Retain Capacity for Weird and Odd Things

Condensed from the CEOs for Cities blog (October 3, 2007) ...

• Those longing for economic and job stability are waiting for Godot. Turbulence is the new normal, and the only logical response is to build resilience.


• There is great power in setting simple, straightforward goals.


• Variety, convenience, discovery, opportunity are city advantages there to be tapped.


• You can’t deliver a safe city in the way you deliver pizza. Diffuse problems need diffuse solutions.


• The public sector is good at fire engines. It is not good with smoke detectors. But smoke detectors are the reason deaths from fire are down so dramatically.


• How do you link together the small core (anchor institutions), the committed community and a large group of participants?


• Cities with diffuse networks are more resilient than those with tight, overlapping networks.


• Universities should strive to be the host of the party than the life of the party.


• We must find smart ways to put underused capacity to work in cities.


• If you want to make progress, pick a problem that is on fire or one that is long-term. Otherwise, “ok” will be good enough.


• How do we reinvigorate what gets lost as we adopt new technologies?


• How do we energize the community about being much more thoughtful about what we’re doing?


• Cities are important as unfolding collections of innovations.


• If we are going to innovate as we did in the 19th century with parks and libraries, we will have to support things that seem odd today.


• Creativity is at the user end rather than with providers.


• Retain the capacity for doing weird and odd things.

Lots more good, relevant, interesting information here ... http://www.ceosforcities.org/about/index.php