Cities are increasingly gaining recognition as sites of innovation and global leadership. Part of this increase in notoriety and importance stems from the fact that more people live in cities than at any other time in the past. Global economic restructuring since the 1970s, the spread of manufacturing, new technology jobs, and socio-cultural changes throughout all parts of the world, have been driving more and more people to cities—and changing how we do things as a result.
Cities have grown and responded to these changes, but now face even greater challenges, as climate change increases in intensity and cost, demographic transitions become even more stark, and higher orders of government ask – or tell – cities to become even more involved as service providers. This has meant a greater role for cities in policy making at all levels, but also an equally imperilled need to innovate processes. One of the areas where cities are making some of the most progress on this front is in their pursuit of new kinds of partnerships.
Take, for instance, the C40: Cities Climate Leadership Group. Formed in 2005 on the initiative of then-Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, the group has expanded dramatically to become a global leader on climate change policy development. The organization is made up of some eighty-six members, including the forty largest cities in the world, and other urban climate leaders, like Vancouver and Copenhagen. The group has pushed the boundaries of what constitutes meaningful climate action, for example, giving credence to the idea of a city going 100% renewable in its energy production and consumption. Some observers believe that the group and its other sub-national colleagues have put noticeable pressure on national leaders to pick up the pace. Their impact extends beyond mere rhetoric though. With the forty largest cities in the world as members, the organization has influence over some 25% of global greenhouse gas emissions, meaning that these cities can have a massive impact if their operations are marshalled correctly.
Further still, the group recently launched an innovative exercise in public-private partnerships, called the City Solutions Platform. Cities use a local cleantech accelerator to gain entrance to a an open, ‘no holds barred’ collaboration space, where sustainability-focused companies are there to listen to their challenges and brainstorm potential solutions, all without triggering any conflict of interest in their procurement processes—a significant concern for every city when it discusses its internal challenges.
Closer to home, the City of Vancouver and the University of British Columbia pose another interesting example of collaboration through their Greenest City Scholars programme. Scholars employed by the program work with any City department or agency on a sustainability-related challenge that they are facing. It may sound like a subtle difference, but the cohort factor of bringing together thematically-linked internships within the City is powerful. The shared sense of purpose for the scholars helps make their work more meaningful and at the same time they are able to help city staff move deeply-loved, but seldom-actioned projects from blue moon to ribbon-cutting.
The Vancouver-UBC model is somewhat unique for its thematic focus and the high level of integration between university and city staff, but there are plenty of other instances where universities are building strong partnerships with their nearby communities. Last year saw the creation of the MetroLab Network (as part of the Obama Administration’s Smart Cities Initiative) where universities act as the “R&D departments of cities” in solving pressing challenges. While a similar networked approach does not exist in Canada, direct partnerships are increasingly common, such as the recent Advancing Canadian Wastewater Assets (ACWA) project between the University of Calgary and the City of Calgary.
As noted urbanist and President of the University of Toronto Dr. Meric Gerlter put it, universities and cities have three exemplary features of benefit to one another:
- Universities impart dynamism and resilience to the economies of urban regions, helping their host cities to reinvent themselves over time.
- At the same time, universities are tremendously important stabilizing forces on urban economies, and on the local neighbourhoods they inhabit.
- Universities connect their host regions to the world, and vice versa
In many cases, university-urban partnerships take on a distinctive business focus. Because universities are often a centre of economic production in an urban region—often in terms of both direct employment and the spin-off economic benefits, like incubated start-ups or patents—these partnerships are a natural turn of events in many respects. Many of these partnerships function informally, with individual classes going out into the community and serving important social causes, or incubating different entrepreneuers, but there is a growing trend towards formalization. In some larger scale cases, as with the Stockholm Science City, tripartite arrangements between businesses, universities, and cities are mutually aligned and funded.
More direct corporate-urban partnerships can be difficult to note and work though, at least outside of traditional development projects where a single company works closely with a city to build out that land. In many cases, this is due to very important rules around conflict of interest. There are signs that this is changing, however. New York City has made a splash with the success of the Brooklyn Tech Triangle, which aims to provide space for tech-startups, encourage linkages between the community and local tech-companies, and skills and employment training for people that these companies can use as they grow.
The Brooklyn Tech Triangle shares many affinities with the development along Great Northern Way in Vancouver, home of the multi-university Centre for Digital Media, and now broader efforts in False Creek Flats to harmonize infrastructure investments, urban planning, and economic development in the area. The harmonization of infrastructure and spatial planning are just one prong of the strategy taken by the Vancouver Economic Commission (VEC) in this space, however. Since 2011, the VEC has also directly assisted businesses with commercializing their products through the Green and Digital Demonstration Programme (GDDP), where innovative green and digital businesses can use city-owned assets to demonstrate their products.
There is fertile ground for these partnerships to expand prodigiously in the years to come.
It is clear that cities and their partners, whether businesses, universities or other entities, have a massive role to play in coming together around shared challenges. Naturally, this has to be done with care. As the critiques of corporate-city partnerships have frequently cautioned, there has to be a fundamentally democratic starting-point to where these partnerships begin. Cities without commerce and a healthy democracy fall apart very quickly.
Cities can receive immense benefits from the partnerships they forge, and at the same time can add vitality and social purpose to the work of businesses, and ground universities in tangible, community-facing projects that build knowledge and social change. Cities will very likely continue to grow in global importance. London may wish to negotiate the terms of #Brexit differently than the rest of Britain; Canadian mayors want a seat at the table when it comes to gas tax revenue dispersion, and any future constitutional negotiations. Globally, mayors continue to be leaders on climate action. An urban future, can be bright one – so long as everyone works together.
By George P.R. Benson, 27 October 2016