Im Mai 2024 wurde Lorenz Potocnik nach Prag eingeladen. Im Rahmen von Urban Scapes, dem biennalen Symposium für Landschaftsarchitektur https://szkt.cz/aktuality/urbanscapes-praha-2024 hat er über Linz gesprochen. Als einer von drei internationalen Speakern hat er die Rolle des Kritikers übernommen: Was macht in Hinblick auf das Stadtklima Sinn? Was ist wichtig? Was nicht? Den Abschluss des Vortrags bildeten acht Faustregeln der klimagerechten Planung in Städten.
False and real trees. Underneath the fake trees - guess what - is always an underground garage. these fake trees do not have an positve effect on the city climate. Let's stop this.
Speach (abridged)
"I am of course happy to be here. As a politician I do not get a lot of interesting invitations like this. Even local politicians are stigmatised as such, people try to keep their distance.
To improve our understanding I need to explain how I became such a “politician”. I am a local or communal politician, that is less pfui than the big politicians. And I am in opposition. In that role I do real groundwork. It’s like fighting on the street. People call me for help, I do talk to everyone, I do not hesitate to touch hot potatoes, as we say in German. But before that, I studied architecture in Vienna, at the technical University. Doing two years abroad in Delft, in the Netherlands and in Portsmouth, in Great Britain. During Studies a professor of town planning, Kunibert Wachten, once was talking about the then (90’s) emerging UCI Cinemas, big Cinemas, several at the same time. It was obvious that these buildings were soon to be ruins of concrete, very expensive to destroy and impossible to use for something else. He demanded that the City of Vienna should ask and claim for financial deposits to later be able to destroy these buildings, so they couldn’t block the development of some areas. That simple idea was my “awakening experience” for urbanism, town planning and the public interest.
But it took time to find the place to work. So, I started rather normal as an architect, co-founded the architecture and urban office feld72 in Vienna, specialised on urban processes, was teaching here and there, writing a lot, doing architecture critics and finally – after 10 very intensive years – jumped into local politics in Linz, where I lived half the week. Linz became my laboratory, myself being the guinea pig, you know, the animal that we use for tests and experiments. All that means, that I still think, act and feel as a planner, but learned the political processes and mechanisms. I am today, specialised in public relations, public opinion, strategies and also guerrilla tactics – very often together with citizens - to put ideas on the political and public agenda or to stop stupid projects or even corruption.
I understand my role and mission today again as a critic, a very sceptical position towards what is going on in climate, climate discussions and what cities can do. That is the reason why I called my input or talk “Let’s be serious” and “How can cities improve their climate?” Not the global climate, but their own “little” climate. I will try to explain that, using Linz as a Case Study. From neighbour to neighbour.
Linz is not far from Prag. Linz has 210.000 Inhabitants and grows approximately 1-2000 Persons every year. There is a lot of industry and a lot of commuting. 100.000 persons take their car to drive in and out the city every day. Social democrats have been in power for 100 years. The mayor is officially a social democrat but very close to the investors, the industry, and the banks.
Bitter reality
Like any other city we started to discover the climate topic some years ago. Except the far right, every political party is aware of the problem and talks about it, uses more or less the right words and simulates action. In the last 2-3 years a department for climate was installed, about 10 people work there. We do a lot of measuring, producing maps and strategies.
We have proclaimed that we want to become the climate capital and recently we even decided to become climate neutral until 2040. Every year we spend about 1 million € for climate projects.
Despite all this we mainly simulate. We are not serious. Projects stay small and are “on top” like an icing or some chocolate sprinkles on top. We do not draw serious consequences out of all the knowledge. Most of what we do concerning climate is small, nice and irrelevant to the city climate.
But the worst is, that we do both. We spend money for mickey mouse projects, pretend to become climate neutral and destroy nature, build highways, and build new heat islands. We do not unseal huge surfaces, we do not make Parks out of it, we progress very slowly in PV systems, destroy our green belt instead of using ten thousand m2 of brown fields and free space IN the city. We also are not decided to push cars out and instead use the place for cycling and walking.
I even start to believe that these nice projects are there to hide and to distract from the real fields of action, from the necessity of changing our behaviour, using less resources and reducing consumption of carbon dioxide. That is not serious.
Examples in Linz:
Bruckner Tower
Quadrill Tower
Dancing Towers
Digital University in the green belt
Densification project Froschberg
Project Hanuschgasse
Highway Ostumfahrung
Highway Westring
Donauinsel Urfahraner Marktgelände
real trees, false trees
Climate Clock
After 8 active years in local politics I would recommend to focus on some points -concerning city climate and heat of course.
Mobility
Reduce underground garages as far as possible. If garages are still necessary, build them only under the buildings or build so called "Quartiersgaragen". They have (for the public interest) only advantages, In some years, when private cars will be less and if well done, these garages can even be used for something else. These garages reduce traffic (Motorized private Transport), they spare and protect grown soil. www.linzplus.at/post/quartiersgarage-froschberg
Reduce parking on the streets. Parked cars and cars in general increase heat. And they steal the place to meaningful things. Streets are public space, It is a shame, that cars stand around for most of the time in valuable public space.
Foster walking and cycling. It is the coolest way of moving around. Motorized car mobility produced problems and heat and is to much place consuming. Place is that what we need most to make our cities better.
Trees Trees Trees…. and good soil. Trees are natural airconditioning…. Real trees, no fake trees. You know that, but I say it, because everything else doesn’t really make sense. Distracts us. Takes money and attention to do the real things. Plant trees, with a good soil means that they do not need maintenance or very few maintenance. That means that they will GROW 30, 40, 50 years and that they will be able to be relevant for the city climate. Mainly by evaporation…. each for about 25.000 €, Beispiele…
Unseal … stop making new building land… I would personally – if in power – forbit any new building land …. And stop destroying green belt around the cities… because we have a lot of building land, that we need to to mobilize.
Increase living quality, like security, walkability, low cost living, the right apartments… so the middle class and families do not escape in the suburbia, building little homes and moving around by cars that need streets, a lot of parking, consume time and produce traffic jam, which weakens the city and costs a lot of money. So living quality IN THE CITY indirectly is a main leverage to avoid bigger damage by pushing the middle class out of the cities. This is important because we do not care enough of the middle class.
Create new methods of working together…. The question of climate in the city is a Cross sectional matter….. we need to work on several points at the same time, that needs a lot of leadership, overview and competence. It also needs cooperation on all levels, between the different planning departments, the City and its surrounding and the different political parties. They need to create a political commitment beyond electoral periods. Important projects need to be taken out of the daily political business and games. May be new formats and instruments can help in achieving this like IBAs or new understanding of a Region… like Regiopoles or metropolitan areas. This allows new self-conception far beyond traditional administration borders or historical perception. I also believe things are getting to complicate…. Therefor we need, also in the planning field simple rules… in German we say “Faustregeln” Rules of thump… let s say 5 of them…
Let's be serious…
Stop greenwashing. Stop repairing faults instead of doing it properly.
Finish – one idea, that I actually try to promote in Linz: We do a lot of things. But it's stays erratic. No serious goal, no measurement exists. If you want to be serious, we need something like aClimate clock. This clock measures and shows our Carbon dioxide budget. It is possible to calculate such a budget for any city. In Linz, the budget until 2040 is approximately 70 Megatons of Carbon Dioxide.
Such a Clock would remind, spur and drive us to reach the goal." Climate Clock (Link Klima-Uhr): www.linzplus.at/post/linzer-klima-uhr
Central Park for Linz
Alle Vorträge: https://slideslive.com/szkt/urbanscapes-praha-2024-eng
Vortrag Potocnik: Lorenz Potocnik · ENG Buďme seriózní! Jak mohou města přispět k ochraně klimatu? · SlidesLive
Saving the (global) climate is a very big task. Some believe in it, some ignore the facts, very few are consequent, but most of us are just not ready to reduce consumption or change lifestyle. And even if the western world would do all the necessary efforts, what will do the ‚south‘ or the ‚east‘?
To tackle the challenge, lets reduce the field of action. Let’s talk about city planning and what cities can do in addition to already contributing a lot by simply being a city, living in community and density and sharing space. This way of living together is probably the best way to protect the climate, globally and locally, because it is the most economic and oekologic one.
I live Linz. Not far from Prag. Linz has 210.000 Inhabitants and grows approximately 1-2000 Persons every year. There is a lot of industry and a lot of commuting. 100.000 persons take their car to drive in and out the city every day. Like any other city we started to discover the climate topic some years ago. Except the far right, every political party is aware of the problem and talks about it, uses more or the less the right words and simulates action. And that is the point.
Despite considerable efforts, all that is not integrated in the daily planning. Talking, announcements and political decisions do not fit together with daily planning. We still do a lot of serious errors, counterproductive projects and do not have valid rules of what is important and effective and what is not. We do collect some data, we did some interesting maps but the knowledge stays theoretical and isolated. It is mostly ignored in the ‘real world’ of planning. ‘Normal’ projects continue running, business is as usual. Nobody knows nor measures the impact of all these new projects.
At the same time, we do a lot of well published and communicated pseudo-climate measures. Vertical green facades, some trees here and there, may be a little urban gardening? Most of it is without any relevance to the city climate. Even worse, Greenwashing distracts public opinion from the main tasks and effective measures. Sorry to crash the party.
But this is no reason to despair. There is a lot to do. And I believe we can do it. Immediately. We just need to be serious. Of course, the biggest leverage of reducing CO2 through city-planning is in the field of mobility, constructing/redevelopment and heating/ cooling. But a lot can be done by much simpler methods. So, what makes sense? How can we integrate these measures into daily planning? And How can or should we talk about and explain all this? I will try to deliver some answers to that using Linz as a Case study.
Speech, zusammengefasst und gekürzt:I am of course happy to be here. As a politician I do not get a lot of interesting invitations like this. Even local politicians are stigmatised as such, people try to keep their distance.
Autor:innen: Lorenz Potocnik
20.5.2024
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