For the first time in over five years, Tallinn again has a chief architect. Andro Mänd, who took office in August, considers it his main goal to turn Tallinn into the city with the best urban environment on the Baltic Sea coast. But how to define the best living environment in a situation where even Tallinn's leaders fail to agree on what to do about motorization, bike lanes and how to change an environment which has been shaped largely by the wishes of real estate developers for a long time.

Let's get one thing straight first. Tallinn's previous city architect, who quit five years ago, was called Endrik Mänd. You are Andro Mänd. Are you two related or is it merely a coincidence?

It is purely a coincidence. There is no nepotism here.

Tallinn's urban environment is the hottest topic today. From a bystander's perspective, we seem to have at least three deputy mayors in charge of urban space and traffic. At the same time, they often take opposing views and arguments have spilled over into the media and beyond. You took office in August and immediately find yourself in political crosswinds. Which deputy mayor do you answer to, if any of them?

City planning is regulated by Madle Lippus (SDE). So, in terms of municipal hierarchy, I answer to Lippus, but as city architect, I have to communicate with all sides as cooperation is the only way this city develops and changes.

In a situation where Tallinn is run by four parties whose deputy mayors have very different views on how it should be managed and its urban environment shaped, based on what do you proceed? Can you work like that, or are you free to pursue your own agenda, and they'll have to listen to what the city architect has to say?

Ours is a democratic society, but the city architect is not an elected office. The final say belongs with those who represent the people – the politicians. My role is to explain to them that there are different ways of solving problems. It is up to them which methods to pick, while it's my business to keep them informed and make sure we don't lose sight of the big picture.

What has made headlines lately, these differing visions of urban environment, they're understandable in terms of where they come from and why. Politicians haven't come up with them by themselves, they represent different social group's expectations. City planning is an endless search for compromise. You cannot have one side dominating over the other. Pictures painted by the media need to be seen through a certain filter.

It is likely the role of the city architect to seek common ground, and it makes no sense to keep banging your head against the wall with a single topic if you see it's not getting anywhere. But there are a million things to address in the city, and I'd say there is cooperation in the current city government, even though it probably does not look like it from the outside.

Is this kind of public squabbling benefiting the urban environment debate or does it work to polarize urbanites instead?

Both. I don't think we've ever spent as much time talking about urban environment than we have these past years. If the rest of the world discovered this topic several decades ago, we have fallen behind certain processes.

This kind of political competition and debate certainly benefits awareness.

City planning is a compromise of compromises, a search for common ground, and cities are always developing. Our understanding of city planning is always changing too. It would be unthinkable to proceed based on urban planning principles from decades ago. If someone proposed building a new Mustamäe or Lasnamäe today, I don't think they would be taken seriously, while these were the basics back then. We might try and guess at the trends 10-20 years from now, but it would be speculation.

Are there people involved with running Tallinn whose convictions are so rigid that they'll never be willing to compromise?

In certain matters, yes. But looking at the big picture, I believe the city will continue to develop and there is common ground to be found. Renovating kindergartens – there is no such political opposition there, and everyone understands it's a major problem. We have not bet enough on education infrastructure in Tallinn, and we're rushing to catch up.

Treatments have also changed. Education space is not what it used to be. Prisons and schools did not differ that much in Soviet times: long corridors lined with chambers on either side.

Attitudes toward the "inmates" have also changed perhaps?

Quite probably. We need to reform simply because society has changed that much. And Tallinn is a growing city, unlike others, such as Riga. This means we also have to create new places. This growth is not level, meaning that the port area and Põhja-Tallinn need more new kindergarten and school places than Nõmme does, for example.

You've said that you would like to turn Tallinn into the best living environment on the Baltic Sea coast. But the best from whose point of view, and what even defines the best?

It is rather a slogan. Living environment is a relative concept. When Tallinners were asked how satisfied they are with their living environment, Lasnamäe residents gave very high marks [for the district], even though the rest of the city tends to consider it a bad neighborhood.

Those who have bought one apartment in Lasnamäe tend to buy another. They are very patriotic indeed.

Generally, yes. Once people move into the upper middle-class in terms of income, they tend to move out of Lasnamäe. One tendency we're seeing is people moving to Pirita. The relative importance of Russian-speaking residents has been growing in Pirita in the last 10-15 years.

This is no bad thing. The more nationalities intermingle in Tallinn, the better and more viable it will be, and the fewer nationality-based conflicts we'll experience. More so as our eastern neighbor is keen to capitalize on any such problems. The more mixed our population, the less our neighbor to the east has to use against us.

Coming back to urban environment of people's dreams, what might define it?

One word – diversity. Tallinn has been encapsulated for a long time. We have a single city center, there are no strong and developed district centers. In other words, if a person wants to go out to a restaurant or bar, they'll travel to the city center area. While some of it is technically in Põhja-Tallinn, Telliskivi is very much part of the heart of the city, and the line separating the two [districts] is theoretical more than anything.

There also needs to be nationalities-based diversity, as I mentioned before. Instead, what we have been seeing in Tallinn for a very long time is Estonians and Russians moving to different areas. Pirita might be an exception, also seeing more Russian-speaking residents lately. But this has not been on a large scale.

We can also see Estonians leaving Lasnamäe, which is a major problem. And it's the same in Väike-Õismäe. We don't have problems yet, but they will appear unless we systematically engage in urban planning, especially working with forecasts.

I can tell you that if we do nothing, there will not be a disaster next decade, but there will be one 20 years down the line, and it will be too late to reverse these processes then. We need to address it now.

In other words, we should avoid the creation of ghettos along whatever lines?

Yes, society needs to be made to mingle at all times. Tallinn will not develop ghettos as our political-economic-geographical situation is too different from that of Latin American countries, for example, for something like that to develop.

But we will develop the outskirts problem of Western European cities, where there's unrest, cars set on fire, looting and protests. That is the future if we fail to systematically work on diversifying our city.

What makes this especially dangerous in Tallinn is wealth segregation, the wealthier and poorer parts of the population moving away from one another.

But we also have the nationality-based problem. And if you put these two negatives together, you end up with a volatile equation that will eventually start to affect all of society.

While we might ask what's so bad about wanting to live in a wealthier part of town, this is a niche view. We should never lose sight of the big picture, how it affects the national economy and that of Tallinn.

Hypothetically, should Lasnamäe enter that downward spiral of less fortunate people moving there – wealthy people have largely left or never been there in the first place, while the middle-class is still there – what would happen? First, if purchasing power leaves with the solvent or the middle-class, businesses and jobs will follow.

This would also clash with one of Tallinn's goals of having a 15-minute city. Next, property values start to go down, meaning that those who own real estate in the area will become poorer without having any hand in it themselves.

We have a district school system, meaning that kids who grow up in the same area will eventually all have the same socioeconomic background and will start reflecting to one another that they've been excluded from society's success story.

That is where social protest takes root in terms of being deprived, where you start opposing the state and society. Such processes would be an ideal tool for Russia to start engineering very serious problems for us.

It might benefit certain political parties, where it's easy to manipulate people and pick up votes. But it is one area where we can still learn from other countries' experience. Let's hope the opportunity will be seized. At least we've started talking about it.

When I served as president of the Estonian Architects Union for four years and vice president before that, and we started going around, saying it's a problem, people didn't take it seriously as the streets look just fine. But the debate has appeared now, and it gives me hope that we might eventually arrive at a solution. An alcoholic can only be successfully treated if they admit they have a problem, and it is very difficult to set about solving problems the political leadership, society at large and the media do not acknowledge exist.

If this is negative spatial segregation, there is also so-called positive ghettoization in areas of the very wealthy. Parts of Kakumäe, Viimsi and Pirita where certain jobs are shunned because manufacturing should not be where the wealthy live, or where certain shops are opposed. There was a case where wealthy residents protested a Maxima store in their region as they saw it as a discount supermarket and did not want it to drag down property values.

Children who are brought up in such areas also become encapsulated and cut off from the rest of society. More so as most of them end up in city center schools and are, once more, surrounded by the same socioeconomic picture. Is this any less of a problem?

It is part of the same problem, and opposite encapsulation is very real, with [wealthy] Kakumäe and Tiskre the most segregated parts of Tallinn today in terms of the socioeconomic background of residents. While we can ask people and be told that they are very satisfied indeed with the state of affairs, looking at society as a whole, this definitely works to erode cohesion and empathy.

A wealthy person does not want to live next to someone who speaks another language and makes a lot less money, whereas their properties will never be side to side anyway, which is to say that the idea of a 15-minute city seems utopian to begin with. A person who can afford to pay €30 for a main course at a restaurant will never live next to the person serving it to them, because their income levels are just that different.

While that is indeed the case in Tallinn, it is not in Vienna and Amsterdam. These cities have been working toward having coherent societies for a century. If people like that do move in next to one another, the adults will likely not become friends, but their kids will communicate, and the next generation will be mutually supportive. Estonia has so few people that we need to support every talented individual, every person to be successful as a society.

If we allow some areas to enter that downward spiral, we'll lose talented people who will not grow up to be successful. It's still feasible today, but they'll be cut off from success one day should this process be allowed to continue.

Perhaps the fact that we are now switching to a universal Estonian education system can help mix nationalities and schools a little. But what could be the solution to the problems of ghettoization and segregation?

There is no silver bullet solution. It is a complex problem, and different countries have used different approaches. But it needs to start at efforts to monitor the process.

For example, to have an overview of Tallinn's urban regions in terms of income. If we see that a region starts to deteriorate in terms of average income levels, it is time for the public sector to intervene. In Helsinki, that's when the public sector starts investing in an area – moves in a university campus or branch to bring in different residents.

Tallinn has done something similar, with Lasnamäe having the fanciest playgrounds. So, we cannot say Tallinn has done nothing.

City leaders also know where their voters live.

While the Tondiraba Ice Rink and Park have helped Lasnamäe, we also need to diversify. Whether we're talking about terraced houses, semi-detached houses or small apartment buildings – we have options.

The Kopli Peninsula is Tallinn's development priority for the coming years. Do you see where the city could intervene to avoid the creation of yet another elite region and to foster residential democracy?

Yes, I believe Põhja-Tallinn is one area where the city could intervene more strongly. Tallinn has gradually started to represent public interests and lay down requirements for developers. It can no longer be a case of the 1990s where the developer decided every detail. Developers never represent public interests, only the city government can do that.

The situation is improving. We need to look at the city's own assets and find ways of adding value. While the city does not have much land, its use has been somewhat wasteful. A lot of it is registered as transport land or for social use, while its actual use does not reflect these functions.

In other words, we need to look for ways for municipal land to create prosperity. What has been spearheaded on the central government level – a municipal rental buildings program. We need to understand that it's a necessity, irrespective of our political views, because that is what the rest of Europe is doing today.

I may be wrong in terms of the exact figure, but Lisbon will invest ca €800 million over the next three years in improving housing availability. Berlin bought several billion euros worth of apartments from the private sector a few years ago for the same purpose. Tallinn has Europe's biggest gap between [real estate] price per square meter and average salary.

Meaning that not only less fortunate people, but even the middle-class cannot afford to live close to the sea in the city center. While you might ask what's wrong with that, our development strategy envisions a 15-minute city everywhere, meaning that teachers, kindergarten teachers and service staff will have to start commuting in and out again at night.

It also manufactures resentment and social protest in certain groups.

While there's talk of a climate crisis, the experts are saying that a housing crisis will hit Europe in the next decade. It is another thing with the potential to foster unrest and protests.

The problem is not acutely felt in Estonia because most people own their own apartment. But this happened through privatization, while the generation after that had access to cheap housing loans in the noughties.

But the upcoming generation no longer has access to cheap mortgages, and their numbers are growing as the generation which benefited from privatization is exiting the market.

Whereas those privatized properties or apartments bought cheap in the 2000s are then rented out at high prices, which is how the new generation is expected to grow and start families.

And we have yet another trend manufacturing resentment and protest moods. There are other aspects when it comes to housing. Specifically in Tallinn and not other Estonian cities.

One is Airbnb. We see that most Old Town apartments are off the rental market because they're generating short-term accommodation revenue for their owners. It's the same in the city center. Right now, Tallinn cannot regulate this aspect as we have no legislative levers. Luckily, as I understand it, there are ministry-level discussions about changing this situation.

Cities in Western Europe are moving toward banning Airbnb to give people access to affordable housing.

Exactly. It has a major effect on the rental market when a considerable number of properties are unavailable. It adds to the deficit, and while I'm not suggesting banning Airbnb, it needs to be regulated. It cannot be an ever growing business. I don't know how to go about it, whether to have licenses or try and disperse it, because it is all concentrated in a single area today.

It has affected rental prices in the area. In Tallinn, the unicorn and startup boom's high salaries also affected matters. Developers found enough buyers willing to pay a lot for residential properties.

The Noblessner area is full of startup millionaires.

Yes, and another phenomenon this created is investment apartments. Cities tend to develop housing problems when residential property stops being a home and starts being an investment product.

There has not been a single problem, but rather a cluster of problems which has created these situations. Coming back to Põhja-Tallinn, major urban planning problems are copping up. While they're not insurmountable, the exploding population... Looking at all the prospective developments in Põhja-Tallinn, the region's population should grow by 40,000 people, which would be like everyone in the city of Pärnu moving to a single Tallinn district.

Whereas we're talking about a peninsula, basically a single-access region.

Indeed And because it's a peninsula, like you said, there's no real scope for new access roads to be built. We might be able to add one new way to access the area, but even that would require agreement, compromises.

We'll see, but I also believe that everyone planning to move to Põhja-Tallinn will have to get used to the idea of using public transportation. It is unthinkable by car.

This brings us to traffic and transport in general. Staying in Kopli, as we've said, most people who can afford to live there are rather from the wealthy part of the population, meaning they're used to personal transportation, whereas the city wants them to use public transport instead. How should this be achieved – do you prefer the carrot or the stick? In other words, should driving and parking in the city center be made maximally difficult and expensive, or should public transport be rendered so frequent and convenient as to be preferable to taking a car? Because I cannot see any other way people are going to start preferring public transport in a situation where it currently takes two or three times longer to travel between districts, compared to a personal vehicle.

That will depend on public transport organization. I dare say getting out of Põhja-Tallinn might not be faster by car in the future.

Generally speaking – this goes for other districts too. It takes an hour to reach the city center from Nõmme [by public transport] – two or three times longer than by car.

Agreed. There are different solutions. Public transport has perhaps been a little stigmatized in Estonia. In Western Europe, wealthier urbanites also use public transportation. It needs to be fast and clean. Tallinn's new trams have delivered a slight attitude adjustment.

And we'll see more new [public transport] vehicles in Tallinn. We're also building new tram routes, including the Pelguranna route to Põhja-Tallinn. Looking at population density in Põhja-Tallinn, Pelgurand is the busiest area, with its Soviet-era blocks of flats. We can reach a lot of people if we can have them take the tram.

They largely still live in Khrushchevkas, while people moving to Põhja-Tallinn today are rather aiming for new apartments with patios and garden furniture.

There's also a plan to extend the Pelguranna tram to reach as far as Bekker, the former Bekker-Meerus port industrial area, which should also see residential developments. The Hundipea area, which is also being developed, is near the Sitsi [public transport] stop. There's talk of the former railway corridor, which still exists as a transport corridor and can be used for future tracked public transport developments. When we'll get there depends mainly on real population growth, as well as to what extent developers will be willing to contribute.

Another thing to remember about Põhja-Tallinn is that some of these areas prioritize the 15-minute city concept themselves, meaning that here will be jobs and entertainment in the area, so people wouldn't have to commute to the city center or other districts every day.

But a part of residents will continue commuting. The main thing is to give public transport preferential development in Põhja-Tallinn, add tracked public transport options and fast links to the city center, while keeping in mind the 15-minute city model. There's little else than can be done in terms of radical development.

Will Tallinn ever become big or wealthy enough for a metro to make sense?

I am rather skeptical. Such a project would be so expensive as to require central government and EU support. We don't know how big the city will get. The forecast is that we'll exceed half a million, while no one knows what it will be exactly. Universities and the UN draw up population forecasts, and we still remember a forecast for Estonia from the late 1990s that suggested we would have a population of less than one million in the coming decades. This has not happened, and I do not believe it will happen.

Tallinn is growing, but the hinterland is already drying up. Tallinn has been growing at the expense of the rest of Estonia. But because young people have largely left rural areas, Tallinn's hinterland will not produce enough children for recent growth to continue.

What we have seen instead in recent years is immigration outpacing emigration, and most immigrants are landing in Tallinn. Looking at the big picture, the global population is experiencing explosive growth, which trend will continue for some time before it levels out and starts to decrease. Climate warming is another simultaneous process – parts of the world are becoming deserts, meaning they will no longer produce enough food. Studies also show that continued population growth means freshwater reserves per capita will drop by a third in a few decades. All this means that we are very likely living in an age of mass migration, and that great hosts will be displaced soon.

It makes no sense to foster the illusion that this does not concern us and that those people will not come here. It will also happen inside the European Union, as studies show regions in Southern Europe – South Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece – are seeing desertification, with valuable agriculture land disappearing.

We are an EU member, and there is no way for us to tell Southern Europeans that while we used to be allies, this is where we draw the line and we won't receive you. It will not happen as a wave, or how refugees from Syria came, but there will very likely be a constant and gradual process. Based on this, we might forecast Tallinn's population to continue growing. But I do not believe it will be explosive or anything we can't handle – rather, it will be manageable, at least based on recent forecasts.

Coming back to a more immediate future, in a situation where deputy mayors are arguing over how much room should be left for cars and how much for cyclists, where do you stand? Whose city is it and how should we organize traffic? Does anyone have a better claim to urban space or should be given the right of way?

This city belongs to all of us. Every Tallinner is its owner and within their rights to demand certain things. I'd say that the matter of mobility has been the most polarizing issue in Tallinn, as well as a topic where we've taken things to the extreme and engaged in fanatism. We need to see the big picture and address all modes of transportation. Yes, the quality of bike lanes and sidewalks has been appalling for a long time, they have simply been overlooked – practically no one paid street environments any mind during the Soviet period, and the new republic hasn't either. It has not been on the radar and efforts to address this matter have only surfaced in the last decade.

We're playing catch-up and need to cover all of Tallinn with a network of bike lanes, but it is very expensive and time-consuming. It also causes problems, because when you dig up streets, businesses struggle and people find it difficult to reach their front door. We've neglected our homework for a very long time, and while we're catching up now, it understandably creates frustration.

But we also cannot just push cars out of the city or ignore them for one very simple reason: ours is an aging society. It is something we tend to forget or not think about. That is what all the forecasts are suggesting and I see nothing in recent statistics that could avert this development.

Elderly people need to stay active, while their age can make it difficult to get around and cars become an inevitability – they need to be able to reach their front door by car to avoid being cooped up or trapped in their apartment. No longer leaving one's home leads to rapid mental degradation – a person needs to keep doing what they were doing before – going to cafes, to the theater, the movies and visiting friends.

Does that mean you will be removing traffic cones on Pärnu maantee that are keeping people from parking in front of businesses? Or should the city build major parking structures in the city center to popularize the area?

I don't think we need new parking garages in the city center, we have enough of those.

Will you be creating more Park and Ride parking lots?

Rather we'll do that. But building parking structures also doesn't really make economic sense because people can park on the street – parking is paid only in the city center. Other districts are free.

The paid parking area has been expanding gradually!

It has not expanded to any notable extent.

Private parking lots keep appearing.

Yes, but that is mainly in the city center. Looking at paid parking expansion, I remember when they wanted to make parking paid in Kalamaja – it is currently paid in parts of the region – but in all of Kalamaja, which is when residential associations started fighting the initiative.

As city architect, I'm somewhat critical of these kinds of attitudes, as Kalamaja has one of the best public transport situations in the entire city. It has trains, it has trams and buses, whereas the Old Town is a 10-minute walk away.

At the same time, people want the streets cleared of snow, kept clean and well-lit. In other words, we expect to get everything for free. I'm not so sure we should be paying for everyone's parking as a society. It is a major problem in Lasnamäe and Mustamäe where people have nowhere to put their cars and are parking on the grass, which leads to conflicts in and between apartment associations of who is blocking whose access etc.

What I'm about to say next no politician has heard and it is not grounded in any decisions, so please refrain from writing to politicians and raising a panic. But the way I see it, all of Tallinn should be a paid parking zone, with one parking card per apartment or private home. But other than that, if you want a service from the city, you should have to pay for it. We can't have a situation where the public sector only has obligations, budgets are constantly critical, while we're lamenting having too much public sector to boot. Let's leave it at that.

But what's the real situation? People having two cars and no children even in Kalamaja. That is where I would ask: why? I think having a single vehicle is necessary – population aging, people with disabilities etc. Also when you have small children you need to take them to the doctor. We also know that it's not always possible to get a kindergarten place close to home, and you need to drive the kids around. So having a single vehicle is understandable, but having several... Many just park their vehicles, they have several cars but only drive one. The others are just left parked, taking up room in the city. But let's move on.

We're starting to run out of time, but one thing that has been on my mind is that life has died out in the Old Town. True, it's also inaccessible by car. Why has this happened? Does it all boil down to Airbnb apartments and, more importantly, how to bring life back to the Old Town?

Airbnb apartments are a very big part of the problem in the Old Town. Secondly, it has disappeared from the radars of Tallinners, who used to go there to eat and have a good time. They all moved to Põhja-Tallinn. Price policy was one part of the reason. But we can also be critical of the city here, as properties owned by the City Center Government or the Property Department are rented out to those who are willing to pay more, not those who would bring different kind of life to the area. The perfect example of how to revitalize an area is to first make cheap rental properties available to artists – let them bring in more active life. People can set up tailor's workshops or start selling interesting merchandise to spark interest in the locals, so they'd rediscover and start going to the area again. Once the area becomes young and hip again so to speak, law firms – for example – and other kind of life also starts coming back. The central government has also caused problems by moving out ministries and failing to put other public functions in their place.

Is that a promise by the city to rent cheap properties to artists, similarly to how the Telliskivi quarter was created back in the day?

Let's say we are in the process of mapping out different ways to revitalize the Old Town. It is among the topics my entire team is working on. The focus is on the Old Town, and it is one of the tools we're considering.

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