A Smarter Charlotte: A Call to Redefine the City

Charlotte is at a dramatic pivot point. Many influence factors are impacting the city and region’s future quality of life and urban experience. Changes are underway at the highest levels of corporate and civic leadership, thousands of citizens have lost jobs, and our social safety net is stretched thin. What we want as a community, who decides and how, and who pays, are in question. We may easily turn to becoming a city that aspires for significance without the resources or new models to become much more than we are. 

Or we can be a city that provides optimal well-being for its citizens. We are a moment where it is incumbent upon us to tap into the full intellectual capital of our citizenry to develop assets and capacities that will influence our lives for years to come. 

This paper is a call to redefine Charlotte as a smart city that learns. 

Overview

• The Context for Convening
• A Smarter Planet
• An Initial Gathering of Citizens
• Two Questions
• A Smart City that Learns
• Promising Signs
• Where We Can Go Next

The Context for Convening

The moment we are living through in Charlotte is happening within a greater context. The current economic cycle is revolving within a much larger information and social networking revolution. Communication and computational technologies are changing how we fundamentally generate, access and share data. Massive demographic change is underway; for the first time in human history more people live in cities than not. And macro forces – globalization, decentralization, democratization, environmental pressures – are requiring cities to make better choices in the face of greater complexity to remain competitive while relying on more broad-based, public-sector decision-making. As a result, cities throughout the world need capacity-building and more intelligent community life.

Examining a community intelligence suited for 21st century demands is underway on many fronts. Marilyn Hamilton, a self-described catalyst of city well-being, recently published, “Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive.” Her central thesis is that cities evolve through stages of intelligence. Communities must constantly solve problems. They must regularly reorganize to provide essential services, and reinvent themselves to confront threats and exploit opportunities. People and communities with greater “integral” development (or levels of intelligence and complexity) have more resilience to survive. They literally have more assets and capacities to manage conditions of stress.

Intelligence comes in many forms, across multiple domains. It includes the intelligences of mechanics, athletes, accountants, cooks, counselors and plumbers. Intelligence progresses from self-awareness to other-awareness to context-awareness to system-awareness. As one progresses to system-awareness, one becomes an increasingly capable contributor to the intelligence of city life. The broader and deeper these intelligences are in a community, the greater the capacity for regeneration. In a community, regeneration occurs through shared learning of competencies and capacities.

A Smarter Planet 

With the need so great to build capacity for better decision-making, IBM has launched its ‘Smarter Planet’ campaign. IBM is using the “Smarter Planet” umbrella to sell technologies that relay real-time intelligence about the health of key pieces of infrastructure — from power grids to sewage systems to highways — back to the companies, communities and governments that run them.

Here is a quote that reveals the extent of IBM’s ambitions: "All the problems of the world come together most intensely at the city level. If we solve these issues at the city level, we're reasonably confident that we can solve them everywhere,” said Mark Cleverley, director of global government solutions at IBM. "There's a whole landscape of opportunity to help cities in particular on their journey to sustainable prosperity.” 

IBM is joining with academics to build the case for their services. Stanley Litow, Vice President of Corporate Community Relations and president of the IBM International Foundation, and Rosabeth Moss Kanter, noted professor of strategy and innovation at Harvard Business School, have co-written, “Informed and Interconnected: A Manifesto for Smarter Cities.” The paper calls for leaders to create “smarter communities that are information-rich, interconnected, and able to provide opportunities to all citizens.”  

In addition, IBM is hosting conferences around the world, in Berlin, New York and Beijing. Our own Mayor McCrory spoke at the conference in New York. These gatherings explore leveraging technology, connecting people, breaking down silos, updating governance, improving decision-making – all aspects of infusing intelligence into the systems of cities – which may well be the work of the 21st century.

A Rising Movement 

The rising movement of creating smarter cities has been led by a number of advocates and organizations dedicated to next-stage, smart city development. Carol Coletta, president of CEOs for Cities, is host and producer of a nationally syndicated public radio show called Smart City. The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a non-profit, international environmental advocacy group, has launched Smarter Cities to foster competition between American cities to advance environmental stewardship and sustainable growth. Writers and bloggers are examining the attributes of their own city and ranking one city against the next. In 2006, the Business Journal ranked Charlotte the 6th “brainiest” city based on the concentration of higher education degrees. This year, the NRDC ranked Charlotte 38th in terms of being a healthy and sustainable place to live. The Daily Beast, a web-based news journalism site, ranked Raleigh-Durham America’s smartest city, and Charlotte the 16th smartest in the nation.

An Initial Gathering of Citizens 

It is within this larger context that a group of citizens came together in late October 2009 to explore how to make Charlotte smarter. Charlotte ViewPoint and Civic-By-Design, two local organizations with a mission to enhance the city’s civic and urban life, co-hosted an event entitled: A Smarter Charlotte: Enhancing Our Community Intelligence for the 21st Century. Sixty-five people responded to an open invitation and met at the new Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Arts + Culture. The event was partially underwritten by the Goodrich Corporation, the Community Blood Center of the Carolinas, and Johnson & Wales University, Charlotte campus. 

The stated purpose of the event was to explore how Charlotte might create greater capacity in the region to address existing and future systemic issues. The gathering heard four brief presentations: a report on our local economy from John Connaughton, professor of economics at UNC Charlotte; a report on our local environment by Bill Toole, environmental law attorney and partner at Robinson Bradshaw & Hinson; a report on our built environment and urban design by Tom Low, architect and urban planner at DPZ Architects; and a report on the state of our human capital by Frank Barrows, former managing editor of the Charlotte Observer.  

We then discussed systems thinking, specifically how it is an approach to understanding occurrences in a holistic manner. Systems thinking explores why a problem or element happens and persists by understanding the part in relation to the whole.

Two Questions 

Participants then convened into small groups of three to explore the following question, using the basics of systems thinking: “What underlying influences and relationships across disciplines do you see that are producing the patterns of behavior that the system (Charlotte) is exhibiting?” 

After 20 minutes of small group conversation, participants were invited to report findings to the larger room. Insights included:

• The narrative that Charlotte is “a can-do city that gets things done through public-private partnerships” is code for many for top-down driven initiatives. The top-down nature of the city has led to great civic successes, but an unintended consequence is passivity in the general populace and distrust among many.

• The status-quo is never good enough. Recognition, significance and progress are important to the city. These are core attributes that drive civic decisions. These decisions have resulted in tangible projects – arena, museums, theaters – that advance civic assets and pride, but have also reinforced a perception of top-down governance.

• The city rewards social conformity. There is a perceived divide between corporate executives and non-conformist creative citizens.

• We are consumers of received culture – not producers of original work. Our investments – theaters, museums, arenas – reinforce consumption. We have not similarly invested in assets that lead to innovation: e.g., medical and law schools, interdisciplinary education, an MFA program in design, artist incubators.

• There is not a shared vision of the region. Citizens in different neighborhoods and municipalities are not well-connected to each other – let alone to the world. There is not a regional identity or a cosmopolitan character. Racial, ethnic, and immigrant populations tends to self-segregate.

• Charlotte is often described as a young city, but it was settled in the late 1700s. It is only young in that it has just recently become nationally recognized as a banking center and its skyline and suburbs have recently been built. It is immature in its development of economic diversification, social capital, urban design, transit, and ecological sensitivity. 

Attendees then convened in new groups of three to explore a second question designed to spur capacity-building: “How might we exponentially enhance and effectively draw upon our collective intelligence to thrive?”

Suggestions included:

• Creation of civic places for human connection. These places can be parks, cafes, greenways and walkable streets. There is a pent-up desire for gathering places that are comfortable, accessible and welcoming of diverse populations. The success of Amelie’s French Bakery, and its diverse clientele, is indicative of this desire for place. As are crowds in Freedom Park on any given weekend. One idea advanced by Civic-By-Design is creating new places where voids exist.

• Mobile technology applications that connect citizens to city hall, the school board, and public governance.

• Kiosks in civic places that bring people physically together around information and design, and generate a street-level and immediate sensation of the activity of the community. Kiosks are also opportunities for public art that can celebrate history and explore shared vision.

• Sustained interfaith dialogue in which entire congregations switch houses of worship, and by doing so, enlarge their perspective.

• A broadening of education to adult learners exploring interdisciplinary insights, innovation and creativity.

• A sustained series of conversations throughout the city about collective intelligence and how cities learn.

• A less marked separation between “Town and Gown;” perhaps lectures and symposia that could take place off-campuses, more advertising of academic activities and events open to the public, engagement of the academic communities in civic discourse and planning initiatives.

A Smart City that Learns

One way of defining intelligence is to equate it with success. Robert Sternberg, the Dean of Arts & Sciences at Tufts University (and interestingly, the former IBM Professor of Psychology and Education at Yale University), argues that intelligence is the skill of continually putting oneself in the best position to succeed by recognizing and compensating for one’s weaknesses and recognizing and capitalizing on one’s strengths. 

This a broad view of intelligence. Anyone in any endeavor – from maintenance worker to mechanic to athlete to physician – is intelligent if they are self-aware, adapt and make effective choices that realize desired ends. 

Intelligence is advanced through learning. One way of understanding learning is finding or creating new knowledge, testing it, using it to make change, and storing it for future use. Much has been written about organizations that learn, and how they might learn better. In The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, author Peter Senge argues that organizations learn through personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning and systems thinking. 

A city is similarly intelligent if it continually positions itself for success (defined by such measures as achieving a diversified economy, local distinctiveness, a sustainable environment, and attraction and retention of talent), and it similarly learns if it finds and creates new knowledge, is able to use it for change, and store and draw upon collective information and wisdom. 

Tim Campbell of the Urban Age Institute, who is in Charlotte as of this writing examining how our city learns, has examined learning styles and modalities of cities throughout the world. He notes in particular the importance of gathering knowledge, especially from other cities and regions, trust networks, social capital, tracking regional indicators, civic leadership development, and sharing of best practices. He cites Bilbao, Curitiba and Seattle as good examples of cities that learn well. Interestingly, Charlotte has most of these learning elements in place, evidenced by the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce inter-city visits, the Crossroads Charlotte Social Capital Benchmark Community Survey, the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute Regional Indictors Project, the Foundation For The Carolinas Center for Civic Leadership, and citizen platforms such as Charlotte ViewPoint and CivicBy-Design that share ideas and best practices about civic and urban ecology.

Promising Signs

There are promising signs that we are using this time to exponentially enhance our community intelligence and build the soft infrastructure that will position us to thrive.

• The Foundation For the Carolinas has launched a “Community Catalyst Program” to support transformational change in the non-profit community, encouraging the creation of a ‘more effective, efficient and innovative non-profit sector.’

• The Arts & Science Council has strategically realigned to invest more directly with individual artists, innovators and emerging arts initiatives.

• NPower Charlotte, with the support of the John L. and James L. Knight Foundation, has launched ‘Project Ignite’ to enhance non-profit performance through technology.

• County Commissioners, City Council members, School Board members, non-profit executives and citizens have met in a rare joint-meeting of separate governing bodies to explore a human services strategic plan.

• Charlotte Center City Partners, in collaboration with the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, is leading the creation of the Center City 2020 Vision Plan, to chart the built and cultural environment of Uptown neighborhoods.

• The Lee Institute, Crossroads Charlotte and Leadership Charlotte are working to enhance community collaboration, social capital and volunteer leadership.

• Innovative grassroots organizations, such as Intentional Charlotte and SustainCharlotte, are green sprouts in the city.

Where We Can Go Next

In a fundamental way, community creation is the work of the 21st century. It is systems-based work, requiring a broad array of skills and resources, which include convening, listening, group work, conversation, and suggestion. It is work that explores the stories we tell about ourselves, our relationship to our past and present, and our sense of possibility. 

This paper calls for redefining Charlotte from “a can-do city that gets things done through public-private partnerships” to “a smart city that learns.” This new narrative inverts our perceived top-down model to a bottom-up one in which a broad-base of citizens are engaged in the success of the city. 

Redefining Charlotte as ‘a smart city that learns’ also honors the intellect and talents of citizens, building on our gifts and expertise to create alternative futures. It invites people to connect. It sees the work of leadership as capacity-building and assisting discovery. 

One next step is to engage more citizens in the work of making Charlotte smarter. Charlotte ViewPoint stands prepared to partner with institutions and citizen leaders throughout the region to further position Charlotte for success in the 21st century.