of the situation leads to the repetition of the same mistakes over and over again. The lack of adequate time and financial reserves to carry out strategic investments leads to a cascading accumulation of organizational bottlenecks in the management of the city, resulting in tensions and social unrest. I'll admit that I have a lot of doubts, observing on social networks mayors and city mayors, posing as constantly busy, working twenty-four hours a day for the benefit of their residents—burned out, confused and tired....I read about this somewhere, in some philosophy book....
