I think that people are tired with traditional professional politicians, and they would like to, have colleagues that are like themselves running the city.

So this is also what I like with Mamdani, that in TikTok you can see, a guy that could be yourself.

[music] So we are now entering the Church of Loumbardiaris, it's a flagship of this place, and it's also the church that I was baptized.

Oh, wow.

Here, when I was two years old, something like that.

I was named Chrysostomos.

Now my nickname is Haris, and it's a very traditional old church.

And in a way, it's a place that means a lot, not only to me, but to most Athenians.

Wow.

And you say that baptismo?

Yes.

Baptismo, that's an easy one, right?

Yes.

So this is where you—when you were— Yes, this is where they gave my name.

-Wow.

Amazing.

-In this church.

That's a special thing.

Mr.

mayor, an honor to be with you today.

The honor is mine.

Thank you all so very much and really glad to be in this fantastic place.

It's considered to be the neighborhood of the gods nearby Acropolis.

You've chosen the most picturesque, scenic view we could have here.

The birthplace of democracy.

And here we're having Greek breakfast.

Traditional.

Is this how you wake up, Mr.

Mayor?

Sometimes In a way, this is the way I should start my mornings.

But most cases, just an espresso and running around the city.

Where do you run?

-By the acropolis?

-This is the best place.

This is the best place I'm living.

Just half a kilometer from here, Gazi.

So it's 25 minutes by walking or ten minutes, 12 minutes running Oh, wow.

-to be here.

-And you do that daily?

No.

one or two times per week.

Most.

And did you grow up having a breakfast like this or eggs or something else?

Yeah.

You know, I have origins from Andros.

Andros.

Andros is an island, Aegean island.

It's around two hours from here.

A traditional food, like omelet is called froutalia.

So I used to eat omelets or froutalia for, breakfast, dinner or whatever, lunch, whatever you can imagine.

Excellent.

Well, let's dig in for a moment.

If we may.

The sweets that I know are loukoumades.

Ah.

Mm!

-It's very good.

-Very good.

You can have organic fruit and taste just as good as loukoumades.

Of course you glazed donuts.

It's very healthy.

This is healthy.

Mm!

So we're here in the birthplace of Socrates, the platonic way of thinking about the world.

How do you think about your republic here in Greece?

The city that you lead in the context of democracy in its birth?

It's really difficult to run a city with such a history.

Of course, it's a great honor to be the mayor of the birthplace of democracy.

And in a way, it's not only the past, but what you are doing for, the future.

And in my point of view, the most critical part in running the birthplace of democracy, a city, nearby Acropolis is that you need to enhance participation.

You need to enhance, to trigger, let's say, attention of citizens, to have them engaged.

So as to consider each and every one that they co-create decisions.

So they are part of what we are doing in Athens in a democratic way, with consultation.

And, that their voices are heard.

So we listen to them and we co-create.

Since you were elected.

What has surprised you about this office, the feedback you've received from constituents and how you're embarking on a mission here to make the city more equitable, more environmentally resilient?

One difficult thing is bureaucracy, I mean, it's crazy to consider that in some cases from an idea, a good idea to have a project, you might need three, four years.

So you need, in a way, to bypass many steps to find ways to bypass many steps.

But this is just the challenge.

I mean, in order to be efficient and in order to have tangible results, you need to think in a clever and smart way and to accelerate things.

And, you know, this is the birthplace of democracy, but also hottest capital of Europe, based on models, climate models.

We reached degrees of 40 plus almost 50 Celsius.

This is also the main challenge of the future.

How we can decrease the feeling temperature, how we can have many trees, as you can see.

We have an important, planting program with trees and how we can have this, city resilient to climate, important, disasters like, mega temperatures, mega fires and all these issues.

Floods.

How do you want the Athenian citizenry to participate in that process?

What is your challenge to them in effect, to protect your environment?

First of all, it's good to have citizens, young citizens on board, generation Z, as we say, are well aware of climate crisis and can support.

But, what is critical to highlight is that, most people say, okay, mayor, just do the job and we will keep looking on you.

No, you need also to participate.

So we have, very important, let's say, ways of, engaging like, we have, campaigns greening your balcony.

You can green your balcony or your roof and, what we are trying to do is then if you have very good results, then you can have very important awards, like flights, amount of money, important amount of money.

And in this way we are trying also with, participation to have green houses, green balconies, green roofs, not only green parks and green roads.

And then we are using, schools.

We have experts speaking with, children and we create vertical gardens in schools and many other, let's say, ways to have our approaches as a game for, young children.

You were, I wouldn't even say a dark horse or an underdog.

You are completely not on the political scene, you're a professor, a scholar, an engineer.

And you come to this challenge of political life, in the way that we were taught as children in America, the way of the framers in the US and the way of, you know, the enlightened philosopher King and Plato, right, to bring an expertise to a profession.

Have you found that to be instructive, the way that you can bring expertise to the mission of energy, one of your priorities, here?

First of all, I was a complete underdog.

My period when I started, I announced to become a candidate as a mayor till the final day that I became was 72 days, only 72 days.

Before becoming a candidate, I was a professor.

Nobody in Athens knew that what I was doing.

And in fact, when I was a candidate, I was in places like that and with my colleagues.

And we are saying to people that we are working in restaurants that we are candidate, as mayors of Athens.

And they were saying, "Come on, let's become, serious now."

And so they even didn't believe that I was a candidate.

But what is impressive is that we created green wave.

We said that we need to redesign Athens with trees with more pedestrian streets, with more parks, with more democracy in, let's say the way we, have these decisions.

And then what happened is that people, no matter of which specific party they, supported, they start hearing what we are saying.

It's also important to say that after two years running the city, what I can see is that this agenda, the green agenda, the sustainable agenda, the equity agenda is still valid.

And people support.

One of your mandates and correct me if I'm wrong, was you want Athens to be a city not just for tourists.

Exactly.

A mall, just a big mall.

-A mall.

-Not just a mall.

So how would you assess yourself after two years in what the character of this place is?

Is it a place that now is adequately livable in your mind, or how are you pushing it to that point?

Imagine that, in Athens, we have each year now, 8 to 10 million visitors.

We see them climbing right there, right?

-Yes.

-I mean, it's extraordinary.

It's extraordinary.

And my view... -Justified visitors, right?

-Yes.

Justified.

And imagine that the whole population of Greece is 10 million.

So the whole population of Greece is coming as visitors to Athens.

And that once again has 3 million people living in the whole metropolis of Athens.

So it's a crowded capital, it's a city break destination, and it's the first destination for vacations in Greece.

So you can then understand that it's really pressing the situation, and especially for people living in here.

So what we first did is we have the carrying capacity study to understand which neighborhoods are oversaturated with tourists, and the balance is not good.

And what the study said is that we are not yet like Barcelona, but we need to act now, like Barcelona does.

So what we... You're using Barcelona as a model?

As a model, because Barcelona is oversaturated, great difficulties.

I also know the mayor.

We are working with many issues like social housing, and we don't want to have such huge problem in Athens.

So we had this detail carrying capacity study.

We defined places that are oversaturated like this place nearby, Acropolis, Koukaki, Plaka, we cannot have more Airbnbs.

So we sent the detailed study to the Prime Minister.

And then there was a decision that for this year, no additional Airbnbs.

So the platform is closed and every other platform just with the apartments are already in.

You know, this place is, restricted to hotels.

You do not have hotels in this place nearby Acropolis.

And we have many other restrictions.

And we announced and we are running an office, the office of Plaka, the office of the historic city center.

We monitor that we have this original spirit and this, way of thinking that does not change what has been here for many, many, many years.

So we are working hard to be able to, let's say, have this view as it is originally.

So if you could innovate, with no restrictions, and I know the Prime Minister did something rather nefarious in stripping you of powers.

Yes.

When you were inbound -Indeed.

-in your office.

That's happening too much in the United States, too.

This idea that we can't let democracy function.

And we have to handicap democracy, right?

-Local authorities.

-Right.

We can't allow local authorities to decide by their own.

Right.

That's the context here.

But what are you empowered to do, and if you could be empowered to do anything and put any formula to test, what would it be?

When it comes to green or housing or anything else, I mean, there are things that you are restricted from doing.

We need permissions from three ministers.

This is bureaucracy.

And these are federal ministers.

Federal ministers.

So for instance, imagine that for social housing we don't have the money for creating new affordable housing apartments.

So we need to ask.

And then there has to be a governmental program for the municipality of Athens.

This is a fight that from the beginning we knew this situation.

This is a fight for democracy because, you know, when I walk here, people are saying, mayor, you have to do this, that, and it's easy for me to say, I cannot do that.

It's the ministers.

But then they will say to me, okay, then you can go back to the university and we want someone that will run the city.

So we need to keep fighting and we need, let's say, to insist on enhancing, let's say, the possibilities and the opportunities that local authorities should have for decisions.

Otherwise it becomes really complicated.

And then also with negative impact, the minister cannot understand what the city needs and then the decisions are no.

You did say that you're installing new lights here.

New lights, photovoltaics, but new lights also that are in a way similar with the lighting of Acropolis, the same designer Deko, very famous will be we will start probably mid-September till end of October.

So we'll have this new lighting before Christmas.

Low energy!

-Yeah.

[laughs] -Low energy!

Low energy.

Low energy.

You must have studied, The Republic.

We call, The Republic, in grade school, right?

-Yes.

-I mean, most Greek citizens study the classics.

Of course.

What did Plato get right?

What does he get wrong about republicanism, about this way of life?

You know, in my point of view, less is the most important.

Less what?

Less energy, less food.

Moderation.

Moderation.

So I think that we are trying to exaggerate.

We consume a lot.

We are, trying, let's say, to have a lifestyle that is not the lifestyle of Socrates.

The lifestyle that, has to do with equity and with justice.

So we need to think ourselves within the boundaries of a plan that has limits.

We need to understand that we are in an ecosystem, and we are part of an ecosystem with constraints.

And we need to have boundaries.

So we keep saying limit is the sky.

Yes, for ambition, but we have also limitations.

We have natural limitations and also have, pressing needs.

So, in my point of view, environmental and social, justice is critical.

And this is the new way of, living, the new lifestyle.

You said in the summer you have the cicadas as the musical backdrop, right?

-The music of the nature.

-Yes.

And you can hear it.

This means that you are not hearing cars, -Ah.

-and you are in the nature.

And this is the way it should be.

And here, it's Pikionis' olive trees, very famous.

These are his olive trees.

Designed and planted by Pikionis, Dimitris Pikionis, 1953.

We had the trimming previous year.

So I think now the view is fantastic.

It's, important, I think, this place for everyone that's coming to Acropolis.

And in my point of view, it's also a way that what Athens could be with the planting and with making parks a reality all over the city.

People think of Greece and they think of the island hopping, but you wanted them to think as much about Yes.

the greenery, the blue and the green.

We want Athens to lead by example, becoming the first European capital let's say the most important percentage of green per citizen.

So many trees, many parks, free space, less cement.

Here you can breathe, oxygen, you can hear the sounds of nature, you can relax.

And in five minutes, walking, you can be in the city center where everything is totally different.

-It's crowded.

-It is breathable, I feel the fresh air.

It's five minutes walking from, the city center.

So you can imagine how important it is.

It's an oasis.

I have a monitor in the city hall where, I can see, there is an app.

And every citizen, every citizen can have complaints.

Yeah.

In this app saying, listen mayor here we're having difficulties with the trees, with the cleaning, with the pedestrian streets, with everything you can imagine.

So I'm seeing which is the time that we need to answer.

And what is the time we need to fix the problem that they're saying.

Is it a two way exchange so that the citizen can see how the government is responding?

They can have a conversation?

Yes, because we are sending a message.

We received it.

Give us some time to see what we can do, and then we can say that we fix it or unfortunately, we cannot do many things.

in some cases we are also discussing with them, if it's difficult, we're having a phone call with them.

So this is a metric that I'm using.

The complaints that I'm having and the time of addressing them.

One other issue is the 15 minute city.

To have this 15 minutes design, which means that you have to be able to find school, health care, small health care system.

We have municipal, health care premises, seven.

You wake up.

Six, seven o'clock, and then I start with sanitation.

Taking that garbages is, we start collecting them within the city because cleaning the city is one of my most critical duties for tourists, but mainly for citizens.

I mean, the first thing when colleagues are meeting me is about how clean is their neighborhood and what we should do to have it, as clean as possible, and then greening how many trees and, what we can do to increase.

So you're making sure that the sanitation department is running as scheduled every morning.

Yes, first thing is sanitation department.

And first calls are, with, my vice mayor, she's a lady.

That is responsible for sanitation.

Well, that sounds reasonable.

And, well advised.

As you've gotten feedback from constituents.

What's the best idea that you've heard just randomly from a constituent?

You know, we had, a competition where we asked the best ideas, and then five of them were financed by us, and they became real life projects.

One of them, for instance, was that young people came and they said that we want this park to be of our responsibility cleaning, planting and everything else.

So even having small changes and designing changes within the park.

So we said, okay, and then they create an association and they are running also, of course, with our supervision, other parks.

Other good ideas are related there with festivals, you know, in May we have this Athens City festival where, hundred thousand of people participate.

All Athens becomes a scene for a festival.

So young people, but not only, are trying different types of things, dancing, music, whatever you can imagine.

These are proposals.

We agree.

And then they can be part of, this festival of May, which is well known within the whole Europe.

You mentioned the National Garden.

I was observing that -there aren't as many birds here -Indeed.

as I was expecting.

Pigeons, of course, every city has its load of pigeons.

But you were mentioning there was a pollution problem?

Yes, we had a huge pollution problem, air pollution.

Also, consider that based on the bibliography, scientific bibliography, 3000 the whole year, deaths, are directly or indirectly related with air pollution.

So decreasing air pollution, increasing oxygen, reducing cement, reducing cars, is a matter of life in Athens.

This is why there, we're uncertain, were not so many birds, and this is why we are trying not only with the National Garden, but also with Filopappou, a place nearby.

And we created some traditional parks, like the botanicals, a great regeneration project of millions.

We consider that this is one of the most critical things to happen in Athens, to increase the percentage of park in, the territory.

I asked you about your favorite American political figure, and you said... I said, first of all, Obama, democracy, Obama.

You know, his last speech was here, but then I'm now looking, to the elections of New York and, I think it's very interesting, the campaigning of Mamdani, because in a way, you know, the new trends come from US to here.

I remember that the previous, presidential elections were related with Twitter in the US.

Now, with Mamdani, I think the first time TikTok is, the most important, let's say, means of communication, different way of communicating and, with politicians, not professors, you know, communicating your results.

Your vision is, in some case, unfortunately, most important than the real impact of what we are doing.

You are doing.

What advice would you give him?

To be honest and to speak with no fear, to say what, people would like to hear and not, think a lot to what is politically correct.

I think that people are tired with traditional professional politicians, and they would like to, have colleagues that are like themselves running the city.

So this is also what I like with Mamdani, that in TikTok you can see, a guy that could be yourself.

What have you studied in energy efficiency that you have yet to implement here?

But you want to implement here.

Energy efficiency in schools.

So to create a reconstruction, renovate our schools, very old places, I mean in terms of infrastructure and have, green windows, green walls, photovoltaics in every roof.

You know, we also created the Athenians energy community.

And what is the vision?

To have green electricity and provide it for free to the poorest citizens so they don't need to pay.

But we as the municipality, we provide them for free electricity.

We initiate, we produce green electricity already with some solar rooftops, but small amount, we need to increase.

And then, we need to diffuse.

But this is the vision.

And, you know, we have, many other municipalities joining this effort, 12 municipalities, not only around Athens, but in Greece in general.

They want to join efforts and altogether to be prosumers they municipalities to become prosumers, producers, and consumers of green electricity.

We create the climate youth assemblies and young people participate.

And we co-design our climate policies with the support of, Bloomberg, with Vivid Laboratories.

This is important.

And tangibly speaking, what kinds of work do they do?

Composting?

Recycling?

For instance, we are collecting organic waste food, organic waste for composting.

Moreover, we are, let's say creating places of, knowledge.

So as young people understand that they can also recycle, they can also plant trees.

They can also walk instead of take the car, use the metro.

So the different lifestyle that we want in order to be environmentally sound.

You have a plethora of gorgeous turquoise blue beaches.

What is Mr.

Mayor's favorite beach?

And don't worry, it's our little secret if it's not a beach in your parameters.

I mean... My favorite beach it's easy, it's easy, because I have, a house in Andros, in Korthi Beach.

Korthi Beach.

Korthi, in Andros, it's very windy, though.

If it's windy, it's very windy.

But, if you love Aegean, then you should love also wind.

Wow.

Well, Mr.

Mayor, thank you for your hospitality.

Thank you so much.

-Pleasure to meet you today.

-Thank you.

[music] Continuing production of The Open Mind has been made possible by grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Angelson Family Foundation, Robert and Kate Niehaus, Robert S. Kaplan Foundation, Grateful American Foundation, Draper Foundation, and Lawrence B. Benenson.