…In New York City government…three key approaches have helped us…to drive innovation forward.
Empower your team
I expect my staff to value creativity and new ways of thinking. Citizens deserve more than tweaks to the status quo—so I reinforce to commissioners and other policy makers that bold, new ideas should be the rule rather than the exception. This mandate empowers leaders to push themselves and their teams beyond their comfort zones, to look with fresh eyes at challenges and potential solutions. Simply giving permission to innovate is insufficient; you have to expect it and hold people accountable for delivering it.
Remove the barriers
Being clear-eyed about barriers to innovation and removing them is also important. For example, we’ve raised private philanthropic dollars to subsidize innovative new programs, such as our new comprehensive effort to help black and Hispanic young men achieve at the same rates as their peers in other ethnic groups. When we’ve tackled issues like sustainability and poverty that span numerous agencies, we’ve created cross-agency teams to improve coordination and results. As a result, our sustainability program has produced a 13 percent reduction in New York City’s carbon footprint over the past five years.
Support those who fail
When it comes to innovation, the one thing you know for sure is that it will not always succeed. In New York, the intense media focus can be a disincentive for innovation, which is why I’ve always believed it is critical to give a public pat on the back to those who took reasonable risks but failed. That’s how you keep the new ideas coming in—and it’s how you keep attracting the top talent.
These three approaches have helped us drive innovation in areas ranging from poverty to sustainability to education to creating new open spaces. And mayors from cities all over the nation are launching their own bold solutions to many of the same challenges…
…The need for local government innovation is now greater than ever. When I talk with my colleagues in cities across the nation, they say they are being asked to do far more, often with much less. Citizens expect more. Many residents, hard hit by the recession, need more. And there are fewer public dollars to respond. That’s certainly the case here in New York City—and that’s why we’ll continue empowering leaders to drive innovation, reducing the barriers they face, and supporting all those who keep challenging the status quo with innovative new ideas.
Picture: Gehl Architects - Ways to add quality to the design of town centres
The problems that the Betalingsring is trying to solve originate not in our city centre but in our suburbs, we need to improve the quality of the town centers that comprise Copenhagen metropolitan region ensuring they are walkable, bike-able and provide everyday amenities. We need to improve connections and accessibility between these town centers and into the centre of Copenhagen. We need broad investment in a variety of transit options from car-sharing to public transit to ensure high quality alternatives and most importantly we need to consider the suburbs and promote medium density and quality housing. We want a city that works in the center and at the edges…
.…We aim to shift the discussion from mere political grandstanding to what ought to be the key question; how do we achieve good quality of life for all Copenhageners, a question which we all need to take seriously and responsibility for achieving. Improving quality of life and making a better city for our shared future is about more than charging motorists to drive into the centre. It should be visionary, ambitious and holistic in approach…
….Just as we have made our city centre walkable, bike-able and attractive – this should be applied more widely creating towns that provide everyday amenities. In our experience with working in transit hubs in both Gothenburg and Skåne, improving the quality within 1km of the transit hubs including park and ride schemes, reliable wifi connections that support working while commuting and other initiatives that improve convenience can greatly increase the attractiveness of public transport and really affect people’s transit choices.
Great video! Local people leading change and regeneration in their city!
“The POPUPHOOD is a new urban initiative and small business incubator revitalizing Oakland, block by block”
「POPUPHOOD是個新的都會計畫與小企業育成中心，希望一步步振興美國加州奧克蘭。」
New Windows on Willesden Green
On my to do list for tomorrow!
New Windows on Willesden Green is one of the Mayor’s Outer London Fund projects, which is being delivered for Brent Council and Design for London by The Architecture Foundation in collaboration with Meanwhile Space and Blue Consulting. This project is an exciting opportunity to revive and improve Willesden High Road bringing positive change to the area. The project runs from October 2011 to March 2012 and will be delivered in two phases.
Picture: Meanwhile Space
Oh! So that’s the answer…simples! NOT! Seriously I read things like this and shudder…
Start Up Street - What will you start up?
I absolutely love the ambition of this! It’s a very commendable example of using local skills, knowledge and assets to make something bigger!
Architecture+Design Scotland have launched ‘Start Up Street” in Stirling (Scotland), in response to an ideas workshop attended by the members of the local community, business owners and the Council, to examine how to generate sustainable economic activity and employment opportunities locally in Stirling.
The ‘start up street’ in Stirling is a local street that currently has 7 empty shops. They plan to use the underutilised assets to set up a hub to explore creative solutions that could stimulate and develop local enterprise and economic activity and deliver positive outcomes. To set the ball rolling the video also gives some great examples of various projects that could be launched that focus on health and well-being.
The High Street is a key element of our settlements. Its role as the central space of villages, towns and cities has been challenged by changes in the pattern of retail, of leisure, and living. In many High Streets in many settlements there are vacant and underutilised assets. In some cases the High Street is under pressure. It is an issue of concern for many, from businesses, to citizens, to investors.
Meeting the challenge of how to re-think the High Street as a central place requires creative thinking about how we make the best of what we already have. The communities in Stirling City Centre recently participated in a co-design exercise to re-think the centre of the City. The Urban Ideas Bakerybrought together citizens, officers of the Council, businesses and other stakeholders to look at how the people resources of the city and the spatial resources might be managed differently. Out of this thinking emerged an idea to re-consider King Street as a ‘start up street’, which enables business start ups, scaling of small business and curating events and activities in the public space. The proposal is to explore how people with ideas, talents and capabilities in the city can be matched with the available spaces in the city, supported by a community of interest. This idea is being tested in a prototype phase to engage a wide range of interests in exploring how the idea works, what is feasible, what is not. The objective is to use this practical method of testing the idea to develop a live project, to start small and build up a sustainable, self supporting enterprise.
The project is open to anyone with an interest in High Streets, how they work, and how they can be enhanced. This short video explains the thinking behind ‘Start Up Street’, whats involved and how you can get involved.
Image: Reuters
What do do you think…hero or villain?? Is he making the world sit up and notice what is going on or is he creating havoc for nations, economies and citizens?
Some time last Friday night, someone created a Wikipedia page for David T Beers. Overdue, you might think.
Mr Beers might be the most powerful man in the world that you’ve never heard of. He is the head of sovereign ratings at Standard & Poor’s, which means that at the world’s largest credit rating agency, he is responsible for the grades it slaps on each of the world’s governments. And last Friday night, his team decided the US was no longer the risk-free AAA nation that it has been for the past 70 years. That night, Mr Beers changed the financial world….No one elected Mr Beers, and S&P’s pivotal role in financial markets has grown up only over many generations, but here he is at the centre of the debt storm engulfing the eurozone and now the US – and under fire from politicians on both sides of the Atlantic.
21 Hours - Why a shorter working week can help us all to flourish in the 21st century
An interesting document from the new economic foundation
A ‘normal’ working week of 21 hours could help to address a range of urgent, interlinked problems: overwork, unemployment, over-consumption, high carbon emissions, low well-being, entrenched inequalities, and the lack of time to live sustainably, to care for each other, and simply to enjoy life.
Read the document here
Really interesting lecture on the cyclical failures of capitalism and human weakness
In this RSA Animate, renowned academic David Harvey asks if it is time to look beyond capitalism towards a new social order that would allow us to live within a system that really could be responsible, just, and humane?
This is based on a lecture at the RSA (www.theRSA.org).
Improve training of planners and councillors to get better planning decisions, says new report
Interesting! I just did an essay on this!
The consortium backing the report, which received financial support from the Department for Communities and Local Government, believes that planners should receive more training in the economics surrounding the development process to enable them to make more informed decisions, both when preparing local plans and considering new housing and commercial development projects. A survey conducted as part of the work showed that 71 percent of planners thought their knowledge and skills in this area required improvement and were keen to improve their knowledge and understanding.
The report carried out by consultants Roger Tym & Partners stresses all planners need to understand the motivations for developing property, in addition to the commercial issues and criteria used by developers to assess projects. The property and planning sectors believe that more training in this area would speed up the system, make better use of resources and enable the quicker delivery of new homes and other vital development.
Better training is needed not only by planners but also by others who need to understand factors that can affect the viability of schemes. These include councillors who take final decisions and those who advise on affordable housing, education and health provision….
The report stresses that some planners, such as those dealing with section 106 agreements and community infrastructure levies, will need higher levels of training. It recommends that training be offered at three levels:
Basic – all planners, relevant councilors and consultees/stakeholders should have a basic awareness of the development process; however training for councillors will be necessarily more constrained.
Intermediate – many planners and consultees who regularly deal with deliverability and viability issues should have a good understanding of development viability and project implementation, allowing them to confidently commission an appraisal, understand the variables and engage in detailed negotiations.
Advanced – for those planners and other disciplines regularly involved with complex projects, those routinely involved with 106 negotiations, regeneration, CPO and obligations toolkits, there is a need for specific skills in development economics.
