Kraków will persist with pro-growth and sustainability-driven investments regardless of rising inflation, the Polish metropolis’s Mayor and Professor Jacek Majchrowski instructed EURACTIV Poland in an interview.

Majchrowski defined that the prices of the pandemic, hovering inflation and a few new state taxes had distorted town’s finances.

“The rise in gasoline, fuel and electrical energy costs results in rising prices of sustaining public transport, infrastructure, and so on. It is usually tough to implement and plan investments, as the rise in costs for development supplies and providers causes corporations to begin bidding for way more cash than town initially assumed,” he mentioned.

“Furthermore, the tax reforms launched by the federal government are depleting some classes of revenue earned by native governments. All because of this we have now to implement the finances with restricted revenues and rising prices for the functioning of native authorities,” he added.

Nonetheless, regardless of this unfavourable atmosphere, Majchrowski mentioned his native authorities would insist on investments.

“Our finances is concentrated on growth, we don’t surrender on investments, which drive the financial system, or on the actions that convey us nearer to the mannequin of a sustainable metropolis,” he mentioned.

Majchrowski, who has been Krakow’s mayor since 2002, mentioned the pandemic confirmed that if we wish to construct cities which can be resilient to financial, local weather or well being challenges, “we should take into consideration their future when it comes to sustainable growth”.

“That is an method that Kraków had already been pursuing earlier than the pandemic. It consists of financial diversification, the pursuit of local weather neutrality, and using know-how and clever options to enhance folks’s lives […] It is usually about shaping of city house in such a means that it permits the inhabitants to satisfy an important wants in a brief distance from residence,” he famous.

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Re-building international tourism

Tourism is taken into account a essential a part of town’s financial system. In response to information, earlier than the pandemic, tourism was producing 10% of the GDP and employed about 40,000 folks.

In 2019, 14 million guests visited Kraków, whereas a yr later, their quantity fell by 35%. The conflict in Ukraine decreased additional the variety of international guests, and Majchrowski says international tourism ought to now be re-built in shut coordination with the business.

“Optimistic forecasts say that we can do that by the tip of 2023. Extra cautious ones level to 2025”, he mentioned.

“After all, the conflict in Ukraine doesn’t assist. The unsure political and financial scenario all the time harms the event of tourism. Regardless of the tough circumstances, we proceed to work for the reconstruction of this market, in accordance with the just lately adopted Coverage of sustainable tourism in Krakow 2021-2028,” he added.

The mayor defined that the target is to develop an optimum tourism administration mannequin and concurrently promote Kraków as a historic metropolis that “cares about its distinctive cultural heritage and the pure atmosphere”.

One other area that Kraków will give attention to is the event of biking, because it was one in every of two Polish cities that arrange extra bicycle lanes in the course of the pandemic.

“Yearly we create new bicycle paths, virtually all one-way streets within the metropolis centre permit bicycle site visitors underneath the present, this complete space is a zone of Tempo 30 calm site visitors […] To advertise pedestrian site visitors, we have now additionally turned off virtually all site visitors alerts within the centre, so pedestrians don’t waste time at intersections.”

The mayor additionally mentioned town has superior in group gardens contemplating that since 2017, it has been implementing a program to help city gardening through consultations and workshops.

“Yearly comes new gardens. At present, there are fourteen, and extra are underneath evaluation. Kraków can also be the one metropolis in Poland and one of some in Europe that has handed laws on the institution and upkeep of group gardens”, he mentioned.

Sensible options for a digital future

Relating to town’s digital future, Majchrowski mentioned the preparation of the infrastructure wanted to handle town’s ICT providers was finalised in 2021.

“At present, we’re finalising the work on key reference information units for town, together with spatial information and information on folks and companies. On this basis, purposes and providers are created,” he mentioned.

The mayor cited for example the Cell Providers Platform, the place one can examine the schedule of waste collections and the placement of sports activities amenities or automated defibrillators, whereas sooner or later, one would additionally have the ability to pay for some municipal providers on-line.

“One other venture is the Portal of Digital Providers, built-in with the shopper’s on-line account, which lets you deal with official enterprise with out leaving residence,” he mentioned.

In 2022 and 2023, town will even implement programs for processing giant information units based mostly on machine studying and synthetic intelligence.

“These programs will permit for superior evaluation of city information, which can translate into very concrete conclusions. This may help the decision-making on the event of Krakow in order that we will tackle the true wants of town and residents. This consists of, for instance, the evaluation of mobility within the metropolis to scale back site visitors jams and enhance the consolation of journey”, he concluded.

[Edited by Sarantis Michalopoulos, Alice Taylor | EURACTIV.com]