Simon Nielsen 9/7/22 Simon Nielsen 9/7/22

How Local Leaders And Officials Can Become Venture Capitalists Of New Ideas

“How can you protect your community from failure while being open to new ideas?” Becky McCray and SaveYour.Town answer an essential question.

By Becky McCray and SaveYour.Town

We’re living through a shift in power, to one that is more open to participation by people outside of our formal organization.

For local leaders and officials, it’s hard to imagine how this will work, being more open to ideas from outside the leadership. How you can protect your community from failure while being open to new ideas?

We have a simple way of thinking that can help. Think of yourself as the Venture Capitalists of New Ideas.

What do Venture Capitalists do? A really simple view of it is they find out about as many new ideas as they can, but they don’t invest in them all. They’re more likely to encourage entrepreneurs and help them build their networks than to invest money in their businesses. They only invest in business ideas that are working well in early tests.

You can adapt that mindset:

Find out everything that’s going on, and not just entrepreneurial ideas but all kinds of things people are doing for your community. Publicly ask people what new ideas they’re working on.

Encourage all of them. Help them Build Connections from your extensive network of resources.

And then invest your limited resources only in the ideas that are doing well in testing.

This is freeing for officials. You can refocus how you listen to people.

You become resources for people with ideas, instead of just listening and not being able to act upon it.

Local elected and appointed leaders can learn more practical steps in our video: Idea Friendly Officials and Boards. Learn the Idea Friendly secrets to:

Look at a new way to see your role as an official, one that puts you in the center of the network
Discover your superpower as an official and put your connections to work for you
Turn public gripe sessions into crowdsourcing events that mobilize people into action
Learn the one question that turns even bad ideas into something positive

Simon Nielsen 6/6/22 Simon Nielsen 6/6/22

Leveraging Collaboration and Digital Technology to Solve Africa's Food Challenges

“The advent and growth of technology have enabled the transformation of traditional membership groups into online communities and platforms like Nourishing Africa to flourish. According to GSMA Intelligence, a source of mobile industry insights, more than half of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa had access to 4G network by the end of 2020.” Nourishing Africa is building a vast community of young agri-food entrepreneurs and works hard to secure a stronger, more sustainable, and resilient Africa.

By Henry Dieto & Nourishing Africa

Across the African continent, there are millions of small to medium scale agriculture and food businesses run by dynamic and resilient entrepreneurs, whom we call agripreneurs. According to a study by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), these agripreneurs contribute to the production of over 80% of the food we consume on the continent. Despite this, they face many internal and external challenges in an ever-changing environment.

David Mbuta, 36, returned to his native Zambia in 2015 after many years in South Africa and Australia, where he studied Information Technology (IT). He saw technology as a pathway to solving his community’s challenges, ranging from poverty, to food insecurity, to limited technological know-how. To him, these challenges have prevented Africa from realising its full potential despite being revered as the most naturally-resourced continent globally.

It was no surprise that he chose self-employment to the alluring opportunities his undergraduate and graduate degrees could offer him in the developing country. His passion for e-commerce, food, agriculture and logistics led him to his first venture, Ubuntu Meal Delivery Services, an experimental project that began in a tiny guest house before growing to become one of the most popular and sought after on-demand meal delivery platforms in Zambia's capital, Lusaka.

***Photo:*** *David Mbuta (L) receiving agricultural produce for cold storage and transportation from a Zambian farmer.* ***Source:*** *David Mbuta*

David would later establish Cold Storage Zambia to help smallholder farmers cut down their post-harvest losses. The agribusiness offers affordable solar-powered pay-as-you-go cold storage and transportation services.

"We realised farmers incurred many losses when transporting their produce from the farm. Financial constraints meant they had no choice other than to use transport services that operated like silos," he says.

David's success has not come easy. His first business, Ubuntu Meal Delivery Services, almost collapsed in its formative years because of limited finances and his lack of adequate skills to run the business. In establishing Cold Storage Zambia in 2020, David joined farmer groups and communities, which he credits as central to the survival of his new venture.

Another critical community to Africa's agriculture and food ecosystem is Nourishing Africa, a digital knowledge and membership hub focused on supporting African agri-food entrepreneurs to scale their businesses through collaborative models, peer-to-peer support, and provision of critical resources and tools and opportunities. Through the platform, agripreneurs like David access funding and capacity building opportunities, essential data and reports, information about events, e-learning resources, media showcase opportunities, and mentorship. The Hub also serves as a platform for them to accelerate their work, connect, and celebrate their successes on the continent.

The advent and growth of technology have enabled the transformation of traditional membership groups into online communities and platforms like Nourishing Africa to flourish. According to GSMA Intelligence, a source of mobile industry insights, more than half of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa had access to 4G network by the end of 2020; the very same year Nourishing Africa was founded, leveraging the power of technology to break geographical barriers that had previously prevented African entrepreneurs from working together towards the continent's unmet needs.

***Photo:*** *The Nourishing Africa hub enables African agripreneurs to connect and access the latest funding and capacity building opportunities, among other resources, to scale their businesses.* ***Source:*** *Nourishing Africa*

Ify Umunna, Co-CEO of Nourishing Africa, explains how communities are vital to the lives of SMEs in Africa. "Communities like Nourishing Africa are knowledge hubs, markets, funding sources, and the go-to places for any SME that wants to scale. They are critical to many aspects of growing a business in today's world. Failing to subscribe to a group where you can learn from peers exposes you to avoidable failures and blocks you from so many rewarding opportunities," she says.

Ify explains the importance of young entrepreneurs like David, who are in the agricultural sector, working towards scaling their businesses to solve Africa's challenges on a larger scale. "We must encourage African youth to see Africa's food challenges as opportunities. That's the only way to build sustainable, profitable and innovative businesses that have the potential to see us being food secure. At the same time, we must ensure that this sector is attractive to young people who thrive in change and innovation, which are not looking to do things the same way their forefathers did."

Ify's sentiments on unlocking Africa's potential and David's story on the power of a digital community point to the continent's dire need to use innovations to spur socio-economic development and accelerate its journey toward achieving the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The continent's push for youth inclusion in critical areas such as agriculture and private and public sector support for new innovations spearheaded by these young people are positive signs of a stronger, resilient, and more sustainable Africa.

Simon Nielsen 5/24/22 Simon Nielsen 5/24/22

We Gave Up Planning The Old Way

“This project has ended up looking nothing like a written plan would’ve looked. That stodgy plan would’ve tied our hands and not allowed for changes midstream. It would’ve died by committee.“ Deb Brown, small town advocate and community activator, tells the story of a community project taking off before planning could bring it down.

By Deb Brown and SaveYour.Town

My small town hosted an international photojournalist, Brendan Hoffman, in residency at the local paper.

A town of 8,000 people managed to take a 6 week free class on Using Photography to Tell Your Stories, view an exhibition of War In Ukraine, and personally visit with the photographer and share ideas for stories in the community.

The Old Way

I bet you believe we had a ton of meetings, had to fund raise to bring this man in from the Ukraine and host him for two months, and spend lots of money on exhibition space and marketing as well. It would be the same ten people who would write the plan, and there would be no room for change in the plan.

If we’d written a formal plan, that is exactly what would’ve happened. We would’ve had to reach out to the city officials to get permission to bring him to town. The meetings would’ve taken a year to figure how to fund raise, where to put him, what location could the exhibit be at, how would we help pay him to be in residency at the paper, and how to get the exhibit shipped here from another country. We would’ve needed committees: marketing, advertising, housing, fundraising, location and more.

That would’ve been the old way to plan for this kind of a big deal. By the time everything had been handled, many folks would’ve dropped out and been frustrated. Too much red tape.

The Idea Friendly Way

However, that’s not how we did it. We used the Idea Friendly Method.

Brendan Hoffman and I had stayed in touch via email since 2013. He visited once in 2015 and we had organized a photo walk that time. He told me he wanted to come back, and he’d like to have a residency at the paper.

I pulled my crowd together. The editor at the newspaper, the president of the adult education workshops group, and me. We knew this would be a great opportunity for our town. How could we make it happen? Grants, donations, marketing. The ideas began to flow.

We needed Brendan to help us Build Connections. He had applied for two grants that he received, and he shared another one we could apply to. He also wanted to teach a 6 week course on using photography to tell your story. These conversations happened mostly online via email, Facebook messenger and texting. He lives in Ukraine and he can’t just stop over! It was a bit chaotic, but we figured it out.

Then we took small steps. We didn’t need to get permission from the city. Often you think you do, but just as often you really don’t. The Freeman Journal newspaper wrote the Facebook Journalism Grant request and they got it! We added an Embedded Community Experience to the project to do more outreach to minorities and youth. Legacy Learning Boone River Valley (adult education) created the photography workshop. They spread the word and over 30 people showed up for that.

Once Brendan was here, our crowd thought it would be nice to add an exhibition of his work. There was grant money, and several of us chipped in to get his work shipped here. A friend of ours had an empty storefront he let us use for one week. All we had to do was ask him. We’re a small town! Asking often works.

The exhibition was well attended by locals, and out of towners. The week before the exhibition was scheduled to open, we decided we should have an Opening Reception. Volunteers were called and cookies were made! A local church gave us chairs to use. Hy-Vee donated wine. Mornin’ Glory donated coffee. It was a nice addition to the first night of the exhibit. In fact it was a lot of fun and people learned about Ukraine and war with Russia in a manner better than any lecture.

The last week, we decided to do a closing reception too! Again, folks had ideas, and just donated their time, gifts and products. All of us used local ways to get the word out, and social media and the newspaper. Because the first reception was talked about, the ending reception was great too.

This project has ended up looking nothing like a written plan would’ve looked. That stodgy plan would’ve tied our hands and not allowed for changes midstream. It would’ve died by committee.

The biggest takeaway is we did write a plan. AFTER the event was over.

We shared the steps we all took, we were able to talk about what worked well and what didn’t work at all. It was no longer a wish that we could do this. It was a fact we completed it. This is a plan that others can look at, learn from and try something on their own knowing that it will involve more people taking small meaningful steps. It will be chaotic, and that’s ok. And it’s more fun to create good things on the fly!

Simon Nielsen 2/22/22 Simon Nielsen 2/22/22

Kaun Hai MASTER? Kya Hai PLAN?

How do we design our towns and cities? Who gets a seat a the table in the planning process? Who is the master behind the master plan? Social Design Collaborative has designed a toolkit reaching out to underrepresented groups to break down what Delhi's Master Plan 2041 has in store for them, and what they can do to get their concerns heard. “Kaun Hai MASTER? Kya Hai PLAN?” (Who is the MASTER? What is the PLAN?) is an interactive tool that spreads awareness on Delhi's master planning process and share people's perspectives.

By Social Design Collaborative

'Kaun Hai MASTER? Kya Hai PLAN?' is a participatory toolkit designed by our team and supported by SEWA - for workshops by the Main Bhi Dilli campaign to help spread awareness within communities typically left out of planning processes on Delhi's upcoming Master Plan 2041 and how they could engage with it. Activities cover the different chapters of the Master Plan from Housing, Physical infrastructure & Transport to Public Space, Heritage, Environment & Livelihoods using maps, mascots, ballot charts and bindis.

Cities across the world are using more and more participatory processes to raise awareness on their city development plans and to get feedback from their residents. As Delhi prepares its 4th Masterplan for the next 20 years, DDA and NIUA have been holding online consultations in a bid to reach out to the residents. How can we increase the reach of this civic participation? How can we ensure that more vulnerable communities that are typically left out of masterplanning process can be heard this time? What role can we play in this?

These are the questions we've been trying to raise. And create some solutions too!

The toolkit has been finalised based on user feedback from pilots supported by SEWA, Basti Suraksha Manch and IGSSS. The trainings of the workshop hosts have been completed recently and the workshops are currently ongoing. If you'd like to contribute to the process, please write to us.

Looking for more? Here’s an article on the project published by Social Design Collaborative in Radical Housing Journal.

Simon Nielsen 2/9/22 Simon Nielsen 2/9/22

Co-Designing Black Neighborhood Heritage Conservation

BlackSpace shares inspirations, experiences, and lessons learned from an exploratory process of co-designing heritage conservation efforts alongside members of Brownsville, one of Brooklyn’s Black enclaves. In this introduction to the playbook exploring the process, BlacSpace points towards a collaborative and inclusive development based on local trust and respect.

BlackSpace shares inspirations, experiences, and lessons learned from an exploratory process of co-designing heritage conservation efforts alongside members of Brownsville, one of Brooklyn’s Black enclaves. In this introduction to the playbook exploring the process, BlackSpace points towards a collaborative and inclusive development based on local trust and respect.

By BlackSpace

THE PURPOSE OF THE PLAYBOOK

This playbook aims to provide guidance to practitioners both local and non-local, striving to collaborate with community members to document, conserve, and amplify Black neighborhood cultures.

The design of the playbook highlights our process, some of the “magic moments” that served as eye-opening experiences, lessons learned from our efforts, and actionable prompts that can help neighbors, practitioners, kids, and local cultural producers document, conserve, and amplify Black cultural assets in historically Black neighborhoods.

WHAT IS HERITAGE CONSERVATION?

BlackSpace defines heritage conservation as intentional actions that protect and elevate culturally significant markers, both non-physical and physical, in an effort to understand a place and the past, present, and future of its people. Amplifying culture and heritage alone cannot combat urban forces like gentrification or economic disinvestment. However, heritage conservation is necessary in strengthening Black community agency.

Heritage conservation can:

» Acknowledge cultural traditions, rituals, and sites as assets

» Advance self-determined narratives; inspire local advocates

» Affirm peoples’ rights to their places; prevent cultural erasure

» Fortify social networks; facilitate deeper community connectedness

Heritage conservation can be done by:

» Anyone rooted in or making the culture of a community - aka “cultural producers”

» Those who keep and share neighborhood history and culture, formally or informally, and those who might not necessarily recognize their work as “heritage conservation”

» You!

Read the full playbook

Simon Nielsen 2/2/22 Simon Nielsen 2/2/22

Rhode Island Innovates 2.0

Rhode Island has achieved one of the biggest drops in unemployment rates in the U.S. More than 20 new policies and programs aligned to support this growth. Despite substantial progress, a new round of policy and practice innovation is needed to continue the trajectory. Urban scholars Luise Noring and Bruce Katz recommend three main areas of focus, with 17 tangible and feasible suggestions for change.

Rhode Island has achieved one of the biggest drops in unemployment rates in the U.S.—from
11.2% in 2010 to 3.5% today. More than 20 new policies and programs aligned to support this growth, encompassing tax and regulatory reform, workforce development and talent attraction, quality of place, innovation and R&D, and supplier and industry cluster networks.
Despite substantial progress, a new round of policy and practice innovation is needed to
continue the trajectory—both doubling down on programs that are succeeding and responding to new threats and embracing new opportunities. Urban scholars Luise Noring and Bruce Katz recommend three main areas of focus, with 17 tangible and feasible suggestions for change.

By Luise Noring, assistant professor at Copenhagen Business School, and Bruce Katz, founding director of the Nowak Metro Finance Lab at Drexel University

After a decade adrift, Rhode Island’s faltering economy is on the mend and expanding anew. Following the Great Recession, Rhode Island’s economic recovery lagged behind the rest of New England, but recent progress indicates that the state’s economy has passed an inflection
point. The Rhode Island economy is growing, unemployment levels are at historical lows, average productivity has reversed its decline although it remains below the 2010 level, and advanced industry sectors are expanding with positive, reverberating effects for small businesses across the state.

Rhode Island’s nascent comeback is creating visible signs in the state—along the Providence River at the new Innovation & Design District, at Innovate Newport’s new co-working space, at Electric Boat’s new submarine production facility in the Quonset Industrial Park, in the Offshore Wind Farm near Block Island, and at the new Fascitelli Center for Advanced Engineering at the University of Rhode Island. As important, but less visible, are the thousands of Rhode Islanders who now hold quality jobs with decent wages due to customized training and the scores of companies that have expanded their businesses due to strategic investment and support. The turnaround of the Rhode Island economy is, however, still in its early stages. The creation of a solid platform for long-term prosperity is a decade-long project at a minimum, which needs sustained focus and integrated action across all sectors, including but not limited to the state government. The Rhode Islanders we have engaged with urged us to recommend maintaining (if not expanding) the programs
to continue building upon the progress that was initiated only a few years ago. Declaring victory and “turning the page” too quickly would only limit the potential future growth from the groundwork that has been laid.

Rhode Islanders also implored us to focus on challenges that have become more pressing and apparent since 2016: in particular, the economic restructuring that is forcing many Rhode Islanders to work for wages that are insufficient to make ends meet and the rapid pace
of technological innovation (e.g., automation, artificial intelligence), which already threatens the future of work in particular industries. At the same time, there are new opportunities to be seized, starting with the dramatic demographic transition that has put the state on
the trajectory to be a majority minority state along with the rest of the country. These challenges and opportunities cut across advanced and non-advanced sectors and companies, requiring either new or revised policy responses.

Rhode Islanders finally advised us not to ignore traditional, mostly self-inflicted, challenges—the low quality of schools (in certain communities) and infrastructure (more broadly), an inadequate supply of quality and affordable housing options, the fragmentation of municipalities, the sense of opacity and cost of doing business—which have taken on new importance and urgency in the state. They also recommended that we connect the dots between economic prosperity and disparate parts of the state’s agenda (e.g., climate resiliency, reducing health disparities, and increasing quality of place) which are inextricably linked. Economic development is not an act that can occur in isolation, even when specific supports for businesses, workers, and places are well designed and delivered.

In the end, Rhode Island is a small state in a highly competitive region, nation, and world. Its size could be a strength in a fast-moving and rapidly changing world, allowing the state and its sectors, large companies, small businesses, and anchor institutions to move into closer alignment faster than would be possible for larger communities. But being small requires the state to be agile and nimble to leverage distinctive strengths and connect related assets (e.g., the procurement needs of large employers and the demand needs of small businesses) in deeper and more sustained ways. It also requires the state to focus and target its allocation
of scarce resources.

In summary, the state has shown its ability to design, finance, and deliver a series of meaningful projects that support businesses, workers, and communities. It now needs to move from individual transactions to structural transformation and to grow the distinctive
assets and capacities of this special place into a productive, sustainable, and inclusive economy. That will require a shared vision among multiple stakeholders and a collaborative, cross-sector approach to shaping and stewarding the economy.

Read full report

Simon Nielsen 2/2/22 Simon Nielsen 2/2/22

The Importance Of A Bold City Council

The innovation centre La Pinada Lab works on two premises. One: Reality is complex, and to develop better solutions to our problems, we must cooperate. Two: When acting on the urban environment, it does not make sense to separate the public and private domains. In this article, the lab explores the role of city councils. It’s a call for local courage and for innovative public-private partnerships.

By La Pinada Lab, innovation centre

Open Innovation or how to explore possibilities collaboratively

For decades, there has been a model of innovation called Open Innovation, which was proposed by Henry Chesbrough as an alternative to the secrecy and isolation of 20th century research laboratories, university departments and corporations.

At that time, it was a challenging path that only the most alternative companies took, as it involved sharing knowledge, resources or processes with other entities and this was quite scary. ‘How am I going to show a stranger what I know (and what I don’t know)?’, thought the more conservatively-minded.

Today, however, it has become the only sensible way to solve the challenges we face.

Our reality is systemic. The world is made up of systems of systems, with innumerable cross-connections and nobody has a complete and permanent perspective on things. This makes it essential to rely on each other to develop new ideas.

“Our mission is to promote the sustainability of the urban environment, and our main tool for doing so is open innovation.”

— La Pinada Lab

In this context, at LPL we are promoting our Partners Programme, with the aim of developing a vibrant, active and committed open innovation ecosystem. We target all types of entities, whether they are large companies, SMEs, startups, knowledge centres, civil society, user associations or government bodies.

PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS, OR HOW TO CREATE A FRAMEWORK FOR INNOVATION AT THE URBAN LEVEL

At the simplest level, any one of us can act at an individual scale, making changes in our day-to-day lives. While important, the net result for the ecosystem is the linear sum of each individual’s contribution.

In the case of La Pinada Lab we promote the development of solutions on the urban scale.

Whether it is through new products, services, business models or infrastructures, it is known that many systems switch their mode of operation when a minimum size is reached. This implies that the impact generated can be much greater than adding small actions together.

PATERNA MUNICIPALITY + LA PINADA LAB = STARTING FROM THE GROUND UP

All things considered, we are very, very happy to have signed a collaboration agreement with the Paterna Town Council.

Among other things, we believe it is important because it points the way forward.

To create urban innovation, the active participation of public administration is essential. To successfully develop new mobility systems, better ways of generating and storing energy, more sustainable construction methods, or more efficient waste collection, it is essential to define a framework that supports it at social, environmental, economic and – very importantly – regulatory level.

We have confirmed this through meetings with experts (for more information, you can download the conclusions (in Spanish) from the working session we organised in the SALVIA project on public-private partnerships). While we all agree on the importance, few municipalities – like Paterna – are willing to step forward to explore new avenues.

We are proud to know that we have the best people on our team.

What comes next?

With a medium to long- term framework in place, we will start by identifying, in collaboration with Paterna City Council, the challenges and opportunitiesfor creating more sustainable urban environments.

But identifying is only part of the process.

In addition to pointing out directions, we need to walk the path towards solutions. For our part, we will identify other entities with whom we will prototype, experiment, improve and disseminate new solutions. If this sounds good to you, get in touch with us.

One more thing

If you are interested in the public-private issue, we recommend that you read Charles Landry, who proposes the concept of Creative Bureaucracy as a way of overcoming the hard constraints often found in regulatory frameworks to establish collaborative models with great transformative power.

“‘The Creative Bureaucracy’ highlights the human perspective. It understands people are at the heart of the system. It puts the lived experience of working within or with a bureaucracy centre-stage. A bureaucracy is not only a structure or ‘organigram’ with functional relationships and roles. It is a group of people with lives, emotions, aspirations, energy, passion and values.”

— Charles Landry

Simon Nielsen 1/23/22 Simon Nielsen 1/23/22

Strengthening Government And Community Through Genuine Partnerships

Local governments everywhere tend to think of their jurisdictions as places and people
with needs. They seek to address these needs by relying on tax revenues and bureaucratic
expertise. Such a top-down approach may be appropriate at times, but it is certainly not
sufficient. If government treats people as nothing more than customers, they think of
themselves as taxpayers rather than citizens.

Moreover, government and its partner agencies can’t address all of the needs on their
own. Needs are growing more rapidly than government resources. And, increasingly
complex social and environmental issues can’t be resolved by agencies in the absence of
community even if they have unlimited resources.

Some local governments are beginning to recognize that their communities have
untapped resources as well as unmet needs. They are empowering and partnering with
their communities through programs such as bottom-up planning, neighborhood matching
funds, and participatory budgeting. Consequently, people are starting to identify as
citizens and see the government as an extension of themselves. Not only are many more
resources available to address local needs, but the solutions tend to be more creative,
holistic and appropriate.

By Jim Diers, community activator

Steps to Effective Partnerships

Building true partnerships between government and community isn’t easy. Before they
can empower the community, agencies must first cease the harm that they inflict on
community and begin removing their own obstacles to engagement. Three major steps
need to be climbed in order to get to effective partnerships:

1. Do No Harm
Ironically, in their sincere effort to help the community, government and other institutions often do it a disservice. They impose their own agenda which distracts the community from its priorities. They don’t sufficiently value the time and contributions of the citizens who do get involved so that they are less likely to participate in the future. Most egregiously, institutions tend to violate the Iron Rule of community organizing: “Never do for people what they can do for themselves.” Agency leaders often speak for the community. They provide services that were formerly the community’s responsibility. They foster dependence by funding community leaders.

I’m not necessarily arguing for fewer or smaller institutions. There clearly are needs in communities that are best served by government and other agencies. And, most agencies
don’t have enough resources as it is to adequately address those needs. Institutions should focus on what they are uniquely capable of and allow communities to do what they do best.

2. Remove Obstacles

It is extremely difficult for the community to partner with institutions as they are currently constituted, because institutions aren’t accessible. Government offices are typically located far from where many people live and open during the same hours when most people work. Specialized language and bureaucratic procedures make it challenging for people to participate. Community volunteers can’t possibly be involved in the totality of their neighborhood, because every aspect of the neighborhood (e.g. public safety, parks and recreation, public health, housing, economic development, transportation, arts and culture, youth, seniors, etc.) is associated with a different agency, each with its own staff, meetings, plans and programs.

Government tends to be both too centralized and too segmented to relate to communities.
Top-down decision-making doesn’t accommodate the community’s voice and cookie cutter programs and regulations don’t respect unique neighborhood design or community culture. Professional experts often discount the wisdom of communities, and they work in silos that make it difficult for them to share the community’s more holistic perspective.

Perhaps the greatest obstacle is bureaucratic red tape. Rather than working through legitimate issues such as safety, liability, maintenance and labor agreements, too often these obstacles become a convenient excuse for government to say no to community initiatives.

3. Build Capacity

When agencies start to make room for community and to remove obstacles to partnership,
the next step is to assist community in rebuilding its capacity. Agencies must be careful
to do so in ways that empower the community and don’t lead to further dependence. Appropriate capacity-building roles for agencies include leadership development, assistance with outreach and networking, and programs such as those described below that encourage the community to identify and utilize its own assets.

Hallmarks of Effective Partnerships

There are three hallmarks of effective government-community partnerships. When they
are in place, they allow government to do what my former colleague, Henry Moore,
described as “leading by stepping back.”

1. Neighborhood/Community Focused

Effective partnerships are locally based rather then centralized. They are focused on whole neighborhoods or communities rather than on separate functions. Consequently, the community can easily participate and the resulting actions are both integrated and culturally appropriate. Following are some tools that have been used to help government move in this direction:

• Seattle, Sydney and many other cities have established little city halls in neighborhood business districts, shopping centers, libraries or other decentralized locations. Not only do these facilities enable citizens to access a wide range of city information and services in one convenient location, but the coordinator for each little city hall also serves as an overt double agent, helping both government and the community to accomplish their goals by working
together.

• Many cities have established interdepartmental teams with a neighborhood focus. The City of Toronto, for example, has organized 13 Neighborhood Action Teams “to support integrated City service planning and delivery from a neighborhood perspective.”

2. Strength-Based

Effective partnerships begin by focusing on a neighborhood/community’s strengths rather
than its needs. These underutilized resources include the gifts of every individual, voluntary associations, the built and natural environment, economy, and culture.

• Seattle developed the Neighborhood Matching Fund as a powerful incentive for communities to mobilize their strengths. The City provides cash for community-initiated projects when matched by an equal community contribution of cash, volunteer labor, and/or donated goods and services. Over the past 25 years, the City’s $60 million investment has leveraged $85 million worth of community resources, more than 5000 projects have been completed, and tens of thousands of citizens have worked together to make these projects possible. The program has since been replicated by towns and cities throughout the world.

• Involving All Neighbors is a Seattle Department of Neighborhoods program that involves persons with developmental disabilities in community life by focusing on their gifts and connecting them to existing community initiatives.

3. Community-Driven

Finally, and most importantly, effective partnerships should be led by those who will live with the outcomes – the community. It is not enough to decentralize services or to mobilize underutilized resources. The community must have a voice in deciding how those resources can best be used.

• In the late 1990s, Seattle gave communities the power to create their own neighborhood plans. The community could define the scope of work and use city funds to hire a planner who was accountable to them. In return, the city insisted that all stakeholders be involved in the effort, that outreach be targeted at labeled groups, and that the entire community be given the opportunity to vote on the final plan. The 38 neighborhood planning efforts involved 30,000 people and resulted in over 5000 recommendations. Broad-based community ownership of the plans meant that the city was held accountable for implementation. Equally important, the community took responsibility for those recommendations that it could best implement.

• Following amalgamation in rural Golden Plains, Australia, farmers were picketing Town Hall to protest inadequate services. Local officials had very few resources, so they turned to the only untapped resource they could find – their community members. In 2000, they involved one quarter of the municipality’s 16,000 residents in the creation of 23 community plans. The plans resulted in the identification of 120 priorities; 600 citizens volunteered to manage the implementation of these recommendations. Thanks to broad ownership, the
community and government together found ways to implement 96% of the plans’ priorities. The Golden Plains Council subsequently received the highest citizen satisfaction rating of any local government in the State of Victoria.

• Other cities give communities a strong voice in developing the government’s budget. In St. Paul, Minnesota, neighborhood representatives draft the city’s capital budget. The city budget of Puerto Allegro, Brazil is based on widespread neighborhood-level discussions.
Of course, the community’s voice must be broad-based. Too often, self-appointed leaders, whose mouths are bigger than their constituencies, claim to speak for the community. Government has a role in insisting that the associations with which it partners be democratic and inclusive. Government should also provide associations with the training, technical assistance, and other support they need in order to adequately represent the community.

• In Taiwan, the federal government supports Community Empowerment Centers throughout the country and a Young Community Planners Program that provides
in-depth training for aspiring activists.

• In the United Kingdom, the coalition government is training 5000 community
organizers.

It’s amazing what is possible when government takes as much interest in its democratic
infrastructure as it does in its streets, parks, and regulations.

Simon Nielsen 1/18/22 Simon Nielsen 1/18/22

Five Keys To Broad And Inclusive Community Engagement

Building strong communities is not easy. In “Bowling Alone”, Robert Putnam documents the decline of community life in North America. He blames poverty, suburbanization, television, and more time spent at work. Others have added fear, mobility, globalization and increased professionalization and specialization to the list of culprits. Jim Diers, community activator, reflects on 37 years in community building. He offers simple rules of engagement that still hold true today.

Building strong communities is not easy. In Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam
documents the decline of community life in North America. He blames poverty,
suburbanization, television, and more time spent at work. Others have added fear,
mobility, globalization and increased professionalization and specialization to the list of
culprits. Even so, my 37 year background in community building has taught me some
simple rules of engagement that still hold true today.

By Jim Diers, community activator

Have Fun!

Of all the forces that are eroding community, Putnam claims that television is the
greatest threat. That may be true, but if television is our main competition and we’re
losing, we’re doing something terribly wrong. It shouldn’t be that difficult to make
community more compelling than television.

Cesar Cala, a community activist in the Philippines and now in Calgary, told me,
“The problem is those GD activists.” “GD activists?” I inquired. “Yes,” he said, “the
grim and determined.”

We all know those sour activists who act like civic engagement is their cross to
bear. They love to complain. Who would want to get involved with them? The key is to
make community life fun again. As my friend Jeff Bercuwitz says, “Why have a meeting
when you can have a party?” After all, the purpose is to get people involved and not to
see who can endure the most suffering.

Start Where People Are

Saul Alinsky, who is often described as the father of modern community
organizing, complained that too many activists start with the world as they would like it
to be rather than the world as it is. If you want to get people engaged, he advised, you
need to start where they are. This is true on several levels.

First, the closer the action is to where people live, the more likely they are to get
engaged. While there will undoubtedly be a larger turnout for a citywide event, there will
never be a higher percentage of participation than if the meeting (or party) is held at the
block level. A more localized event makes transportation and child care much easier. It
also gives people a greater sense that their participation is important. After all, if they
don’t attend, who will? And, if they aren’t present, they might be in trouble with their
neighbours.

Second, if you want to get people involved, you need to be cognizant of their
language and culture. This seems obvious in working with immigrants, but even when
communicating with people who speak the same language as you, it is important to use
words that are familiar to them. Too often, we use jargon or acronyms that comprise a
sort of secret code known only by members of a particular profession or by hard core
activists. Not only do we fail to communicate, but those whom we are trying to reach
come to believe that they lack the expertise required for participation.

Third, in trying to recruit people, it is important to start with the networks to
which they already belong. Too often, we think that people aren’t organized simply
because they don’t belong to our organization. In fact, just about everyone belongs to at least one network, either formal or informal. They likely don’t have time to join yet
another group. Besides, they have developed relationships within their existing network
that make them comfortable.

It is especially difficult to recruit people whose age, income, ethnicity or other
characteristics set them apart from the existing members of your organization. If you
want to create a multi-cultural community effort, it generally works best to identify and
build alliances with the key networks involving people who are underrepresented in your
membership. These local networks could be centered on neighbourhood, culture, faith,
education, business, recreation, environment, history, art, crime prevention, service, a
hobby, or something else. There are literally dozens of networks in every neighbourhood.
When these networks are aligned, the community can exercise tremendous power.

Fourth, we need to focus on people’s passions. Too often, we try to convince
people to care about our cause - what we are passionate about or what we are paid to
promote. When people don’t join us, we call them apathetic. In fact, no one is apathetic.
Everyone cares deeply about something. People will get involved to the extent that we
can tap into their passion. The key is to start, not with an answer or with a program, but
with a question: “What is your dream or what keeps you up at night?”

Finally, in order to start where people are, you need to know their call. I learned
this lesson from John McKnight, Director of the Asset-Based Community Development
Institute. McKnight taught me that different kinds of people respond to different kinds of
calls, just like ducks. Too often, though, we only use the loon call and wonder why only
the loons show up.

Typically, the meeting call is the one that we use. For most people, this is the
worst possible call. They’re afraid to come to the first meeting because they know they
will be on the sign-in sheet and be sentenced to meetings for the remainder of their life.
Those who have come to meetings usually see few if any results. And, many people are
shy. They may attend meetings because it is the only option they are given, but they don’t
feel like they are making a contribution.

In fact, everyone will get involved if they hear their call. Most people respond to
the social call of community meals, parties and festivals. Shy people may respond to the
volunteer call as a tutor or mentor. And, everyone seems to love the project call. With
projects, unlike with meetings, people make a short term commitment and they see
results. There’s a role for everyone - young people, elders, people with disabilities,
architects, artists, construction workers, etc. The more varied the calls they utilize, the
more broad-based and inclusive the organization will be.

Once people are connected, then they are more likely to go to some meetings
because we need a few of those as well. But, we tend to lead with the meetings and
wonder why the same people keep turning out. We’re often trying to engage community
before we’ve built it.

Strive for Results

While it is important to start where the people are, it is crucial not to leave them
there. This is especially true of people who have felt powerless and are getting involved
for the first time. They need to see results if they are going to stay involved. So, you
probably don’t want to start by working on world peace or global warming. Alinsky
talked about the importance of focusing on issues that are immediate, concrete and realizable. Once people have a sense that they can make a difference, they will be more
ready to tackle the larger issues.

Utilize People’s Strengths

Activists tend to focus on the problems in their community. As a result, they look
outside the community for the solutions and overlook the abundant assets that exist in
every neighbourhood and in every individual. Everyone has gifts of the head
(knowledge), heart (passion), and hands (skills). Identifying ways in which people can
contribute those gifts to the community is a wonderful way to get them engaged. This is
especially true for people referred to as at-risk youth, old people, non-English speaking,
and homeless and disabled individuals. When we label people by their needs, they
become clients in a service system, and when we focus on their gifts they become citizens
of our community.

Celebrate Success and Recognize Caring Neighbours

Getting results is important, but much of the potential value is lost if you fail to
celebrate your success and thank those who made it possible. Neighbours need to know
that people like themselves were responsible. The sharing of such stories inspires people
about what is possible when they work together and build on their assets. Social media
presents us with a wonderful opportunity to tell the positive stories that are seldom found
in the mainstream press

Simon Nielsen 12/13/21 Simon Nielsen 12/13/21

Governing City Infrastructure: Who Drives The Urban Project Cycle: An analysis of Hamburg, Manchester and Pittsburgh

Across the world, cities are grappling with climate change and crafting solutions that aim to reduce carbon emissions and advance innovative, sustainable, and inclusive growth. Urban scholars, Bruce Katz, Luise Noring, and Savvas Verdis, have selected a small group of cities that they find to be first-movers in their regions for sustainable urban solutions.

Across the world, cities are grappling with climate change and crafting solutions that aim to reduce carbon emissions and advance innovative, sustainable, and inclusive growth. The primacy of cities requires us to understand how they are governed—not just in general but at the granular scale, where projects literally touch the ground. Urban scholars, Bruce Katz, Luise Noring, and Savvas Verdis, have selected a small group of cities that they find to be first-movers in their regions for sustainable urban solutions. The authors have decided to dig deep and ascertain the differences between city practices, given that cities operate under radically different regimes of government and governance.

By Luise Noring, assistant professor at Copenhagen Business School, Savvas Verdis, senior research fellow at London School of Economics, & Bruce Katz, Founding Director of the Nowak Metro Finance Lab at Drexel University

The 21st century will be a city-driven century.

Cities are on the rise at a scale and speed unprecedented in human history. They have become the undisputed engines of national economies and the centers of global trade and investment. They sit on the front lines of disruptive forces like population migration, demographic transformation, economic restructuring, income inequality, and climate change. And with many national and state governments mired in gridlock, cities are increasingly the vanguard of problem-solving and policy innovation.

Sustainable urbanization reflects one of the most critical areas for urban solutions today. While half of the world’s population now lives in cities, more than 70 percent of carbon emissions originate in cities. The unbalanced growth of megacities like Beijing, Lagos, and New Delhi is already precipitating severe levels of environmental degradation, air and water pollution, and deleterious health outcomes. This is why the 2015 Paris climate agreement and the UN’s recent Sustainable Development Goals recognized that cities will need to be a key part of the world’s response to climate change.

If cities are to grow in more sustainable ways, major interventions in the transport, buildings, and energy sectors will be necessary. Transport and buildings constitute the bulk of greenhouse gas emissions in cities, and cities consume over two-thirds of the world’s energy, primarily through non-renewable sources. The technologies for radically changing this reality—such as state-of-the-art mass transit, energy efficiency, and distributed renewable energy—already exist. The challenge lies in deploying these technologies at scale across cities with radically different regimes of government and governance.

This report represents an effort to show in granular terms how different cities are innovating in distinct ways around sustainable urbanization. Over the last decade, long-term sector-specific plans in energy, transportation, and urban development have become the standard
way through which many municipal governments try to influence sustainable development for the medium and long term. We believe practice must move beyond the realm of good planning and into accountability. Is a city delivering on its long-term targets and policies?
Is it forging new forms of governance that foster collaboration across the public, private, and civic sectors and at all levels of government—city, suburban, state, and federal? And is it doing so in a way that can be rapidly adapted by other cities and scaled by national governments and global markets? We hope this inquiry will both sharpen understanding
about the nexus between smart governance and sustainable urbanization at the project level and unveil a series of practical lessons and solutions that can be applied to cities in the United States, Europe, and ultimately beyond to cities in Africa, Asia, and Latin America where urban growth is primarily occurring. As the report shows, cities provide a natural experiment
since they undertake the same projects with radically different stakeholders and approaches. This enables us to assess benefits and drawbacks, identify best practices that might be ripe for adaptation and replication, and move closer to norms of behavior and financing that can be easily routinized.

The path to sustainable urbanization, in short, lies in granular application as much as grand policy.

Read the full report

Simon Nielsen 12/2/21 Simon Nielsen 12/2/21

Devolution To Cities: A Case Study Of KL (Local Government Denmark)

In this report, Luise Noring presents how Denmark devolved power to municipalities in a successful and replicable manner. Successful devolution in Denmark is largely due to the institutional innovation of KL - Local Government Denmark (KL - Kommunernes Landsforening). This report explores KL - Local Government Denmark’s strategies, while investigating how municipalities gain from increased devolution of political and fiscal power through organising for increased self-governance at local and national levels.

This report presents how Denmark devolved power to municipalities in a successful and replicable manner. Successful devolution in Denmark is largely due to the institutional innovation of KL - Local Government Denmark (KL - Kommunernes Landsforening). This report explores KL - Local Government Denmark’s strategies, while investigating how municipalities gain from increased devolution of political and fiscal power through organising for increased self-governance at local and national levels.

By Luise Noring, assistant professor at Copenhagen Business School

Many countries are debating the effectiveness of devolving governing responsibilities to cities. There is increasing recognition that many citizen-facing responsibilities, such as kindergartens, schools, elderly care, unemployment benefits, skills and job training, refugee shelter, and the integration of immigrants take place in cities under the management of municipalities. However, the fiscal capacity of cities to provide these services varies widely in different countries. For instance, continental European cities collect and allocate 50% of all taxes on average (Danmarks Statistik, 2012). In contrast, in the UK, despite the City Deals implemented since 2012 to increase the governing power of municipalities, UK cities only collect 5% of taxes (UK Parliament, 2018). UK Municipal expenditures extending beyond the revenue generated from their 5% tax share are financed through national government allocations that usually come with stipulations. Many cities struggle with a lack of the political and fiscal power necessary to provide the level of services they are obliged to deliver; there is often a schism between municipal obligations and the capacity of cities to fulfil them.

Read the full report

Simon Nielsen 12/2/21 Simon Nielsen 12/2/21

The European Model For Regenerating Cities: Lessons From Copenhagen, Hamburg, Helsinki, & Lyon

In this case study, Luise Noring and Bruce Katz compare and contrast the Copenhagen model with major regeneration efforts and institutional innovations that are underway in Hamburg (HafenCity), Helsinki (Kalasatama), and Lyon (Lyon Confluence). Each of these case studies shows how cities are leveraging public assets in different contexts, under different circumstances, and in different geographies. The proliferation of disparate approaches offers multiple options for mature and developing cities interested in undertaking transformative interventions.

By Luise Noring, assistant professor at Copenhagen Business School, & Bruce Katz, Founding Director of the Nowak Metro Finance Lab at Drexel University

Cities across the world face increasing demands at a time when public resources are under enormous pressure. With urban populations growing, public needs for infrastructure such as water, energy, public transit, affordable housing, and waste management are growing as well.
At the same time, many older cities have legacy infrastructure (e.g., roads, energy) and underutilized areas (e.g., former industrial and harbor districts) that need to be repurposed for a radically changed economy. With public finance budgets overstretched and increases in taxes often contentious, government at all levels is challenged to finance these efforts.

This paper explores a model of urban development that both revitalizes cities and finances large-scale infrastructure by increasing the commercial yield of publicly owned land and buildings, sometimes without raising public taxes. The paper draws heavily on a recent case study that we conducted of the Copenhagen City & Port Development Corporation (hereinafter CPH City & Port Development). The paper also builds on The Public Wealth of Cities (Brookings Institution Press, 2017), the recent book by Dag Detter and Stefan Fölster that describes the hidden potential of cities to capitalize on unknown or radically undervalued and underleveraged assets. CPH City & Port Development deploys an innovative institutional vehicle—a publicly owned, privately driven corporation (hereinafter public asset corporation, or PAC) —to achieve the professionalized management of assets more commonly found in the private sector while retaining a large portion of value appreciation for public use. Combining strategic zoning, land transfers, and revenue-
generating mechanisms, this public asset corporation has helped spur a remarkable transformation of the city over the past 25 years, from an ailing former manufacturing
city to the third-richest city in the world. It has made Copenhagen’s traditional harbor one of the most exciting waterfronts in the world and used the proceeds of land disposition and development to finance the construction of a metro transit system across the city.

This paper compares and contrasts the Copenhagen model with major regeneration efforts and institutional innovations that are underway in Hamburg (HafenCity), Helsinki (Kalasatama), and Lyon (Lyon Confluence). Each of these case studies shows how cities are leveraging public assets in different contexts, under different circumstances, and in different geographies. The proliferation of disparate approaches offers multiple options for mature and developing cities interested in undertaking transformative interventions.

Read the full report

Simon Nielsen 12/1/21 Simon Nielsen 12/1/21

No Pulse Without Yours

You may never reflect on the question of why your city centre is important, but there is reason to think about it. You are involved in influencing which city centre you want in the future, through your choices. What is it worth to you – for business, for the environment, for social sustainability, for the visitor, for the investor, and the tax revenues? How is your city centre controlled? Who decides whether it should be nice or ugly and boring?

By Björn Bergman, CEO Swedish Association of Towns and Cities & 43 City Partnership Organisations

43 Swedish cities' collaboration organizations have agreed in a necessary and important awareness campaign to point out the importance and value of our city centres. You may not always think about it, but the city centre is important and belongs to all of us, it becomes what we make it ourselves. It's our emotional attachment to the city and the window for the city's attractiveness. It creates belonging and togetherness. It attracts investment and talent, creates jobs, and lays the foundation for growth. Therefore, it also requires our attention, care, and our common focus.

No party alone can take responsibility for the attractiveness of the city centre as it is determined by diverse parts, such as commercial supply, environment, architecture, history, security, sanitation, accessibility, culture, entertainment, service, etc. We have a common interest in protecting the city centre because when it flourishes, it has many positive consequences that you don't always think about.

Sweden's city centres have a turnover of approximately SEK 220 billion, which means that consumption in the city centre contributes to more than SEK 30 billion in VAT revenue, which goes to health, education, and social care, among other things. Local jobs are created here, with an average of 12% of the employees in a municipality working in the city centre, which corresponds to around SEK 85 billion to the state and municipality in income taxes (source: WSP). Supporting your local business community thus contributes to growth, inspires entrepreneurship, and ultimately more tax money will be generated for welfare. Therefore, not only the business sector but also schools, health, social care, and infrastructure are benefited.

It is in the city centre that we find unique entrepreneurs, those who make their mark on the place and are an important contribution to the city's identity. Many shops, restaurants, and cafés are run by self-employed people who together contribute to the soul of the city through their special offerings. To consume locally is to act sustainably. When you buy locally produced goods, the overall transport decreases because the raw materials are nearby, or that you're already getting the right item in the right size and do not have to send returns.

The city centre is a result of all changes throughout history and will survive through adaptation. What it will look like and what function it will have in the future, we decide together by engaging in collaboration, harnessing our consumer power, and influencing politically. Your valuable city centre needs you – no pulse without yours!

Signed by the following organizations: Attraktiva Laholm, Attraktiva Oskarshamn, Bollnäs, Borås City, Cesam Örnsköldsvik, City Trollhättan, City Örebro, Destination Östersund, Engelholm, Eskilstuna city, Falköping Aktiv Handel, Företagarna i Piteå, Gävle Citysamverkan, Göteborg City Shopping, Handelsföreningen i Sölvesborg, Handelsplats Höganäs, Helsingborg city, HessleCity, Kalmar City Samverkan, Karlshamn Centrum, Karlskrona City, Kristianstad City, Kristinehamn, Linköping Citysamverkan, Lund City, Malmö Citysamverkan, Mölndals Innerstad, Nysam – Nyköping, Stadsliv Kiruna, Stadsutveckling i Sundsvall, Svensk Handel Luleå, Söderhamns Cityförening, Södertälje City, Tillsammans för Ronneby/Ronneby Handels- & Intresseförening, Tillväxt Motala, Unika Ludvika, Uppsala City, Visit Skellefteå, Visit Umeå, Vänneshandlarna, Västervik, Västerås Citysamverkan, Ystad i centrum, Åmål, Ängelholms Näringsliv.

Simon Nielsen 11/30/21 Simon Nielsen 11/30/21

Developing Urban Growth And Urban Quality: Entrepreneurial Governance And Urban Redevelopment projects In Copenhagen And Hamburg

By Luise Noring, assistant professor at Copenhagen Business School, Adam Grydehøj, and Jürgen Bruns-Berentelg

This paper considers the cases of urban redevelopment at waterfront and brownfield sites in Copenhagen (Denmark) and Hamburg (Germany) to explore how two municipal governments have pursued divergent kinds of entrepreneurial governance, even as they have aimed to create similar kinds of new-build neighbourhoods. Copenhagen and Hamburg have both engaged in large-scale speculative development projects, simultaneously raising urban land values and adding urban public good. The cities follow a long tradition of using land value capture to raise funds for municipal activities, yet their scopes of action and tools for achieving progress have been shaped by local economic and political conditions. Although both cities began redevelopment at similar kinds of sites in the 1990s, Copenhagen’s municipal government was relatively impoverished, while Hamburg’s municipal government was relatively wealthy. As a result, even though both cities deployed state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and revolving funds models to reinvest revenues in future development, they possessed different potential strategies for increasing intercity competitiveness: Copenhagen’s immediate aim in redeveloping its Ørestad and harbour districts was to fund a citywide mass transit system and thereby enhance competitiveness through infrastructure development, while Hamburg sought to use its HafenCity waterfront redevelopment to boost competitiveness through port modernisation, increased in urban quality and commercial expansion in the city centre. By comparing these two cases, we can better understand the contingent nature of entrepreneurial governance and urban redevelopment processes.

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Simon Nielsen 11/30/21 Simon Nielsen 11/30/21

Cincinatti’s Over-The-Rhine: A Private Led Model For Revitalizing Urban Neighborhoods

This case study focuses on the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC), a 16-year-old nonprofit corporation that has driven the regeneration of Over-the-Rhine, a formerly distressed community located near the traditional downtown. 3CDC powerfully blends corporate and philanthropic resources, strong professional management, and close cooperation with the public sector. It has a replicable governance structure and a strategic mix of public, private and civic ownership and responsibilities. It has already provided the model for the new Downtown Development Corporation in Erie, Pennsylvania and could be adapted to dozens of other cities.

By Luise Noring, assistant professor at Copenhagen Business School, Karen L. Black, & Bruce Katz, Founding Director of the Nowak Metro Finance Lab at Drexel University

Executive Summary:

In 2003, Cincinnati’s Mayor, Council and business leaders created a private, non-profit organization called the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC) to implement a revitalization plan for downtown and its adjacent Over-the-Rhine neighborhood. This paper explores how the Cincinnati model created a new type of institution that makes catalytic, non-conventional investments in real estate such as civic spaces, severely blighted properties, affordable and special needs housing, speculative condominium development, and retail and office developments. 3CDC and its corporate board used primarily private funding to improve civic spaces and to catalyze the transformation of vacant and underutilized properties into investable resources in order to reinvigorate Cincinnati’s dormant downtown and change the trajectory of a neighborhood plagued by blight and vacancy.

Who is 3CDC?

The Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC) is a non-profit, privately led full service real estate development and finance organization formed in 2003 by Cincinnati corporate and civic leaders to direct the redevelopment of Cincinnati’s Central Business District – beginning with the area around Fountain Square – and the adjacent neighborhood of Over-the-Rhine (OTR).

What impact has 3CDC had?

3CDC has created a profound physical transformation of a 110-square-block area of Cincinnati over the last 15 years. With an investment of $1.4 billion, 3CDC has restored 166 buildings and 14 acres of civic space. 3CDC leveraged significant capital funding from Cincinnati corporate partners with conventional loans and public funding to complete large-scale redevelopment projects.

According to 3CDC, the $1.4 Billion investment resulted in:

166 Buildings Restored
14 Acres of Civic Space
2 Civic Buildings Restored
1,300 Apartments
534 Condominiums
156 Hotel Rooms
320 Shelter Beds
1,063,961 Commercial SF:
4,680 Parking Spaces

Why was 3CDC formed?

3CDC was established when Cincinnati was at a low point, having experienced decades of population loss and a 2001 multi-day racially-charged riot following the shooting of an unarmed black teen by police. The Mayor at the time, Charlie Luken, and corporate leaders agreed that action needed to be taken to spur revitalization and stem the tide of disinvestment in the core of the City. Corporate leaders hired a consultant (HR&A Advisors) and Mayor Luken formed the Economic Advisory Task Force. The consultant and task force both recommended the creation of a non-profit to provide the acumen to creatively finance and redevelop civic space and vacant properties and to manage a long-term strategic infusion of capital into Over-the-Rhine.

Has the Cincinnati Model created long-term inclusive growth?

3CDC’s regeneration of OTR and the confidence it engendered in the city’s largest employers and key stakeholders put Cincinnati back on track at a critical juncture in the city’s history. That, by itself, is an act with deep inclusive consequences, given how much opportunities for disadvantaged urban residents depend upon a prosperous economy and committed and sustained public, private and civic leadership. The substantial reinvestment in OTR’s housing market has, however, triggered a shift in neighborhood demographics. While 3CDC did not directly displace residents, as it primarily redeveloped vacant buildings and allowed renters to remain in the small percentage of occupied buildings it acquired, market pressures have motivated 3CDC leadership to undertake expansive inclusive growth strategies. 66 percent of the rental units 3CDC builds are affordable to households earning below 80% of area median income and 3CDC has helped to fund five new state-of-the-art homeless shelters. Today, OTR remains a high-poverty neighborhood (the neighborhood poverty rate is 41 percent, compared to 27.7 percent in the city as a whole) but with the continued creation of a mix of affordable and market rate housing and aggressive implementation of policies to ensure local residents benefit from new amenities, jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities, the Cincinnati model may become a success story for creating a sustainable, racially diverse, mixed income neighborhood.

Why is the Cincinnati Model important to explore?

The Drexel University Nowak Finance Lab has partnered with Accelerator for America to better understand the types of innovation in leadership, financing and collaboration that can regenerate our disinvested urban downtowns and neighborhoods. At a time when cities across the country are looking to create inclusive growth, it is essential that medium and small sized cities can identify, combine and reinvest local capital to revitalize old housing stock, reinvigorate flagging public spaces and create new jobs and vibrancy. The Cincinnati model shares important lessons on the power, agility, and leadership an organization needs to truly change the trajectory of neighborhoods plagued by blight and vacancy.

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Simon Nielsen 11/29/21 Simon Nielsen 11/29/21

From Vision To Value: A Case Study Of How Seven Danish Cities Conduct Area Development to Propel Urban Revival

“As the global recession, climate change, the pandemic to name but a few globally transformative events blow through the world, deep rooted inadequacies and malfunctions of our societies are exacerbated. In fact, such global events reveal good as well as bad societies. These events are compelling cities to rethink how we design, finance and deliver urban redevelopment. The pre-pandemic model was neither inclusive nor sustainable. In Denmark, an alternative model has emerged that uses the disposition of public assets to drive the creation of public wealth.” Urban scholar, Luise Noring, examines new ways to drive urban revival.

By Luise Noring, assistant professor at Copenhagen Business School

This working paper presents how large-scale urban redevelopment across seven Danish cities and towns is delivered and financed using land value capture. In all the seven cases, partially or fully municipal development corporations play a critical role in leveraging publicly accumulated and owned land and buildings to spur local economic growth.

The present working paper considers development corporations or equivalent public, private and civic hybrid entities that were selected based on their geographical distribution, including in cities and densely urbanized areas (Housing and Project Development in Aarhus, Stigsborg Havnefront in Aalborg), small towns (Nærheden in Høje-Taastrup, Køge Kyst in Køge, Holstebro Udvikling in Holstebro, Kanalbyen in Fredericia), and a rural area (Ringkøbing-Skjern).

The cities presented are driving transformational visions and associated initiatives and investments that remake their physical, economic and social landscape. These visions are driven by forward thinking city governments that use their partial or full ownership of the development corporations as institutional vehicles. The development corporations are able to catalyze long-term financing that aligns with the breadth and depth of the city vision. In some of the cases, the long-term horizon is backed by philanthropic patient capital that enables the cities to leverage land value capture for continuous reinvestment and revitalization. Such a tried and tested method evidenced by the case studies presented here renders an opportunity for cities across the world to embark upon similar trajectories.

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Simon Nielsen 11/26/21 Simon Nielsen 11/26/21

Public Asset Corporation: A New Vehicle For Urban Regeneration And Infrastructure Finance

Urban scholar, Luise Noring, assesses the effectiveness of different models of public/private sector participation for urban regeneration and land value capture, where the public land owner is required to act in the public interest and the private sector motive is driven by the need to maximize returns. The PAC model for urban development and infrastructure finance is a hybrid model combining public ownership with private management. The empirical analysis presents Copenhagen City & Port Development Corporation that has both financed extensive urban regeneration and the citywide metro system by leveraging the public assets, it manages.

By Luise Noring, assistant professor at Copenhagen Business School

Cities across the world are facing increasing demands for public infrastructure and other public goods at a time when public resources are under enormous pressure. With new cities emerging and urban populations growing, demands for public infrastructure (e.g., water, energy, public transit) are also increasing (The Guardian, 2016; The Guardian, 2018). At the same time, many older cities are challenged by legacy infrastructure, but also have former industrial and port areas ripe for redevelopment. With public budgets overstretched and tax increases often contentious, governments face difficulties financing the investments required for urban growth and development (Ingram & Hong, 2012).

Against this backdrop, the article presents public asset corporation (PAC) as a model for conducting large-scale urban regeneration and financing city-wide infrastructure investments without using scarce tax revenues. The existing academic literature distinguishes between public and private, emphasizing how public ownership and management affect operational inefficiencies and how privately held development corporations reap profit from the creation of a public good. The PAC model developed through the case study of Copenhagen City & Port Development Corporation (City & Port) provides a solution to the distinct pitfalls of public or private ownership. This article argues that the PAC model provides an alternative way forward that is politically sheltered, publicly accountable, cost efficient, revenue maximizing (for the public), and maintains a long-term outlook to see projects through to completion.

The article presents an introduction to the topic and the case study that lays the ground for the model of public asset corporation. The literature review provides a discussion on public versus private ownership and presents different finance mechanisms including: taxes, land value capture, tax increment financing and public-private partnerships. These are alternative ways to finance and deliver large-scale urban regeneration, infrastructure, and other public projects. The empirical analysis of City & Port that follows focuses on the aspects of public and private ownership, and the management and finance mechanisms presented in the literature review. The contours of the PAC model through its evolution at City & Port, particularly how it addresses ownership, management, and finance, illustrate this case study. The subsequent analysis demonstrates how the PAC has been adapted to other European and US cities using the examples of Hamburg and Philadelphia. Finally, the article concludes by summarizing the distinctive elements of the PAC and revisiting the existing literature presented earlier in the article.

Read the full report here.

Simon Nielsen 11/26/21 Simon Nielsen 11/26/21

The Copenhagen City And Port Development Corporation: A Model For Regenerating Cities

“This paper explores how the Copenhagen model can revitalize cities and finance large-scale infrastructure by increasing the commercial yield of publicly owned land and buildings without raising taxes. The approach deploys an innovative institutional vehicle—a publicly owned, privately run corporation—to achieve the high-level management and value appreciation of assets more commonly found in the private sector while retaining development profits for public use.” Urban scholars, Luise Noring and Bruce Katz, discuss the Copenhagen model as a tool for urban revitalization.

By Luise Noring, assistant professor at Copenhagen Business School, and Bruce Katz, Founding Director of the Nowak Metro Finance Lab at Drexel University

Cities across the world face increasing demands at a time when public resources are under enormous pressure. Many older cities, in particular, are plagued by outdated transportation and energy infrastructure and underutilized industrial and waterfront areas, all of which need to be upgraded for a radically changed economy. This has sent many U.S.—and global—cities scrambling to find new vehicles for infrastructure finance given the unpopularity of increasing taxes and the unpredictability of national and state governments.

To revive their flagging city in the late 1980s, a coalition of national and local officials laid the groundwork for the Copenhagen (CPH) City & Port Development Corporation. Its success
provides a 21st-century model for global urban renewal.

This paper explores how the Copenhagen model can revitalize cities and finance large-scale
infrastructure by increasing the commercial yield of publicly owned land and buildings
without raising taxes. The approach deploys an innovative institutional vehicle—a publicly
owned, privately run corporation—to achieve the high-level management and value appreciation of assets more commonly found in the private sector while retaining development profits for public use. The model reflects what Dag Detter and Stefan Fölster describe in “The Public Wealth of Cities” (Brookings Institution Press, 2017) as capitalizing on unknown or radically undervalued and underleveraged assets.

Combining strategic zoning, land transfers, and revenue-generating mechanisms, this model
has helped spur a remarkable transformation of Copenhagen over the past 25 years from an
ailing manufacturing city to one of the wealthiest cities in the world. It has made Copenhagen’s industrial harbor a vibrant, multipurpose waterfront while channeling the proceeds of land disposition, revaluation, and development to finance the construction of an expanded metro transit system.

The Copenhagen public/private corporate model combines the efficiency of market discipline and mechanisms with the benefits of public direction and legitimacy. The model enables large-scale regeneration to be conducted in a more efficient and streamlined manner than can be done by public authorities alone.

In this first in-depth case study of CPH City & Port Development, the corporation’s evolution
and accomplishments are examined in their historic, political, and economic contexts. The
corporation’s recent North Harbor redevelopment project is used to illustrate how it conducts business in close collaboration with local government, real estate developers, pension funds, and other urban stakeholders. Finally, the case study captures and codifies the political, institutional, and financial features that have enabled CPH City & Port Development to be successful and globally instructive.

Read the full report here

Simon Nielsen 11/1/21 Simon Nielsen 11/1/21

Cities And The Glasgow Climate Summit: Lessons From Copenhagen

“We believe the real secret to Copenhagen’s success is process innovation; it’s ability to create a series of public and public/private institutions with the capacity and capital to drive solutions at scale.” Esteemed urban scholars, Luise Noring and Bruce J. Katz, explain the key to Copenhagen’s strenghts in green innovation and highlight seven critical governance and finance lessons for local, national and global policymakers.

“We believe the real secret to Copenhagen’s success is process innovation; it’s ability to create a series of public and public/private institutions with the capacity and capital to drive solutions at scale.” Esteemed urban scholars, Luise Noring and Bruce J. Katz, explain the key to Copenhagen’s strenghts in green innovation and highlight seven critical governance and finance lessons for local, national and global policymakers.

By Luise Noring, assistant professor at Copenhagen Business School, and Bruce Katz, Founding Director of the Nowak Metro Finance Lab at Drexel University

In several weeks, the global community will gather in Glasgow for COP 26, the 26th United Nations Climate Change conference. There is no doubt that the “Conference of the Parties” will discuss in detail the role of cities in driving down carbon emissions as well as adapting to the disruptive effects of climate change. We urge the Summit to go one step further and make urban governance a critical element of transformational change.

A strong focus on cities and urban governance is critical for multiple reasons. Most cities around the world actually exacerbate carbon emissions due to the dirty sources of their energy, the excessive level of dependence on automobiles for intra-city mobility and the low energy efficiency of their buildings. They also, increasingly, bear the brunt of climate change, due to the consequences that extreme weather has for urban populations (e.g., flooding, droughts, and heat waves hit vulnerable populations and disadvantaged neighborhoods the hardest) and urban infrastructure (e.g., the flooding of public transit systems, the collapse of highways, roads and other infrastructures, the contamination of scarce drinking water and the surface overflow of sewer systems).

At the same time, many cities are on the vanguard of problem solving, having executed commitments to reduce carbon emissions radically over the next several decades. Yet moving from paper commitments to real action and delivery will not just happen. Governance matters. Cities desperately need strong institutions that have the capital, capacity and community standing to deliver climate solutions and leverage the full public powers and private and civic resources that cities possess. Such institutions enable cities to use expert knowledge and sophisticated mechanisms to translate policy into action, drive creative financing and enable effective implementation.

To that end, we recommend that cities across the world move quickly to adopt lessons from Copenhagen[i]. The choice of Copenhagen is not surprising; the city has emerged as the world’s poster child for climate solutions. In 2012, the city released the 2025 Climate Plan proposing that Copenhagen become the first carbon neutral capital city in the world. Copenhagen’s plan is an intricate mix of concrete goals and initiatives that aim to drive change through four areas: energy consumption, energy production, green mobility, and city administration.

Copenhagen’s success is not accidental. We have written before about how Copenhagen and the national government have pursued a series of policy, product and process innovations. On one level, the city (in close concert with the national government) is pursuing policy innovations around governmental investments, regulations and commitments. For example, the city has established the following energy production targets for 2025:

District heating in Copenhagen is carbon neutral;
Electricity production is based on wind and sustainable biomass and exceeds total electricity consumption in the city;
Plastic waste from households and businesses is separated; and
The bio-gasification of organic waste is scaled.

On another level, Copenhagen is either inventing or deploying product innovations that enable the deployment of concrete design, technological as well as financial advances. Using architectural and land use norms to build sheltered and secure bike lanes or technology to monitor the energy use of buildings or accelerate traffic flow and reduce congestion are all examples of product solutions. At the same time, financing these and other actions are advanced by financial products (e.g., green bonds) and financial mechanisms (e.g., value capture) that can be standardized.

A Continuum of Good Governance
We believe the real secret to Copenhagen’s success is process innovation; it’s ability to create a series of public and public/private institutions with the capacity and capital to drive solutions at scale. We believe four institutional models help explain the Copenhagen model.

First, Copenhagen has a strong local government. Denmark has a highly decentralized governmental system, enabling municipalities to operate as strong partners with the national government. The Northern Europeans, in general, are devolutionists, using the nation state to provide a platform for market expansion, environmental sustainability and social cohesion but allowing municipalities enormous latitude to innovate and align national direction to local realities. According to a 2009 OECD review, local governments in Denmark account for over 60 percent of government spending, the highest level among OECD peers. Copenhagen’s ambition to be the first major global city to generate zero carbon emissions is thus enabled by a strong fiscal foundation.

The power of Copenhagen’s government (and Danish municipal governments in general) helps attract a talented work force. As we wrote in 2016, “[T]he public sector is robust in terms of its knowledge and decision-making capacity, and it is fed by a steady supply of highly educated public servants across technical, environmental, social, and business fields. A tuition-free public education system bolsters this supply.”

Second, the Copenhagen municipal government operates within a system that aggregates political power across municipal jurisdictions and gives local officials the ability to shape national policy in ways that reflect municipal realities. Local Government Demark (“KL”) sits at the core of that system.

KL is a cooperative that is owned and governed by all Danish municipalities. The municipalities pay a fee for their membership. It is through the universal membership and representation of all Danish municipalities emblematic of an “all for one and one of all” approach that KL is able to leverage political and fiscal power vis-à-vis national government, trade unions, and other key societal stakeholders. By spanning across party-politics, KL can focus on the actual substance of decision making rather than the partisan color of politics. In short, KL is able to keep its eyes on the ball. Its political mandate stems from all different political parties represented across all city governments.

KL plays an instrumental role in enabling and informing the climate plans of Danish cities. The organization has published concrete plans and roadmaps for areas of domestic policy that affect climate change, including public transit, road traffic, energy and water. It provides guidance on how to finance and deliver distinct climate plans set by the national government and recommends changes in national law, where necessary. KL is effective because it applies the perspective of how to implement and finance climate plans within and across cities, recognizing that climate and its impacts are not confined within neatly set municipal boundaries.

This story of municipal collaboration plays out at the metropolitan scale. The cleansing of the Copenhagen harbor, which has largely resulted from major investments in a new sewer system, has been an important driver of the urban revitalization of Copenhagen. The city and seven surrounding municipalities co-created the Greater Copenhagen Utility (HOFOR) in 2012, which is responsible for building, maintaining and operating the wastewater system, district heating and cooling, and gas supply for the city and metro region. Just over a decade ago, it would have been inconceivable to swim in the Copenhagen harbor, as the water was highly polluted. Today, swimming in Copenhagen’s harbor has become a symbol of Copenhagen’s green agenda and the high quality of life for city residents.

Third, Copenhagen and the national government have created public-private institutions that can both create value through smart and sustainable revitalization and then capture value for large-scale public benefit and impact. The most relevant for this discussion is City & Port, a public asset corporation that has been delegated the power to dispose of publicly owned lands and buildings in ways that spur large-scale urban transformation, particularly around Copenhagen’s historic harbors and downtown, and use the revenue from such regeneration to fund infrastructure, affordable housing and other societal benefits. The most recent development of City & Port is an ambitious rising sea level protection of Copenhagen City, which doubles as an island peninsular. The land sales of the island finance the entire sea level protection. Other recent developments count an underwater tunnel for diversion of transitory traffic of Copenhagen.

City & Port is a hybrid organization, publicly owned and privately managed. City & Port uses land value capture to leverage the value of public assets through re-zoning and infrastructure investments. City & Port operates under a national statutory mandate to maximize revenue to fund large-scale urban regeneration along the harbors and Ørestad district and use the resulting value generated to finance city-wide infrastructure, most notably the city’s new subway system. This mandate shelters City & Port from political interference by obliging City & Port to always choose the investment proposition that yields the most revenue. The revenue yield is used to service the debt on a new city-wide metro system. In this way, City & Port has a holistic approach to regenerating the entire city that came about at a crucial moment in the city’s history. (Read more here).

Finally, Copenhagen’s climate plan has benefitted from the active participation and investment of public pension funds. Danish pension funds are large, privately owned and managed; they make up some of the largest pension funds in the EU with the top two Danish pension funds counting among the twenty largest in Europe. For the most part, Danish pension funds operate as cooperatives that represent their members, the pensioners. They operate in a highly uniformly regulated market. Payment contributions are sheltered from politicians and public spending, which has enabled a fiscally solid and stable pension system to evolve. With a strong funding base, Danish pension funds are able to take the long view. They aim at a 3-4% return on investment on 80% of their invested assets and 5-6% on the remaining 20%. The large size of Danish pension funds makes them powerful players in the global market, leading the green climate transition both within Denmark and abroad.

Lessons from Copenhagen

The Copenhagen story yields seven critical governance and finance lessons for local, national and global policymakers.

City governance must focus on how to implement policies rather than what policies to implement

City leaders tend to focus on the “what” instead of the “how”. It simply has more political appeal to explain what will be done rather than how it will be done. We believe that making the right decision (i.e., the “what”) only gets you half way to success. The other half depends on how you execute and deliver (i.e., the “how”). City leaders routinely announce policy agendas but often overlook the critical importance of the institutions and stakeholders driving the climate transition.

City governance must make room for the growth of new large-scale Institutions

Setting a policy agenda that shifts from a solely economic to a climate economic focus requires cities to undergo an institutional overhaul. Yet, city leaders often resist change since they are woven into the complex fabric of stakeholders, agencies, authorities and checks and balances. But change of the magnitude we are faced with requires an altered mindset, and new or consolidated institutions (e.g., City & Port) that have expanded powers, capacity and capital. In most cities, we actually need fewer rather than more institutions.

City governance must create institutions with holistic focus

The institutions presented above were not born out of a narrow climate change perspective, as they fulfill multiple purposes. In fact, the power and impact of these institutions stem from their broad economic, societal and environmental objectives. If these institutions only fulfilled, for example, narrow environmental purposes, we doubt that they would be as successful as they are, because economic, societal and environmental outcomes are inextricably linked and should not be viewed in isolation.

City governance must have access to financial sophistication

The design and financing of climate solutions is complex, comprised of multiple investment sectors as diverse as renewable energies (e.g., on-and off-shore wind, solar farms), the transportation and building sectors (e.g., energy efficiency, transit-oriented development), water and waste management and resilient development. Each of these investment sectors advance the common goals of mitigating (or adapting to) the impact of climate change. Yet each differs in how it is governed, regulated, owned and operated. And, with regard to finance, each has a different mix of the source of capital (e.g., public, private and civic), the nature of the capital stack (debt, equity, subsidy, and concessionary) and the interplay of project risk, revenue and return expectations.

City governance should balance power across the public and private sectors

The global economy is dominated by large and powerful corporations and financial institutions. The creation of city institutions with power (e.g., municipal intermediaries, pension funds) enables cities to help set the investment agenda and shape our societies. We need to bolster the capacity, resources and demand of large societal institutional actors. Cooperatives offer a way for states, regions, counties, municipalities and pensioners to scale up their size to match that of large financial institutions. In fact, cooperatives erase the power imbalance between small localized askers and big globalized givers. Through universal membership, these institutions become powerful societal heavyweights that national governments and multi-national corporations must reckon with.

City governance links different levels of government and sectors of society

When there is no stable and solid institution acting as the connective tissue between national government and municipalities and large institutional investors, such as pension funds and insurance companies, there is a disconnect between what goes on in national government and what is in fact implemented on the ground. Politicians are left free to set unfunded climate goals without anyone holding them accountable. Cooperative institutions fill the gap between fake politics and real policy execution on the ground. The Danish pension funds, in particular, are so large that few governments will ignore them. Cooperatives also provide solid and substantial affordable and social housing for almost 20% of Danes, while one of the nine largest dairy companies in the world is a cooperative owned by local farmers. Both in Denmark and Sweden, the municipal loan finance institutions are cooperatives owned by the municipalities themselves. These are societal supertankers that shape and define Northern European societies.

City governance links and leverages different institutional actions within cities

The institutional models described in this chapter have intricate relationships with each other. City & Port, for example, has attracted major pension fund investment for its regeneration activities. Two pension funds, Nordea Liv & Pension and PenSam, have invested almost $430 million USD (2.7 billion DKR) in the South Harbor of Copenhagen, where they are financing 1,350 new affordable and social rental apartments. Such developments enable City & Port to comply with the mandate to build 30% affordable and social housing in the areas of the former harbor. Both developments also advance sustainable objectives, since each have novel rainwater collection to avoid flooding, natural vegetation to expand biodiversity, and are largely car-free to encourage street-level community activities and advance human health.

What’s Next

The Copenhagen example shows the continuum of good governance that make transformational solutions and creative financing possible. Copenhagen’s municipal government is strong, with skilled individuals able to design and deliver ambitious plans. The city benefits by being part of Local Government Denmark, which enables all cities to aggregate their political power and negotiate with national government on an equal footing. The city also is part owner (with the national government) of City & Port, a publicly owned and privately managed corporation that has been able to drive over 50% of the development of the core of the city for the past decade and use the revenues generated by land sales and leases to finance the construction of a 21st century subway system for the entire city. Finally, the city benefits from strong public and private pension funds that have the wherewithal to co-invest in projects that promote sustainability while providing adequate financial returns.

The adaptation of these models to cities and countries across the world is a necessary part of climate action. Our next essay will describe what this might mean for US cities, given the potential for large scale federal investments in climate solutions over the next decade. To repeat, governance matters!

[i] A longer version of this essay appears in The Climate City, a soon to be released book edited by Martin Powell and published by Wiley-Blackwell.

Simon Nielsen 9/9/21 Simon Nielsen 9/9/21

From XS to XXL: Nice To Meet You Again In Bruges

In Bruges, Belgium, investments in the physical development of the city are followed by investments in social infrastructure and new partnerships. Ilse Snick tells the story as it happens.

In Bruges, Belgium, investments in the physical development of the city are followed by investments in social infrastructure and new partnerships. Ilse Snick tells the story as it happens.

By Ilse Snick, Centrummanagement Brugge

*Bruges. Photo: Olivier Depaep/Unsplash*

Every year many thousands of people find their way to Bruges, the historic city in Belgium known for its beautiful buildings, culture, gastronomy and the swans in the Lake of Love. In 2019, the UNESCO world heritage city welcomed almost 8 million visitors, every visitor bringing a unique encounter with this very special city. Unfortunately COVID 19 put an abrupt end to this. But today Bruges is more than ever ready to meet (you) again!

Bruges is praised as one of the most beautiful tourist destinations in Europe and even in the world. The city is a unique mixture of everything a visitor is looking for: every building in the old town is instagrammable, there is unique art, famous museums, … Bruges breathes culture and the gastronomy is top notch! A meeting in Bruges is always unforgettable.

In 2022, the city will take the concept of meeting to a higher level. In addition to the tourist visits, Bruges is also boasting a new state of the art meeting and convention centre.

*BMCC. Copyright: Meta Architectuurbureau*

The Bruges Meeting & Convention Centre (BMCC) opens in January 2022. It will be the ideal venue for events, conferences and trade fairs. Its outstanding location, a stone’s throw from Concertgebouw Brugge (another great meeting venue) within walking distance of hotels and attractions, meets all the needs of a modern event and conference location. The ground floor(4,500m²) is the ideal space for trade fairs. The upper floors are designed for meetings and conferences. The building provides all that is needed to meet: a plenary room, a foyer, poster areas, 12 breakout rooms and a catering area with a view of Bruges city centre.

Meeting in the heart of historic Bruges is a unique experience. When you step outside the BMCC you can immediately discover what this beautiful UNESCO World Heritage City has to offer.

A board meeting with 10 colleagues, a conference with 500 participants or an event for 2,500 visitors… everything is possible in this new landmark in Bruges.

*BMCC. Copyright: Meta Achitectuurbureau*

This new venue will certainly create new opportunities and bring an extra dimension to meeting in Bruges. The project also offers new opportunities for trade and catering in the city. That is why, linked to the BMCC, Bruges city centre management is also launching a microproject in order to enhance the return of this new venue. To prepare the entrepreneurs and to offer them every opportunity that comes with the opening of the BMCC, there is Smedenstraat 37: a meeting place for traders with the city services and citycentre management.

The citycentre manager, her marketing team and the business & hospitality coach of the city will have their offices in the shopping street at the foot of the BMCC for the next two years. Small shopkeepers and entrepreneurs can pop in with all their questions and problems. The Smedenstraat 37 project is barrier-reducing and unique in all respects. It brings the city to the entrepreneurs and bets on the future. Small shopkeepers are being prepared for the dynamics that the new Bruges Meeting & Convention Center will bring. They can participate in an intensive coaching program to reorient their business. We want to put this neighbourhood in the spotlight with marketing and social media campaigns. Our shop window can be used by retailers or artists to showcase their products. But above all, it is a project where we want to facilitate meetings: between the city and the entrepreneurs, between the entrepreneurs themselves and between entrepreneurs and visitors. Because meeting is life, and life is meeting!

The Old Way

The Idea Friendly Way

City governance must focus on how to implement policies rather than what policies to implement

City governance must make room for the growth of new large-scale Institutions

City governance must create institutions with holistic focus

City governance must have access to financial sophistication

City governance should balance power across the public and private sectors

City governance links different levels of government and sectors of society

City governance links and leverages different institutional actions within cities

The Empty Square