tranzit.sk/

June 4, 2024
Beginning at 6:00 p.m. at Mýtny domček (the Toll House) on the Petržalska side of the Old Bridge

The introduction will feature a guided walk through Lido led by some of the authors of the book.
The book may be purchased at a discount at the event.



Can we even imagine an urban development policy that not only reflects the interests of the most influential players, but the right to the city from the perspectives of different social groups and non-human actors?

Between the Starý and Prístavný most bridges in the Bratislava borough of Petržalka, lies a rare, virtually undeveloped area for which the name Lido has been adopted. In the near future, this dense island of greenery and coolness on the banks of the Danube is expected to give way to a modern "downtown" which apparently must expand from the opposite bank of the Danube, so that financially valuable land does not remain idle.

The book Mestský rozvoj pre koho? Bratislavské Lido medzi vágnym terénom a expanziou centra (Urban Development for Whom? Bratislava Lido between Vague Terrain and the Expansion of the Center) seeks to question this "iron logic" and to think differently about the city and its development. The publication is the result of the findings and knowledge of seventeen experts in the field of natural sciences and humanities who devoted themselves to detailed scientific research of the place, but also to an analysis of greater Bratislava and global contexts. The book also features a set of visual materials showing Lido past and present and its free artistic interpretations.

To some, such a view may seem radical - or utopian. But it is becoming more and more evident that if we want to have at least some hope of managing the climate crisis, and if we don't want to have the remnants of our collective property and competences taken away, we must develop this type of imagination, this kind of radical thinking. And to stubbornly insist that developer realism is not the only possible version of urban development.