100+ INTERVIEWS: Federico Parolotto

"Quality of life is the main competitive advantage of the cities of the future"

Federico Parolotto, head of Mobility in Chain, developer of master plans for Cairo, Istanbul, and Mexico City Airport, and consultant on the project for making changes to the Moscow master plan, will be the speaker of the 100+ FORUM RUSSIA, which will be held in Yekaterinburg from October 29 to November 1. Whether it is worth relying on technology when planning cities, how to convince people to give up cars, and what Federico Parolotto will talk about at the Forum - about this in our interview.

- What are the main functions of the cities of the future?

It is very difficult to talk about the future today. We live in a time of global and very rapid technological change, so I don't think that when we talk about the cities of the future, we need to talk about technology. I think it's much more important to create and design a high-quality urban environment for people to move: pedestrians, cyclists, and to make sure that they don't have to spend a lot of time getting from point A to point B. And it doesn't matter what kind of transport they will use. It doesn't matter what kind of public transport it will be: whether it will be electric, whether buses will be hybrid or whether they will run on some kind of nuclear energy, the main thing is to create a high-quality network for the movement of ordinary urban residents.

- What is a convenient city for you to live in? What are your criteria?

When we talk about the convenience of cities, I remember the Facebook case when we were thinking about logistics for employees. Facebook's office is located fifty kilometers from San Francisco, Google and Apple headquarters are nearby, and employees usually live in San Francisco. And here's the paradox: they spent more money on getting to work than on renting a house. And using this example, I can say that for me one of the main criteria for a convenient city is the proximity of different spaces, when you don't have to spend a lot of time and money to get from home to work or to any other location. Moreover, I believe that this factor will become a competitive advantage of the city in the future. It is the quality of living in the city, not the quantity and quality of work that the city can offer its residents.

When we talk about a convenient city, we are talking about the competitive advantages of this city. Let's say if we want young and creative people to come to the city, and we want to create such a young and creative community, then we need an appropriate atmosphere, we need to create appropriate spaces where young people can show their creativity. And it is the cities that will successfully cope with this task that will be considered cities of high-quality living and cities that are comfortable to live in.

Moscow is a very good example of how a city can change quickly and efficiently in this regard. 10 years ago, Moscow was a very inhospitable city and very difficult to perceive and figuratively communicate with the city, now it has completely changed.

- According to a VTsIOM survey, 25 percent of Russian drivers are partially, and only partially, ready to give up cars. How to convince people?

There is a trend in both Europe and the United States that the younger generation is not so strongly attached to cars. They are much more likely to give up cars, their focus is not on buying a vehicle, but on spending money on their experience: they want to go to restaurants, buy iPhones, see the world. They are practically indifferent to cars, when they need to go somewhere, they will freely use a bicycle or other microtransport. That's their way of thinking. And when we develop master plans for cities, we need to think that the city is not only being built for us, but also for the next generation, and they already have a completely different mindset. If we are talking about the older generations, then there are different ways to convince them of the need to abandon the car.  If we are talking about those who categorically do not want to give up a car, there is only one way here - to make traveling by private transport more expensive.

When Moscow had free parking 6 years ago, the city was in complete chaos. And when we introduced the concept of paid parking, the city changed very much and very quickly. Milan, London, and New York are also examples, where more and more paid entry to different parts of the city is being introduced. For example, in Milan, you need to pay 5 euros to get to the center, and thanks to this, the number of motorists has decreased by a third.

- But there are climatic features, aren't there? It's good in Milan and San Francisco, where it's convenient to get around the city on foot or by bike. It's another matter in Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk or Irkutsk, for example, in December or January it is much less comfortable.

 - You can take Western Europe or the Scandinavian countries as an example. The climate in Helsinki is similar to St. Petersburg, but there are no fewer people on bicycles when it gets colder. In Oslo, Stockholm, and Copenhagen, people continue to use bicycles and scooters even in bad weather, but in European cities the paths for cyclists are heated in winter and therefore it is comfortable and safe to ride on them. In addition, a completely new generation of electric vehicles is now emerging: scooters, mopeds, bicycles, those that are small and enclosed, they are also comfortable to ride in any weather. It follows from this that as soon as we think about how to create the necessary infrastructure, we immediately have the tools to do it.

- But surely such a drastic change in infrastructure is expensive?

When we talk about the cost of any changes, I don't think that we need to take into account only money, we need to look more broadly. I use cost versus benefit analysis. We analyze not only how we transport people from point A to point B, but also the number of these people, how the environment is changing as a result of the proposed changes, and what environmental effect we are getting. Such an analysis allows us to look at things more broadly.

For example, when we were developing a master plan for the transport system in Milan, we estimated that the construction of new metro lines  it is expensive, will entail a large impact on the environment, high energy consumption, and as a result will be useful for a small number of people. Therefore, we abandoned this project and reviewed the ground transportation system and reconfigured it. This brought much more benefits to the residents and cost many times less.

- What will you tell the participants of the 100+ Forum Russia, which will be held in Yekaterinburg from October 29 to November 1, and to which you have been invited as a speaker?

I have long wanted to share my vision of what cities need to do to create a durable and comfortable structure for citizens, what needs to be done to create an "ideal city". I want to propose a new urban model.