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| UN sustainability goals, copied by many cities, all the way down to the graphics |
For the most part the debates and buzzwords fall into three buckets: Environmental ("sustainability, resilience"), technological ("smart") and social ('equity"). However, a look at the definition of sustainability shows that real sustainability all along included the three legs of environmental, economic and social concerns. The term sustainability is, therefore probably more encompassing than all the others which have crowded it out. Baltimore has done pretty well in addressing sustainability in an office that was created inside the Planning Department and which has produced an astounding array of plans, reports and initiatives.
No city can be truly resilient without being sustainable on all three sustainability legs, neither can it be truly smart without those three legs. Which leaves the term innovative. Indeed, lately "creative" and "innovative" have become suspicious when seen under the lens of equity. The father of the term "creative class", Richard Florida, who could never get enough of "innovation" has recently called off his innovation troops and has begun to bemoan how everything has gone so terribly wrong. Now he says that the creative class and rampant technological change have increased inequality and inequity. Never shy when it comes to coining terms, Florida called the unwanted side effects of innovation a "winner takes all" game in which a few clean up and the masses are left behind.
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| Sustainability issue: Equity and poverty |
I suppose we in Baltimore would agree. Baltimore's Office of Sustainability is in the process of updating its original Sustainability Plan of 2005 and has already expanded its goals to include equity. From the initial hop on the bandwagon of sustainability the office has greatly expanded and prepared not only the original Sustainability Plan but also a Climate Action Plan, a Disaster Preparedness Plan and a Homegrown Baltimore Plan which deals with food.
Based on citizen suggestions the new Sustainability plan includes eight core themes, Cleanliness, Pollution Prevention, Resource Conservation, Greening, Transportation, Environmental Education and Awareness, Green Economy. If this isn't enough, there will be 29 priority goals under these themes and somewhere is also the Baltimore Green Network Plan which has the full attention of the Planning Director.
Like any city in America that wants to be something Baltimore also has an Innovation District. But Baltimore's district which is dubbed "West Baltimore Innovation Village" is special: It has the "equity lens" baked into its creation. College Park with a more typical innovation district recently decided to ditch the ubiquitous "innovation" moniker and to rename it "Discovery District" instead. Of course, with the University of Maryland as the engine, the Discovery District there already has some real anchors whereas the West Baltimore Innovation Village is still more an aspiration than a physical presence. The Mayor is also intent to remain innovative and recently hired an Innovation Director. She also works with Bloomberg Philanthropies who began work here last year advising an innovation team. Their first task: tackling recruitment and retention of police officers.
This assignment leads right in the middle of the latest mess in which Baltimore finds itself, the stories emerging from the court house where indicted corrupt police officers are on trial and unpacking years of dirty laundry which exceeds the wildest imagination. While the innovation team expedited the recruitment of new hires, it couldn't do much about the fact that highly qualified applicants are hard to come by and that several of the recruits initially couldn't pass a simple test.
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| Money assigned to Sacramento innovation grants under their Creative Economy program |
How hard it is to make sense of the rapid succession of hot topics cities have to address becomes clear when one looks at the term "narrative". Whatever the popular goal, Baltimore has addressed it in some way. I listened to a podcast of Meeting of the Minds which touted "Sacramento's Urban Innovation Agenda".
Every last item the Sacramento innovation officer mentioned had a corresponding activity in Baltimore. Workforce development?- check, grant programs for incubators? - check, maker spaces? - check, hubs in art and culture? - check. Demonstration Partnerships? - check. The only area where Baltimore couldn't match Sacramento was an autonomous vehicle initiative.
But the problem with the darn term "narrative" remains. The Mayor says Baltimore needs a new narrative. It is true, whatever Baltimore "narrative" is currently gelling in people's mind nationwide, it isn't the narrative a Mayor would like to see or create. It has been forever "the Wire" which we couldn't shake, now it is worse, because the new narrative is dealing with the reality of police and crime.
Even Detroit is faring better. Somehow that city, which is far worse off when it comes to economic indicators or abandonment, has managed to associate itself with the term come-back city. Somehow, the mayor, the planning director, Quicken tycoon Gilbert and the local academics managed to to spin a story where it shines as a place which is slowly getting a handle on its decline.
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| Branding Baltimore |
With all our promising initiatives from workforce development and sustainability to innovation and "made in Baltimore", don't we deserve to be in that space? Reality is a hard nut to crack and even harder to spin. If only we didn't have all those killings, if only our police could be trusted! If only our poverty wasn't so pervasive. Still, we could probably also do better with aligning all the good initiatives to put forth a clear strategy for the future.
Its time we take a hard look at all those buzzwords and put one of them front and center: Equity. There is no being smart or sustainable without it. The Mayor of Detroit says "Every neighborhood will have a future". Given the size of Detroit, that is hard to believe. But in Baltimore, the slogan is much more realistic. Why not just adopt it?
Of course, a slogan is just smoke and mirrors, as long as there is no action behind it. We don't need so much a new slogan as a different reality. But to get there we need a simple and convincing strategy. Every neighborhood has a future is a worthy goal that encompasses resilience, sustainability and equity. What is the innovative economic development strategy that would make it happen? This isn't just a question to ask the mayor, its a question we all have to ask ourselves as well.
Klaus Philipsen, FAIA
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