Simon Wilson: New mayor opens Milan to the people with painted piazzas

When roads become public space for all: the Piazza Aperte programme in Milan. Photo / supplied

In 2016, a businessman called Giuseppe Sala won the mayoral election in Milan with 42 per cent of the vote. He promised to make the city better, and one of the ways he made good on that was to re-allocate street space in 38 different locations, taking it away from cars and giving it to people: to pedestrians, to kids playing, to people watching the world go by, to cyclists.

They did it with paintbrushes, planter boxes, outdoor furniture and some ping-pong tables. Last year Sala won re-election with 60 per cent of the vote. You wouldn't think so much could be achieved by painting dots on the road.

When the streets are safe for kids: Piazza Aperte in Milan. Photo / supplied

The programme is called Piazza Aperte, or Open Squares, and because of it half the city's 1.35 million residents now live within walking distance of a new pop-up public space. A companion programme in 2020 called Strade Aperte, or Open Streets, added nearly 70 kilometres of pop-up cycleways.

This is l'urbanistica tattica, which we call tactical urbanism, and it's been used in many cities, including Auckland. But some things set the Milan programme apart.

First, they didn't focus on the city centre. Milan's first three piazzas were in outer suburbs full of cars. As the programme was rolled out, that focus remained: Piazza Aperte is an equity programme bringing public space to parts of the city that didn't have much of it before.

Second, the plans weren't imposed on the locals. Instead, officials worked with locals to identify good sites to convert and involved them in the designs.

"People have very strong feelings about their streets," says Janette Sadik-Khan. She was New York's commissioner for transportation when Michael Bloomberg was mayor, and now works for his urban-design consultancy Bloomberg Associates. Sadik-Khan advised Milan on Piazza Aperte.

As a result of the grassroots engagement, many locals stayed involved and took part in the painting. There's nothing like a working bee to sow the seeds of community ownership.

One important way they made the programme work was to involve locals in the work. They owned it. Photo / supplied

A third vital element is leadership. The mayor fronted this programme.

In Auckland, tactical urbanism hasn't always worked. Where it's failed, invariably there's been too much top-down direction and too little grassroots ownership of the process.

And the mayor has been comprehensively absent. In fact, most of the candidates now competing for his job seem unlikely to lead anything like this either.

There's a fourth critical thing they did in Milan.

"We moved fast," says Sadik-Khan. Once the plans and designs were agreed, they implemented them quickly. "Not everybody's going to be on board," she says. "Not everyone's going to agree there's even a problem." So when you get community buy-in, you don't let the remaining naysayers hold you back.

Activating a space, with paint and ping pong. Photo / supplied

But why even bother? "It's easy to argue about parking," says Sala. "But it's difficult to dispute a new city space filled with people and with signs of life, commerce and a sustainable purpose where before there was nothing."

The very things everyone says we're desperate for in this city.

It's a neighbourhood thing and it's a global thing. "Reclaiming space [from cars] is more than just [adding] local amenities," says Sadik-Khan. "It's a global planning principle that can help save the planet."

The paint tells everyone this is no longer just a road to drive on. Photo / supplied

It's not all dots. 38 piazzas in Milan have been given the treatment, each with its own designs. Photo / supplied

Design for Living is a series about bright ideas that make cities better, appearing weekly in Canvas magazine.