Greening in Belgrade through co-creation

Hello and welcome to local voices for sustainability the eclair. Europe podcast, I'm your host Laura Schubert, each episode, we explore the sustainability Transformations, taking place in our members cities across Europe. Today, we're headed to a Balkan capital city perched on the banks of where two major rivers meet the Danube and the Sava. It is one of the longest continually inhabited cities and Continental Europe, home to a A dizzying blend of architectural Styles, reflective of its complex history recognized as having a particularly vibrant nightlife as well as a friendly and hospitable population.

This city also has some notable sustainability goals like reducing its carbon dioxide emissions by 40 percent by 2030. I'm talking about the Serbian city of Belgrade. In this episode. We'll be diving into the topic of urban Greening. What is it? And how does it impact the sustainability of a city?

Find yourself as Shady Tree to sit under or a Sunny Spot in the grass, while we explore this topic with today's guests. Here with me today is animated to radulovich an urban planner and resilient development consultant working in Belgrade Serbia. And as a founder of the center for experiments in urban studies, which is a partner in a number of projects that are furthering, co-creation in nature based Solutions, one of which is clever cities.

Clever cities uses nature based solutions to address Urban regeneration, challenges and promote social inclusion in cities. Anna is also a part of the city of Belgrade. Urban Greening plan team and has been a vital resource for City officials. As they have worked to integrate co-creative processes and existing infrastructure into their sustainability plans and I were delighted to have you. Welcome to the show.

Thank you very much, Laura. I'm really glad for your invitation and I am really excited about our conversation today. Wonderful. So Urban Greening, I thought we could ease into our conversation with the simple introduction to the topic. I have a feeling It's more multifaceted than it sounds. So if you had to describe Urban Greening to a child, what would you tell them? To be honest with children.

I think it is much better to actually experience than to talk because I think that they learn much better through demonstration and experience, then storytelling. So, with children, actually, we practice actual work on Urban Greening of our city with children. We actually planted trees. We try to exercise Urban Agriculture and to try be demonstrating Community Gardens in schools and kindergartens. So for them, it's really exciting to see the life growing and to really experience the joy of experiencing nature in their regular everyday, Urban environment, mmm. So, at least for our listeners of this show, I think it's useful to try and build that.

Link between our topic today Urban Greening and the sustainability focus of this podcast. So can you tell us a little bit more about the link between the two? Can there be Urban sustainability without Urban Greening? I strongly believe no because we really need to bring nature back to the cities. We over exploded, our urban areas. We really exaggerated with new construction and new real estate development and City.

I like that is not sustainable from many aspects. Urban Greening is actually the paradigm shift in urban planning and Urban Development. There are a lot of reasons for trying and working very hard on having more green areas but not only green for beautifying, the urban landscape, but also multifunctional and ecologically valuable green areas because quality planned and designed and implemented.

Green areas can significantly reduce Urban heat island effects, help in reduction of urban floods. Urban Greening reduces pollution and helps in CO2 emissions reduction when it is integrated into buildings. It can also help in terminal and acoustic insulation and it can increase the durability and lifecycle of materials implemented. It can also boost social, cohesion and opportunities for Interaction with the neighborhood and it can really create urban communities and of course it's a strongly influences on biodiversity and that is why we really need to focus on quality and Val design and well implemented green areas which are not just crass or not.

Just one type of trees, but the variety of species which provide also shelter and food for various angles and it really sounds like Urban green. Sustainability, you know, social inclusion, these things really all go hand in hand. Like you can't have one without the other essentially. Exactly. So in Belgrade you know you were giving some, some local examples there and that's what I'd like to touch on in my next question here.

So you've been doing some activities and initiatives of your own in the city and I've heard that you've developed something called a linear Park. Can you tell us a little bit about that? And how you were involved in its development? Yes. The leaner Park is actually the big big plan and development projects of the city of Belgrade, which was initiated in 2018 in the former Railway Corridor, in the length of 4.5 km and with the area of around 15 hectares increasing to 22 and it hasn't happened for decades, actually that Belgrade devoted such a huge area to the new green ink.

But in that process, it was very important to keep the residents in And involved. And that was the first example, in which we piloted the co-creation in urban planning in the city of Belgrade. Okay, nice. So Center for experiments in urban studies. The association professional association that I read was facilitating the co-creation process from the very early, very initial stage of this plan development, until the plan adoption by the city assembly. And we organized a lot of interactive. Give workshops we organized a lot of consultations During the covid period, the transform this process into an online Arena. So they made an interactive map for mapping needs and ideas and possible and Bs application in

this area. And we try to provide the situation in which the residents of the neighboring, areas of the future linear Park, and those areas were built in the 70s and 80s were not be. Excluded or disadvantage with the new development and the real estate prices increase. And so it was the first time that citizens were really involved in the planning processes from the very very initial stage and we're involved in in a real process of changing of our city. Did you find that the pandemic influenced Urban Greening at all in Belgrade?

Yes. Did we ran some questionnaires and it's became obvious? I guess as globally that people appreciate open areas in green areas in the city, much more after the pandemic than previously. And there was a rise of local initiatives of turning the construction land into green areas or protecting some Greenery as much more than, than, before the covet and demek. But unfortunately, I am not convinced that City officials used the crisis in the best possible way. Okay.

They were not capturing the, the energy and the possibility behind the moment. Whoa, okay, yes, unfortunately. Yes, we could use it much better for real shifts and changes in the planning Paradigm but for now it did not yet happened. Okay, a work in progress, at least. Yes. So bringing Urban Greening It is and initiatives to life in cities is perhaps easier said than done cities need resources to help, get them to that place.

As we know and one such resource is the urban by Nature program. This is a global capacity building program for nature based Solutions and knowledge sharing, which really centers around this concept of co-creation. I understand that you Anna lead the Southeastern Europe hub for the urban by Nature program. Can you tell us how you see participation in the Programs like Urban by Nature, influencing how cities in South Eastern, Europe are approaching public green spaces. Yes.

Urban by nature is a global program and we established Urban by Nature Southeastern Europe Hub in May last year. And it was really a very precious resource of knowledge. Exchanging with our partners from clever cities project from Hamburg, Milan and London and other experts from the Consortium. It was very valuable.

Our local officials and experts from Western Balkans and Southeastern Europe, because we don't have a lot of opportunities to actually listen and learn about processes already being implemented in other European countries, okay? It also brought a lot of energy and initiatives for future projects and it is really important to create that critical mass of like thinkers in the region because as As I explained in the western Balkans, it is more difficult.

So to transfer those messages on the importance of urban Greening than in the European Union. Okay, yes. Okay, so I have only one more official question for you, and then we're going to be moving into the last segment of our show. So my final question for you looks to the Future. Imagine it is 2033 10 years from now. What would you love to see in Belgrade in terms of urban Greening?

I would like to see a lot of urban Gardens in the kindergartens and in schoolyards I would like to see linear park with providing a lot of biodiversity and small, new pocket Parks all around Belgrade and relevant. Rainforests about forests in which a lot of citizens are actually enjoying regularly. Mmm, very nice.

What's a pocket park it? Look at the park is a very small Park less than 50 square meters. I'd like whenever you can. You make a small green area? I'm very nice. So and so instead of a few parking spaces maybe you can have it. Exactly. Exactly. So this brings us to the The lightning round of our conversation.

This is also known as hot takes and it works like this. I'm going to ask you a question or pose a statement, and I'm looking for a brief instincts will response. So we've got ten of these ready for you. Okay. Okay. Okay. So true or false every city should plan for urban Greening? Yes true. My favorite public Greening element is microphone, is that?

Hmm. Okay, an example of a European city that is doing great work. Increasing, local Green Space is London. Mmm. Why is that? They hit excellent policies and analytics and they have been developed a lot of new tools. Like a green space index has been developed in Berlin like through the years ago, but they are introducing it as well, but they also introduced the net, biodiversity gain, which means it basically cannot construct anything.

NG new. If you don't allow the substitute for the green areas, you are destroying within your construction. I think that is pretty Innovative policy. It is actually quite interesting and very important shift. Yeah, absolutely. That sounds very forward-thinking. Yes. What community or group? Would you like to see better represented in belgrade's?

Urban planning process, local communities for. Now, we have pretty much the opposition in Local communities opposition? Okay? Yes, in many parts of Belgrade, local community groups are rising, but very much as a reaction and actually not proactively, and I would really like that to change it. Of course, depends on the governance and the city Administration a lot, but it is about dialogue and respect of each side and that is a long-term process.

But I think that's the only constructive way we can really go further together. Okay. Okay what is something Belgrade has learned from working with Urban by Nature I think the Clarence exactly that lets we can actually work much better together than if we all stand in our all-time old-school positions that when we share the governance we actually Share the power but also we share the responsibility and that is a very constructive and fruitful process. Yes.

Absolutely about the linear park. Has it already been developed? Is it completed? Or is it still in the planning process? It's still in the planning process. One of those 10 zones have been starting with implementation but we expect that from summer this year, the real contract construction or implementation works will begin much more intensively. Okay?

So I mean, if I was to, if I was to ask you, what has been the biggest challenge and co-creating, the park is that something you could already have an answer for or is it still too early in the process? I can say what was the challenge in in the planning? Sure. Yeah Thomas tells about that because yes that was the process on its own. From one side.

It was the first time that we exercise this kind of process the co-creative process and the good thing was that it raised the interest and brought a lot of Seasons. But on the other hand, there was some criticism which was not expressed early enough in the process and it came after the plan was adopted, we need to to try to find the intersection of interests and something which is like socially acceptable and that is something we need to negotiate about and workaround.

So visitors to Belgrade in the future. When can they expect hopefully to find the linear Park? All I hope in Next couple of years, we would be very optimistic, five bit more realistic, okay? But yes, that is what we expect, all right, moving on, then on our hot takes. So Belgrade is a member of the standing Conference of towns and municipalities of Serbia, which is itself. An e clay member has belgrade's connection to both networks impacted.

Its Urban Greening initiatives. Yes, yes of course, standing Conference of towns and municipalities is an Only important resource and is an important institution with which we collaborate a lot on various topics. Urban Greening is a Rising one sustainable Urban Mobility, which is actually quite related with it.

Organ Greening is another and they bring a lot of value of course. I notice how green public spaces affect my emotions to or false true, of course. My colleague says yes, when we enter the Green Space we feel how our shoulder relaxed, which is completed true. What is a piece of advice you would give young people studying or training today to be urban planners would advise them to open the boxes to try to collaborate with other professionals as Much as possible and to listen to their emotions when they are in urban space.

And yes, and to plan what they enjoy, what is something cities? Should keep in mind when developing their own plans for urban Greening. I think what these in the core of the urban Greening plans methodology being developed recently by the European commission and supported by Clay is actually co-creation. And I I think it's very grounded decision and very grounded advice.

Yeah, I think that's co-creation in urban Greening planning's is inevitable element, so that's it. We've come to the end of our questions, the end of our conversation and the you've given us a glimpse into the world of urban Greening and what role it plays in the development of sustainable cities, it's certainly far more than just planting a tree here. There, it sounds like it's a whole way of thinking about planning, our Urban spaces in which a whole range of Stakeholders and priorities and goals. All have to be considered at once. And I would like to thank you so much for joining us on the show and Shining a light on this topic. Thank you.

Thank you very much lower for the invitation. And I really hope that this conversation will contribute to the shift towards understanding and valuing urban Greening in urban planning. Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. If you would like to learn more about the urban by Nature program or the clever City's Project, Check out the link in the episode description. If you're enjoying the show, this Fargo on And subscribe. So you'll be the first to know about future episodes, thanks for joining us.

And until next time,

Greening in Belgrade through co-creation

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