October 23, 2006
By Neil Fraser
ONE of the panel discussions I took part in at the recent Annual Conference of the International Downtown Association (IDA) in Portland, Oregon, in the United States, related to the development of an IDA Charter.
My fellow panelists were Giovanna Codato from Turin, Italy; Simon Quin from London, England; Jim Yanchula from Ontario, Canada; and Richard Bradley from Washington DC, United States. The charter will be developed over the next year and presented at the 2007 conference in New York City. It will be a statement of the IDA's core beliefs with regard to downtowns, or city centres.
So, what is a charter? A good example is that of the Congress for New Urbanism which, clearly, contains many lessons for us in Joeys and all South African towns and cities:
"The Congress for the New Urbanism views disinvestment in central cities, the spread of placeless sprawl, increasing separation by race and income, environmental deterioration, loss of agricultural lands and wilderness, and the erosion of society's built heritage as one interrelated community-building challenge.
"We stand for the restoration of existing urban centres and towns within coherent metropolitan regions, the reconfiguration of sprawling suburbs into communities of real neighbourhoods and diverse districts, the conservation of natural environments, and the preservation of our built legacy.
"We recognise that physical solutions by themselves will not solve social and economic problems, but neither can economic vitality, community stability and environmental health be sustained without a coherent and supportive physical framework.
"We advocate the restructuring of public policy and development practices to support the following principles: neighbourhoods should be diverse in use and population; communities should be designed for the pedestrian and transit as well as the car; cities and towns should be shaped by physically defined and universally accessible public spaces and community institutions; urban places should be framed by architecture and landscape design that celebrate local history, climate, ecology, and building practice.
"We represent a broad-based citizenry, composed of public and private sector leaders, community activists, and multidisciplinary professionals. We are committed to re-establishing the relationship between the art of building and the making of community, through citizen-based participatory planning and design.
"We dedicate ourselves to reclaiming our homes, blocks, streets, parks, neighbourhoods, districts, towns, cities, regions, and environment."
Public policy
This charter is followed by setting out various principles to guide public policy, development practice, urban planning and design for:
- The region, metropolis, city and town;
- The neighbourhood, the district and the corridor; and
- The block, the street and the building
I'm not sure if many cities have such charters, but the development of a Joburg Inner City Charter such as that for the Congress of New Urbanism, strikes me as a great way to get the wider urban community and city government to get on the same page in regard to where we are going and how to get there. The old adage, "If you don't know where you are going, any road will do," seems to be becoming particularly apt for us at the moment.
But back to the IDA; in thinking about the development of the association's charter, our very international panel was challenged to enunciate the current values on which we seek to steer our cities. It reminded me that when we did the inner city visioning process way back in 1996, one of the outcomes that brought positive cohesion between the participating sectors (council, province, business and community) was that we found, early in the process, that we all shared common values.
Ten years ago they included "clean, safe and friendly" and "live, work and play" but, as Bradley pointed out, "While they are still good core values, they may be substantially lacking as central values which help to establish the kinds of emotional connections to the kind of experiences which today's customers and citizens are seeking. The time may be appropriate to renew the vocabulary, extend the practice and refresh the brand."
In regard to "renewing the vocabulary", what emerged from our panel discussion were words such as inclusivity, distinctiveness, democratisation, publicness, sustainability, diversity, authenticity, stewardship, governance, creativity, innovation, "best-in-class", connectivity – words that clearly aren't new but are now constantly cropping up in global city-speak. I also loved the comment made by one of the panelists, "Cities need to create the conditions for alchemy."
While such a vocabulary clearly is international in scope, many of the words are not just applicable to South African towns and cities, but are critical for their future. We just aren't doing well when it comes to the democratisation of public space, inclusivity, social cohesion, and so on. In some work we are doing currently at Urban Inc, a mayor of one of the country's smaller cities said that the biggest problem was still in the mindset of the people.
If we are going to change mindsets, we need to develop a compact or charter for the future of the city when these issues can be openly and honestly discussed and ways to resolve our issues jointly developed.
Refreshing the brand
Back to the conference again; at a later roundtable discussion, Bradley picked up the issue of "refreshing the brand". Here the word "authenticity" led to reviewing city branding not by way of attaching the traditional "tag-line" (Johannesburg, a world-class African city), but rather by treating place branding as a "promise of an experience"; in other words, "What this place can do for you?" In order to do this, the place brand:
- Needs to satisfy the real drivers of choice – rational and emotional needs;
- Express something that gives people comfort – what's in it for me; and
- Be backed by compelling reasons to believe.
But to be credible, the experience has to be a good fit with what we stand for and a way of focusing "our story" about who we are, where we're going and why it matters, and must connect the vision and values to what we do and how we do it. Clearly we have work to do in this regard as well.
One final issue that grabbed me anew related to benchmarking and the way we measure city performance, but that can keep till next week.
Ciao, Neil
PS: I referred to next year's IDA Conference in New York City – it actually will be in the form of a World Congress of Downtowns and Town Centres and will provide an opportunity to share and debate with experienced urban practitioners from around the world the real issues we all face and will include presentations by some of the outstanding international urbanists of our time.
If you are a "city nut" this is not to be missed so start saving your pennies now and book the dates in your diary – 15 to 18 September 2007 – plus a few days either side to savour the best of the Big Apple. In addition, I'm planning to organise a visit to a number of US cities relatively close to NYC where we will be able to experience and interact with the best practices in city management and take advantage of group travel. Details will follow.
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