Jarosław Sellin, Deputy Minister of Culture and National Heritage, visited Olivia Business Centre. Just before the 4th Metropolitan Debate, he found a moment to admire the panorama of the Tri-City from the tallest building in northern Poland, Olivia Star:) and visit our o4 coworking. However, the key point of the programme was definitely the minister’s participation in the Metropolitan Debate, organised by Dziennik Bałtycki in cooperation with Olivia Business Centre and the Gdańsk-Gdynia-Sopot Metropolitan Area.

Throughout the first half of 2018, representatives of local governments, universities, cultural and art institutions, entrepreneurs and politicians met in Olivia to discuss the most important topics for our agglomeration. The last debate in the series, the fourth one, took up the topic of the quality of life in Pomerania. We talked about how Pomeranians live today – those from the core of the metropolis and those from municipalities located outside the Tri-City. Is our well-being really determined only by the state of our wallet? After all, the quality of life is also influenced by the possibility of getting an attractive job, access to educational or health services. What about the regional potential (the so-called small homelands)? Does the Tri-City have a chance to attract more and more people who want to live and work here?

Apart from Minister Jarosław Sellin, the meeting was attended by: Paweł Orłowski – Member of the Board of the Pomeranian Voivodeship, Hanna Pruchniewska – Mayor of Puck, Jolanta Rożyńska – Director of the Wejherowo Cultural Centre and Prof. Ph.D. Cezary Obracht-Prondzyński from the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Gdańsk. The meeting was moderated by the editor Jarosław Zalesiński.

“Quality of life is extremely important in political and public activity. It is defined by hard parameters, such as the unemployment rate or the wealth of our wallets. And that’s what politicians do – emphasized Minister Sellin. – Moreover, the concept of quality of life is included in the concept of the common good. Politics, on the other hand, according to the classic definition that is close to my heart, is a prudent action for the common good. It is therefore obvious that the concern of politicians should be and is to act for the common good, and thus for the quality of life.

“We have been referring to the quality of life in our local government activities for years ,” said Paweł Orłowski. Understood not only as the labour market, access to health services or the opportunity to participate in cultural events, but also as our well-being, how we live in a given place on a daily basis and how we evaluate the activities of public organisations. Today, in local administration, the quality of life should be a central value, as non-economic indicators are becoming more and more important for us.

The fact that the quality of life is one of the most important elements of development policy was discussed by Prof. Obracht-Prondzyński – In addition to the quality of management of social processes, it is the quality of life that determines the development of the local community, our city, region and country. And how we see ourselves internationally. The level of quality of life is defined by our income, the necessary infrastructure, including social infrastructure, such as schools, and the advantages of the region. In addition to them, there are also the values of work, the value of service, i.e. the way of serving our residents – whether it gives them a sense of subjectivity, a level of security, urban order, institutional order, i.e. the stability of our institutions and the potential for change, in other words, a sense of agency in the public dimension.

And m.in. Hanna Pruchniewska, the mayor of Puck, and Jolanta Rożyńska, director of the Wejherowo Cultural Centre, spoke about social engagement and its importance for the development of small communities and, as a result, the entire metropolis. They emphasized m.in. the importance of the role of NGOs in improving the quality of services in smaller municipalities and towns, the sense of community, openness and the strength of cultural identity.

Read more on the website of Dziennik Bałtycki

See the recording of the 4th Metropolitan Debate