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participate in the creation of the plan and state their needs, not just vote for or against it. In Holland people are participating from the moment, there isn’t even an architectural idea. That way the society is being enlightened and the process moves on quicker. Even though some conflicts still arise, they are being resolved faster.” – said T. Jonauskis. “-And the conflicts aren’t that bad themselves, because people compromise. Comprises are being treated as a positive thing, I won and you won, that means we won together. But in Lithuania the meaning is different, a compromise is a situation of, I passed on something and you passed on something.”
Justina Muliuolyte and Tadas Jonauskis Urban science experts
Each of the capital’s neighborhoods has the potential to become a small organism that will be able to satisfy all of its daily needs, where there would be working places and leisure areas and a lot more, because everyone has good roads, public transportation, spaces, where you can install new functionality.
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years ago, being cut down by them, that scares people more than the happiness, that promises to build a children’s playground or an additional parking lot in the freed space, might give them. According to M. Pakalnis, politicians are also scared of taking responsibility for unpopular decisions or changes in our life: “When we debate they say the following: no more yards in the tenement house blocks. Why not? Why such urban compaction examples, when people get more private space are bad? Is it that bad that a different social layer of people comes to the neighborhood and renews it? It just happens so, that we cannot create personal entries to each and every apartment in the center of the city and let them feel the comfort and privacy that a personal house can grant; we can’t use the experience of many countries and build on water. We “care” for the quality of our lives in a different way. For example, we have recently adopted a hygiene regulation that indicates maximum acceptable noise pollution in the city, now we can’t even
use washing machines without breaking the law.” Lithuanian Real Estate Development Association (LNTPA) President Robert Dargis has noted that small urban structures of a couple of a couple of tens of houses play a very crucial role – they develop community-based society: “When neighbors know each other personally, they don’t need to think about baby carriage safety. But this puts a toll on them, you have to be better than you usually are, a resident of a small house is more visible to the others, his behavior can be tracked by his neighbors. In such a way, an unseen social education is going on. Then, each of the residents see if their neighbor is neat and orderly, they see if his car is properly parked, they see did or did not he clean the snow. This is a big advantage.” Urban development experts J. Muliuolyte and T. Jonauskis are sure that it is possible to get public support for restructuring blocks or even neighborhoods. “It is common in Holland for the residents to participate in the project from the start. People have to
When you should not revive it A few years ago, the LNTPA president R. Dargis has shocked even a part of the architect society, by making a statement, that the State should go for more radical approach during the preparation of the cities’ neighborhood plans and demolish a part of old tenement houses. The way it’s done abroad. M. Pakalnis today is one of the few specialists in Lithiania that like the LNTPA President convinces everybody, that a part of the buildings, especially the tenement apartment renovation by insulating them is simply unreasonable. “Who would like to live in a home, where you should climb over the back of the bath tub to enter it and not from it’s side? We have only poor quality sanitary facilities and a small kitchen rooms in those buildings, which are separated from the living room. A woman is at the kitchen cooking cutlets and the man is in the living room, lying on the sofa, watching TV – this is the Soviet family concept. But they don’t even meet each other, and that is the reason of poor birth rate in the country!”, - said the urban specialist as he was joking. After that he seriously argued, that the renovation of such houses equals just throwing the State money away. “But nobody wants to speak out loud about this in Lithuania, there is no one to discuss this with”, he said with a regret. R. Dargis recognizes the fact, that it is especially hard to create a model that would help to get rid of the tenement houses without any breach of the apart-