Innovation cities – “It started with an ‘X’

Wednesday, December 09, 2009 | Posted by: Grant Thornton
Categories: Environment | Tags: innovation, links, europe, Brazil, construction, Brasilia, Climate Change Summit, Los Angeles, Al Gore

Brasilia was an ambitious new beginning in 1956, emerging from two intersecting lines in the red dust of Brazil’s interior. Given the opportunity, most politicians would role up a handful of their nation’s cities and sling them in the nearest bin - it would be a yellow recycling bin, obviously, with toxic signs and syringe sharps warnings.

Today, a generation later, Brasilia’s foresight has been rewarded with a placid, convenient, well-managed metropolis. Living there, one has the sense of living inside an architectural model, which is interesting for a time, but it finally numbs the soul. There is no Quartier Latin, no Las Ramblas, no Covent Garden. If you are going to have a Eureka moment, it isn’t going to be here. The traffic is almost Swiss in execution, and it delights its citizens with the Lei Seca, or ‘dry law’ – an absolute ban on alcohol while driving, Rio this isn’t.

North of the Equator, California, a tinderbox state, is hot, dry and flammable. Its inhabitants are largely easy-going but seriously innovative, persistent and resourceful. In Los Angeles, you can get shot for smoking in a public building. Well, maybe you can, and I’m prepared to bet Arnold’s Hummer that Googling ‘smoking + shot + Los Angeles’ returns some thoughtful results. LA is not Brasilia; though a passing description of each would appear similar - both are a collection of satellite cities bound together by extensive highways.

LA has attitude, the pioneer spirit. Brasilia has 10,000 lawyers. LA has a cabaret show to elect a governor, Brasilia, well, it has 10,000 lawyers. And here’s the moral of the story: if you want to make things, you need the crazies. If you build a city for bureaucrats, do not expect innovation to take root and prosper.

This month, Copenhagen will entertain Europe’s finest minds, and a handful of politicians. As the Climate Change Summit unfurls its pomp and pernicion, much colour will be added to the manuals of green cities, and Europe will commit seriously to the renewal of its enterprise culture through green technologies and innovative energy reduction projects. Delivering tangible results will be the responsibility of Europe’s mayors.

An interesting alliance has been fostered; as part of the European Union’s approach to urban renewal, EU civic leaders have begun working closely with the USA’s 30,000-strong Conference of Mayors. Speaking in Brussels last month, Mayor Elizabeth B. Kautz, the Vice President of the US Conference of Mayors said: “This is where the rubber meets the road.”

Their objectives are to share best-practice and to fashion an exchange of information, and trade, into a sustainable urban renaissance. Out of crisis has come opportunity. Al Gore’s hubris/humanity (delete as preferred) has helped keep the green innovation machine moving, and out of California’s Silicone Valley will come much of the technology needed to sustainably renovate our cities.

Europe is a determined combination of austere bureaucracy and tantalising creativity. We have the best of both worlds. Our progress as a nation, and as part of an increasingly cooperative union, will be formidably shaped by the crisis/opportunity dichotomy of the green agenda.

Electing commercially aware civic leaders is crucial to the lifeblood of British urban innovation. Despite California’s IOU payments, it is a state on the mend, Brasilia, say Brazilians, is a city on the make. For British CEOs, connecting with political leadership has never been more important; when all around you looks like a dust bowl, just remember; it started with an ‘X’.

Links roundup:
Open Cities, British Council

Stay Informed, Live At the Copenhagen Summit

The State of California

United States Mission to the European Union :