«Any, even the boldest plans should be based on real opportunities» - said the hero and marshal of the USSR Georgiy Zhukov. And despite the fact that we live in peacetime, his words remain relevant.
On July 25-26, the Almaty Development Center participated in the AlmatyVision 2050 development workshops. The purpose of the event was to gather opinions about the city to determine the strengths of Almaty, its opportunities and challenges for successful development in the future. In total, three meetings were held: with members of the public and offices of the mayor's office, with entrepreneurs and with developers.
Design and development specialists from Hatch Ltd provided participants with regional cases to study, as well as introduced them to the development of urban infrastructure elsewhere in similar situations.
At each seminar, participants were divided into groups and presented their vision of the current situation. Thus, the majority highlighted existing events, festivals, cultural diversity and services positively, the undisputed leaders were the issues of climate, pedestrian streets, the historical center and, of course, the mountainous area. Among the negative aspects were noted traffic jams, the quality of public transport, the quality of the urban environment, etc.
One of the entrepreneurs, Abdibek Bimendiyev, commented on the situation:
«We are interested in making sure that the city is a place of both business relations, culture and tourism. The great need is not to build something new, we need to improve what is already in the city. From the point of view of foreign companies there are problems for trade, business. This is the lack of retail space in residential areas, and qualified professionals, and uncoordinated work in certain issues. We will go a long way to solving many problems, and now we have an opportunity to analyze the whole situation»
The project team is already conducting research on urban, transport and strategic structures, attracting investment and talent, strengthening the economy and other areas. The main thing is that the residents of the city strive for a positive and balanced growth of their region.
