Summary

Provision of public amenities and urban landscaping are important components in developing an urban environment that can create comfort and increase the quality of life of citizens. Today, the environmental development is one of the priorities of the local authorities of the city of Kazan.

Background and Objective

Before the project implementation, the city of Kazan faced the following challenges: The city was on the 45th position in the ecological rating of the biggest Russian cities. High level of air pollution in the city due to the increased number of vehicles and a high concentration of industrial companies; Unsatisfactory level of urban greening and landscaping; Insufficient number of modern and landscaped parks and gardens; Lack of well well-developed riverwalks and embankments; The imperfect system of industrial and household waste collection and utilization; The absence of an effective garbage recycling infrastructure. The primary goal of the initiative was to create comfortable, safe, favorable environment for citizens of Kazan throughout: Creation of comfortable environment for the development of human capital; Ensuring access of citizens to safe, inclusive and accessible green and public spaces; Promotion of the sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems; Provision of urban amenities. Construction and reconstruction of parks, public gardens, and other green recreation spaces; Construction and major repairment of facilities of social and cultural infrastructure (schools, kindergartens, hospitals, health centers, community centers, theaters, museums); Construction, expansion and reconditioning of roads; Construction of new residential areas in Kazan; Development of public and private partnership projects in the area of environmental development; Promotion of social responsibility of companies and citizens. Public-private and public-community partnerships are promising mechanisms for solving the problems of efficiency of using budgetary funds and increasing the quality and volume of public services. In the implementation of the "Environmental Development" initiative, an important role was played by the Environmental council chaired by the Mayor of the city. The council was formed in 2012 and brought together leading independent experts in this field, environmental scientists, and departments responsible for the city development. The partnerships were also used in the implementation of many urban development, landscaping, and greening programs. In the "Green Record" project, together with citizens more than 150,000 trees and 66,000 bushes were planted in the city, more than half a million square meters of new lawns were laid. The annual "Blossoming Kazan" flower competition gave the city over three years 22 million flowers. The "Blossoming Kazan" involves professional groups, local enterprises, non-commercial organizations, schools, and ordinary citizens. In Kazan, active interaction between public and private sectors in the planning of the city's development was the impetus for several city projects. Large enterprises, experts, environmentalists, specialists in the field of urban planning, as well as public organizations joined the work on the greening and landscaping of the city. Successful and effective implementation of the "Environmental Development" initiative is carried out, first of all, through the implementation of planned activities in the municipal, regional and federal programs, which allocate the budgetary funds for the implementation of activities. As noted previously, the city actively uses the public-private and public-community partnerships to attract additional funds and carry out its ambitious plans. A vivid example of the involvement of the private sector in implementing social projects of the city is the "Public parks and gardens" project. In total, more than $13.5 million were allocated from the regional budget of the Republic of Tatarstan for the implementation of the program in Kazan. To improve public spacing and carry out urban amenities provision, boards of trustees for park and square were created. They were chosen out of companies and firms that took them under patronage. They played a huge role in urban recreational zone renovation and development. Thus, with the sponsorship of socially responsible enterprises and organizations, $22 million of funds were invested in the reconstruction of public parks and gardens.

Actions and Implementation

The successful experience of Kazan in ecological and environmental development can be useful for any city that wants to create necessary conditions for an ecological, healthy, comfortable and comfortable life for its citizens. Thus, other cities can learn a lot from the “Environmental Development” initiative. The success of the initiatives in the field of ecology depends on the effective interaction between local authorities and urban community (organizations, businesses, businesses, schools, universities, citizens). Today, ecological development of the city is one of the priorities of urban development for Kazan. Kazan will continue to work in this direction and would be glad to share its experience with other cities.

Outcomes and Impacts

The "Environmental Development" initiative has allowed reducing the anthropogenic burden on the environment, to build new public parks and gardens, to create prerequisites for the city's transition to sustainable ecological development, to create comfortable and safe conditions for the life of the citizens and to develop a high level of ecological culture. In the last 10 years, the city has initiated and implemented numerous public transportation projects, always taking into account citizens’ interests and opinions. Within almost 6 months, the city replaced 25,000 small and inconvenient buses, new 1,300 high and medium capacity low-floor buses with the engine "Euro-4" ecological standard were purchased. Transition to a more environmentally friendly engine standard Euro-5 is planned in the nearest future. Citizens move around the city using new comfortable red-colored buses. As a result, the public transport capacity increased by almost 1.5 times and the harmful emissions from transport decreased by 2 times. Today, citizens are served by 4 types of intercity passenger transport: buses, trams, trolleybuses, and metro. Kazan is the only city in Russia in which all buses, trolleys, metro and 68% of trams have low-floor access, to ensure the accessibility for the elderly and disabled people. Kazan is the first city in Russia that has an automated supervisory control system to monitor public transportation regularity. An adaptive traffic control system ensures the rational distribution of traffic depending on its intensity. It increased the capacity of the road network by 15-20% and increased the average traffic speed by 25%. Kazan is the second city after Moscow, to fully introduce the municipal street parking system, including a control system with photo and video fixation. Only 5 years ago Kazan could not demonstrate any outstanding results in urban landscaping and greening. Thanks to the “Ecological development” initiative Kazan managed to achieve significant results, which allowed to improve the ecology of the city. As a result, according to environmental rating, in 5 years Kazan has moved up from 45th to 7th place, and entered the list of Russia’s most environmentally friendly cities. Since 2012, within the “Green record” project more than 150,000 trees and 66,000 bushes were planted in Kazan. More than 500,000 square meters of new lawns were laid. For the past four years, within the “Parks and public gardens” project the city has updated and newly created 52 parks. As a result, the number of parks and gardens has increased to 138, their total area increased from 240 to 354 hectares. Socially responsible private and public enterprises of Kazan oversee and support 25 parks. As a result, park attendance has increased by 10 times. Parks and public gardens hold hundreds of cultural and recreational activities. In 2016, thanks to an annual flower decoration competition “Blossoming Kazan” about 6.5 million flowers were planted, 13.5 flower pots and vases hung out in the streets, 49,000 square meters of flower beds were decorated - it is comparable to the size of 7 football fields. For the first time in the city’s history, well-developed riverwalks were created. These riverwalks were designed according to the latest trends and citizens’ opinions - separate bicycle paths, sports equipment rentals, children playgrounds, bookcrossing, and more. It was possible to make a breakthrough thanks to the actions of the city team, close and effective cooperation with the regional and federal authorities, innovative ideas in choosing development approaches in the area of environmental development, actively attracting financing through public-private partnership mechanisms, and consistently building dialogue with citizens and involving them into solving the urban problems. Recently, environmental problems and aesthetic design of the urban environment have come to the forefront. The implementation of the projects within the "Environmental Development" initiative framework had a positive impact on the image of the entire city of Kazan, making it more attractive, recognizable and environmentally friendly for citizens, tourists and investors. Thanks to the initiative, Kazan climbed 38 positions up and took the 7th place in the environmental rating of the major cities of Russia. Over the past few years, Kazan has changed a lot and has become a modern city that is making sure steps on the way to global cities.

Sustainability and Scalability

Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all ages Goal 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation Goal 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable Target 3: Participatory, integrated and sustainable human settlement planning and management Target 7: Universal access to safe, inclusive and accessible green and public spaces, in particular of women, children older persons and persons with disabilities Target 8: Support positive economic, social and environmental links between urban, peri-urban and rural areas Target 9: Improving resource efficiency, mitigation and adaptation to climate change, resilience to disasters and implement holistic disaster risk management Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts Goal 15: Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss

Innovative Initiative

The "Environmental Development” initiative can be considered to be evolutionary since the problem of the ecological development of Kazan is being solved gradually over time. The starting point for the initiative was the fact that 2013 was declared a “Year of environmental protection and ecological culture” in Russia and in the Republic of Tatarstan. Regional authorities set the task for the authorities of Kazan to develop and start implementing programs for the restoration and development of public parks and gardens, involving citizens and enterprises in urban greening and landscaping work. Since then the number of municipal programs followed one another. Kazan was the first among the municipalities to initiate this innovation. The successful experience of Kazan was taken as a basis for the adoption of similar programs at the regional and federal level. Since 2017, they are being implemented throughout Russia within a priority federal project "Building a Comfortable Urban Environment", in which Kazan serves as a platform for transferring experience and best practices to other regions and municipalities of the country. The experience of Kazan is unique since the problem of city greening and infrastructure renovation has been addressed in an innovative way that involved authorities, citizens, industrial enterprises, SMEs, universities, and youth. Kazan was one of the first cities in Russia to introduce "green standards” that determine the higher environmental requirements in the construction of buildings, architectural planning, and territorial development. For instance, in preparation for the FIFA-2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, the Kazan Arena stadium was the first stadium to receive a certificate of compliance with the green building standards under the Russian system of environmental certification "RUSO". This confirms that the Kazan Arena stadium innovative approaches to energy conservation, resource saving, waste management, consistent with international principles of sustainable development. The "Environmental Development" initiative did not have substantial obstacles or did not face any resistance. Financial support to implement the initiative was primarily provided by the local and regional government throughout municipal and regional programs. Throughout the mechanisms of public-private and public-community partnerships, the initiative received support from citizens and local enterprises of the city of Kazan.

Resources devoted to delivery

BASIC CITY DATA Population size: 1,243,500 Population growth rate (%): 0.95 Surface area (sq.km): 614.20 Population density (people/sq.km): 2025.00 GDP per capita (USD): 9500.00 Main source of prosperity: Industry http://www.guangzhouaward.org/a/925.html?lang=en&page=2