Smart Communities

Two Weeks Ago Things were Different

Today marks the two-week anniversary of the tragedy at Virginia Tech. I am fortunate to have a fellowship there in the Center for Organizational and Technological Development and live only two hours away so it seemed that it was my community.

The campus is beginning to heal. It has come together in the way families come together after trauma and tragedy.  Students and faculty are speaking out on a range of issues like how we address mental illness in this country, what our gun laws allow and shouldn’t allow, and why in a community, a campus, or an organization, it is important to have better ways to communicate. These are all good and appropriate questions to ask to hopefully prevent this from ever happening again. As I read about the lives and contributions of the people who were killed, I am reminded of how I felt after 9/11—and how the loss of these fine community members means that we all have a little more to do in the world.

A Delta Strategy for Grand Rapids

On a snowy day in February I was in Grand Rapids, Michigan to speak to the Economic Club and invited guests on the occasion of the release of an annual report card, Community Counts, released by the Delta Strategy.  I mention the weather only to say I expected a small crowd.  Not so -- more than 400 people attended and roughly 150 stayed afterward to discuss aspects of the report in detail.

The report looked at a range of social and economic indicators pertaining to Grand Rapids and the region in general, comparisons to state averages were included to give a sense of how the city and region measure-up.  Grand Rapids shares many of the same challenges as other small to mid-sized cities in the midwest.  There was, for example, a clear call to action around high school completion and the implications of that for the future workforce.  Likewise there were some social indicators that need some real attention.

The Delta Strategy numbers and comparisons are great benchmarks to begin some challenging but absolutely critical work.  This work is more than just fixing the problems identified; it is more about positioning a truly first-class mid-sized city to realize its potential.  While many upper midwest or "rust belt" cities have fallen on hard times, Grand Rapids has held its own.  Home to the Amway company (the one, and only one), Grand Rapids has a diversified local corporate base, a growing biotech and healthcare industry, and a strong civic tradition.  This year it hosts the annual meeting of the Community Leadership Association, the national umbrella organization for civic leadership groups.  It has a zoo, a strong performing and visual arts community, and a stable and growing downtown.

In other words, many cities would love to have just a fraction of the assets of Grand Rapids.  What's missing?  That's where the Delta Strategy comes in.  To move to the next level, Grand Rapids has to take Community Counts seriously and commit itself to aggressively move toward addressing the challenges that could hold it back.  If any locality can do it, Grand Rapids can.

Glasgow -- City on the Move

While visiting Scotland as the guest of the Scottish Council for Development and Industry (SCDI) I had the opportunity to share the podium with Steven Purcell, head of the Glasgow City Council.  An outgoing, energetic politician, Purcell is transforming Glasgow into a real player on the European scene.  After a few decades of building and rebuilding following the legacy of the shipbuilding industry, Glasgow has emerged with a diversified economy and an ever-growing arts and cultural scene that makes it a place to watch.

In recent years this can be attributed to the leadership of Purcell who has kept his attention fixed on some of the areas that are key to growth and prosperity including education, poverty reduction, workforce development, and investment in technology.  There is a very real sense of possibility and positive change with a host of fine universities in the city available to drive innovation.  While Glasgow is certainly not free of its own challenges watch for it as a rising power in the European, and world, economies.

This marks the third consecutive Thursday on which we've blogged about community development in Scotland. I won't tip my hand by indicating whether we'll keep with this trend but there is a lot to report out of that country by way of new initiatives and innovative ideas.

Required Reading for Community Builders

We take pride in calling your attention to new research and practice in community building but also to new books.  Over the summer months we want to feature a few new works but also some tried and true classics that have advanced our thinking about community.

While in South Dakota at the last of our Horizons programs I received book recommendations from Kari Fruechte at the South Dakota Cooperative Extension and economic development consultant Al Nygard.  Both books fit perfectly into the Horizons program.  Kari recommends the "20 Clues for Rural Community Survival" from the Heartland Center; a summary of those 20 Clues is available at the bottom of this page.  Poverty is at the center of what the Horizons program is striving to achieve and in that spirit Al recommends "Framework for Understanding Poverty" written by Ruby Paine.

I'll be posting my own recommendation in just a few days.  In the meantime, please join us in building a state-of-the-art bookshelf for thriving communities.  Leave a comment below and let us know what is on your list of the 10 books every community leader should read?

Reader Recommendation for Blogging Your Community

One of our readers recently commented that there are some excellent web resources available for promoting community news, events, and generally the upsides of living in an area or region.  The two sources recommended were PlaceBlogger which collects and highlights blogs that focus on a particular place for an extended period of time -- a phenomenon the site also refers to as "hyperlocal" blogs.  There are definitely a lot of community bloggers with a wide array of visions for what is important to an area listed on PlaceBlogger.  Be warned -- you can really get deeply involved in searching this site.

The other resource that reader "Kevin" recommended was "outside.in" which is a website that tracks news, opinions, and events in over 3,000 neighborhoods in over 60 cities.  There isn't the same sort of democratic "anywhereness" of PlaceBlogger but the communities that are currently featured (and these will no doubt expand) have fairly extensive coverage of news and events alone.  If your community is not on the map then find some blogs and news sites that discuss your locality and submit them, outside.in seems to encourage user involvement in expanding and developing the local sites.

Thanks for the suggestions, Kevin, both of these are really useful resources that I'm sure some of our readers will find helpful.

The Promise of Roanoke

Celebrating its 125th anniversary in 2007 has given Roanoke an unprecedented opportunity to celebrate the past but plan for the future.

On March 27th, the City of Roanoke, Virginia Tech University, and the Roanoke City Schools announced a unique partnership to involve the community in creating a new future for Roanoke's children.  Using the framework of the Smart Communities book, 125 volunteers will examine ways that the city can—invest right the first time, work together, build on assets, practice democracy, preserve the past, grow new leaders, and invent a brighter future—for this generation and the next. Using three issues that challenge all cities, readiness for school, reading proficiency, and high school graduation, the task forces will look at creative ways to change the odds of the future.

What is important about this? Many things but to name a few: citizens will create an accurate picture of current challenges; citizens will uncover ways to work together and find the untapped assets that can be brought to bear on the issues; and finally, citizens will think together about what must be done. For far too long the educational debate in the country has included the blame game, avoidance techniques, and a long wait on a silver bullet. This approach allows three partners to galvanize a process and a community to think about these tough issues with new energy and new voices.

Congratulations Roanoke on this birthday and many more.

Fantasy Baseball, Football, and ... Congress?

For years there have been sports "fantasy leagues" where participants choose players, agree on a system of scoring points, and track statistics for those players over the course of a season.  Well, take that same formula and apply it to Congress and you have a new online game called "Fantasy Congress."

Fantasy Congress allows users to create pools of 25 people that compete to choose and manage a set of legislators that will accumulate the largest number of points by the close of the legislative session.  Think this is just a niche market for a small group of savvy politicos with extra time on their hands?  It probably goes much further than that as the website has registered 53,000 new users since October according to the website's founder.

What does this have to do with Smart Communities?  One of the lessons of Smart Communities is that practicing democracy yields results.  When people gain greater familiarity with their government and with the tools that democratic leaders must use to build communities they become more comfortable with the process and more comfortable participating.  Fantasy Congress seems like a great way to engage people in the democratic workings of our country.  It is already being used in schools (search "Congress" on the page) as a complement to the traditional education in civics and there is no age limit for participation so both young and old can engage in a fun way to learn about legislating on Capitol Hill.

There is a big upside to Fantasy Congress as it looks like an opportunity to engage a whole set of people who might not otherwise take interest in government.  This is a resource that is worth visiting and sharing with others.

Sir William Rae -- Knight on a Civic Mission

One of the most impressive public servants I have ever met is Sir William Rae, QPM.  Rae is chief constable of the Strathclyde Police Force in Glasgow, the largest in Scotland with 7,000 employees.  Sir Willie has a vision for police work that goes far beyond community policing to a vision of change that has the police department working with healthcare providers, schools, and nonprofit organizations to prevent not just crime but the conditions that often lead both children and adults to make bad choices.

When I talked about our dropout problem in the states, he nodded in agreement.  The vision that Sir Willie has is not just for the criminal justice system but for communities and the change required for them to thrive.  While he might not characterize himself as "visionary" I certainly would.  He understands as well as anyone that crime will be reduced when conditions of prosperity and hope are created for all.

Is he tough on crime?  I'm sure he is -- but he's just as committed to changing the conditions and circumstances that lead to crime.  That is the definition of a smart approach and is just one of the reasons we now call him SIR William Rae.

Confirming Receipt of Civic Change Award Applications

There's been little time for an official count of the applications received for the Civic Change Award just yet but the stack of applications is threatening to topple over so I know we're received a healthy number.  If you sent us an application and have not yet received a letter confirming our receipt of the application then please be patient, we've mailed out letters to about half the applicants so far and sent out more on Monday, April 16th.

We'll have more information soon regarding the date on which the blue ribbon commission will meet and make a decision.  Hang tight.  In the meantime, we encourage anyone who has a solution to the dropout crisis to share what they know on the Learning to Finish wiki.  Our most recent entries have detailed the Open Meadow Advocate and STEP UP programs in Portland and the Middle School Archive Project in Dallas.  Registration is required but we ask for so little (and don't share your e-mail address) that the 2 minutes you spend in registering is well worth it.

Collaboration Does Work—Canada Shows us How

I was the guest of the Canadian government in February to speak to their annual Collaborative Community conference. This conference was born out of the realization by a number of government agencies that they needed to know one another and their initiatives if they were to serve their constituencies best.

Called the "family" internally, the community development folks have teamed up with a range of agencies that represent housing, law enforcement, culture, etc to get together periodically, know about each others’ work, and work together across agencies and departments when appropriate. In our culture of silos, this was refreshing to see. The conference itself drew almost 200 people from government, nonprofits, and education that are interested in a better Canada.

We wrote about some wonderful work in Canada last October—now from a first-hand look it is well worth a second reading.