4th seminar Metropolitan Talks
| Subject: International Relations
Online seminar to discuss the impact of covid-19 on green infrastructures
The 4th online seminar of the REthinking Metropolises initiative was held on 22 March 2021. The session focused on analysing the impact of covid-19 on public spaces and green infrastructures of the participant metropolises. The main objective was to debate the creation of safe public spaces after the pandemic, and whether increasing the percentage of green areas and parks in metropolises' neighbourhoods is a utopia or a necessity.
The metropolitan councillor Elisenda Alamany, representing the AMB, highlighted that one of the main learnings is that health must be on the centre of the debate when talking about public space. She also stated that more ecologic, resilient and gender-oriented metropolises are needed.
The online seminar was organised by the Katowice Metropolitan Area (Metropolia GZM) with the support of the European Metropolitan Authorities (EMA) network. Besides the AMB councillor Elisenda Alamany, the other participants were Ossi Savolainen, mayor of the Helsinki-Uusimaa region, and Mark J. Nieuwenhuijsen, director of Urban Planning, Environment and Health of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal).
The REthinking Metropolises project fosters the exchange of experiences amongst politic representatives of the EMA network to find solutions to the new challenges derived from the covid-19 pandemic, and to its impact on the life of the inhabitants and the economies of the metropolitan areas.