Awakening of the middle class

More and more people begin to understand that it is impossible to remain passive. This can lead to specific losses: they will cut down the park, squeeze a high -rise building in the yard or place a landfill under the nose.

The deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Altai Territory Vladislav Vakaev sharedhis opinion on the first public hearings on the project of the General Plan of Barnaul, designed until 2036.

Now he just returned from the first public hearing to discuss the project of the general plan of the city of Barnaul. In fact, they were disrupted by the townspeople. What happened? The city administration, which has extensive experience in conducting such events, specially picked up the time and place of the first hearings. Immediately after the New Year holidays, in the recreation center of the village of Central. Apparently, the hope was that ordinary people simply would not go there. And to a small hall (300 seats) it will be possible to bring a couple of hundred “your” people, who will provide the necessary result. However, everything went wrong. About 1000 people came to the hearing - car traffic jams began half a kilometer from the recreation center, and a huge crowd gathered near the entrance, which could not get into the hall for registration. At the same time, rumors immediately spread that the administration had already registered “its own” - just a few minutes after the start of registration in the lists there were already about 200 people. But the rest were recorded very slowly. Most (among whom I was) went to the hall without registration. Where the question arose that the hearing must be canceled due to the refusal of registration for everyone to take part in the hearings. Attempts by representatives of the city administration to take the leadership of the process into their own hands. The opponents of the general plan were the vast majority, but the supporters chose to freeze. In any case, during the vote by raising hands in the hall there were no such ones at all. Apparently, they were simply scared of the pressure of the public. The result was a decision on the recognition of hearings that were not held.

Obviously, both the tactical and strategic miscalculation of the city authorities took place. The tactical was that the time and place of the first hearings actually played into the hands of the opponents of the general plan. After long holidays, people missed any public activity. Therefore, the first public event attracted the attention of many - only deputies and famous social activists I saw more than two dozen. Secondly, they were carried out where there are many opponents of a particular plan of the plan-the creation of a TBO training ground between the villages of Central and Belmesevo. These people made up the bulk of the protesters.

But the strategic miscalculation was the very procedure for developing and discussing the general plan. She was as closed as possible. The public did not take part in it (the pocket council of the Public Chamber - not counting). Moreover, any attempts by people to establish a dialogue with the city authorities on the issue of the general plan came into demonstrative neglect. This caused such a violent reaction. Although the general plan, of course, has many sound ideas. But people are not ready to support a document developed without their participation.

I believe that what happened today has become a significant event for our Altai politics. Namely, we witnessed the awakening of the city middle class. Who is ready to actively defend his rights. More and more people begin to understand that it is impossible to remain passive. This can lead to specific losses: they will cut down the park, squeeze a high -rise building in the yard or place a landfill under the nose. People begin to understand the mechanisms of making such decisions and learn to prevent them. Interestingly, a variety of people took part in the event. Suddenly there were a lot of young people and middle -aged representatives. They said that they specially took off their jobs to come and express their position. Another interesting fact was that they received information about the event from social networks. Which formed a negative attitude towards the general plan. And this despite active attempts by official media to show a blessed picture on this issue.

In general, interesting processes in the city are planned. Let's see how tomorrow the hearings will be held in another problematic place - in Vlasikha.