Environmental mitigation policies, recovery of abandoned areas, islands of greenery, Southern Gate, valorisation of the Upper Town and democracy from below: there is a bit of everything, with certainly non-trivial themes, in the open letter addressed by the association Italia Nostra of Bergamo to the newly elected mayor of the city, Elena Carnevaliwhich takes up the legacy – and responsibility – left to her by Giorgio Goriflew to Brussels after the results of the European Championships.
The protection of environmental and cultural heritage
«For the first time Bergamo has a female mayor – begins the text sent to the first citizen last Thursday (20 June) -. We trust that she knows how to govern our city with a sensitivity, generally attributed to female specificity, particularly attentive to listening to citizens, to their involvement in the management of public affairs and to their well-being, which depends very much on the quality of the city system”.
In particular, the association writes about an urban planning policy that is capable of putting first place «beauty, patience, the courage to make choices aware of the profound changes taking place, capable of understanding and making people understand that the progress and well-being of the What is unique in our reality is no longer merely the frenzy of doing, but the attention to people and to the wise use of the territory in which they move and which influences their lives”.
Moreover, the section’s board of directors, as it has also done with previous administrations, intends to make a contribution to the management of the environmental and cultural heritage, trusting “in the attention and listening of the new mayor and her council”.
Mitigation and green islands
Beyond the theoretical declaration of intent, we then went into detail on the aspects that we consider most fundamental in the years to come. That is, to begin with, precisely the policies of mitigation and adaptation to climate change, consistent with the objective of a zero-emission city by 2030, as per the UN Agenda.
But also «reserving new construction only in abandoned areas, with volumes resulting from a study aimed at calculating the real housing and commercial needs. Without the possibility of monetizing greenery, but with the obligation to create islands of greenery sufficient to lower the average temperature in that area.”
But how should this discussion be expressed specifically? To give an example, the letter explains, we talk «in particular about the urban planning forecasts in the Porta Sud area, and we remember the foresight of those who, almost thirty years ago, imagined a real and large city park in that area. It also means initiating a management policy for public spaces, aimed at increasing draining surfaces, […] the increase in pedestrian areas and public transport networks”.
Relaunching the Upper Town and avoiding «blank delegations»
In Bergamo, however, we must also enhance «its close relationship with the water and the ancient agricultural centres, re-entrusting the Upper Town with some administrative role, a renewed attractiveness for professional activities not linked to the tourism sector». In conclusion, we do not fail to underline how it would be appropriate to avoid a “blank delegation” situation, as it is called in the text, that is, the green light after the vote to do what is deemed most appropriate, limiting that listening to the citizens who perhaps, during the election campaign, it had been adopted more willingly.
We therefore need «a process of constant dialogue and discussion with the community, which is not intended to be a limitation of the administrator’s right-duty to make decisions, but rather an expansion of democracy, which cannot be a “blank delegation” between a election and the other. Comparison that must not only take place through IT platforms and referendums among citizens, but above all by initiating a cultural action, capable of overcoming the logic of restricted circles and the center-periphery gap, favoring transversal relationships between institutions and associations, which with their activity already provides valuable and important services to the community.”
