Campagna di cortesia: Sono sempre affari tuoi

Bicycles speeding past pedestrians in pedestrian areas; dogs running in parks without a leash; loud noises that wake us up in the middle of the night; takeaway food leftovers abandoned on the bench where we would have liked to sit. Behind these unpleasant phenomena linked to our life in public spaces lies a common denominator: the lack of kindness. Or, to be more precise, a lack of courtesy in its original sense, that "virtue that enables good living," once found in royal courts, and now in civil society. Talking about courtesy may seem old-fashioned. However, when we receive a fine, a warning, a complaint, or when we are victims of someone else's carelessness, the issue becomes very relevant.

Faced with requests to intervene on several fronts, the City of Lugano has decided to launch a campaign focused on public space and courtesy — the elements that tie together the themes of good bicycle management, dog control, littering, and noise pollution. The campaign is divided into two phases. The first, which began in recent days, focuses on public space and serves as a simple reminder of rules that, precisely because they seem harmless, we tend to break more frequently in our daily lives.

This first chapter of the project takes the form of a small publication that presents the main articles from ordinances and laws that regulate our behavior. These are rules that are, for the most part, intuitive, based on common sense, but sometimes surprising. The aim of the guide is to draw attention to situations that we tend not to consider important until they directly affect us. The spirit it conveys is one of freedom, because "if you know the rules, you don't feel them." The publication is accompanied by a series of posters focused on the main topics addressed.

After a first edition, in spring 2018, of the awareness campaign on courtesy in public spaces with the "Piccolo vademecum delle regole elementari di buona convivenza", the City of Lugano is renewing the campaign with an edition that has video as its main communication channel. Four video spots have been created, corresponding to the four chapters of the vademecum, dedicated to the main themes of good coexistence in shared spaces: the relationship between bicycles and pedestrians, the management of one’s dog, noise disturbances, and littering.

Filmed in a studio that evokes the spaces of a city — which could be Lugano, but also any city in the world that shares the same issues — the four videos reproduce scenes of "ordinary irregularity": a cyclist hits a pedestrian; a park user throws an empty can behind them; a small dog is left to roam unattended; a tenant turns on a drill late at night. All the scenes have one thing in common: an (unintentional) lack of attention for others. The micro-stories were designed with scenic tricks to communicate, without being excessively moralistic, that when damage occurs, it affects everyone. The victim and the perpetrator are, in essence, the same person, since public space is shared: "sono sempre affari nostri" (it's always our business).