After our Victory, Ukrainians have a lot of work to do: first of all, they will have to bring the damaged cities and villages back to life. According to the latest data, as a result of the full-scale invasion of Russia, more than 50 million square meters have already been destroyed. m of housing stock. Therefore, in order for Ukraine to be able to return to normal life, it will be necessary to rebuild what was destroyed as soon as possible. Somewhere it is necessary to carefully restore only individual buildings and streets, and somewhere, unfortunately, it will be necessary to actually build new cities on the site of destroyed ones. At the same time, designers and builders will face the task of not just creating new housing, but making cities modern and comfortable for life.
How to implement this in practice was discussed at the presentation of the "Book of the City" publication by Mykhailo Pozhivanov, an experienced manager who at one time worked as the mayor of Mariupol, the deputy head of the KMDA, the deputy minister of the economy and a People's Deputy of Ukraine for four convocations. It is symbolic that the book was written even before the war and thus the author unwittingly predicted the challenges that Ukraine had to face now.
The presentation of the book and painting exhibition "Life's Crossroads" by Mykhailo Pozhivanov took place in Kyiv's "AVS-art" gallery, attracting great interest from experts.
In his work, the author explains the basics of the urban planning policy of Ukrainian cities today, taking into account the development of technologies and requirements. However, the main thing, according to Mykhailo Pozhivanov, is the ideology of the city, which should become comfortable, safe and convenient: "It is very important to correctly formulate the criteria of the urban planning policy of the city and the sources of filling its budget at the initial stage of design. And it depends on the peculiarities of its location, availability of minerals, logistics, etc. After all, cities are industrial, resort, trade, or mixed in terms of earning. In the book, I consider all types of cities, but the main characteristics for any city are comfort and convenience for its inhabitants. Since the publication of the book was planned before the war, some adjustments had to be made after February 24.
"After the Victory, Ukraine must restore or rebuild some cities. And it is very important to work out plans for the restoration of cities in as much detail as possible, moving away from the tracing paper. After all, all Ukrainian cities were built dozens and dozens of years ago, and absolutely everything has changed during this time: construction technologies, electrical standards and requirements, water supply and communications systems, etc., down to apartment plans. Therefore, it is necessary to move away from modern technologies and requirements. Then the city will be comfortable, modern and efficient for its residents and the country. Moreover, we need to move from detailed and modern plans for the recovery of cities and regions to a detailed plan for the whole of Ukraine," Mykhailo Pozhivanov stressed.
Let's note that, as the head of the Odesa city organization of the Batkivshchyna party, Mykhailo Pozhivanov knows the problems of South Palmyra very well. In this regard, the specialist's book will be very useful for the city, which has suffered for many years from chaotic construction and the lack of a clear urban planning concept. And this, unfortunately, does not allow us to fully take advantage of the advantages that Odesa has - both in terms of location and industrial potential.
