You could hardly attend a more timely conference than Gaining Ground/Resilient Cities.
What is driving this conference is the conviction of the organizers that cities have a unique and special leadership role in the sustainability agenda: to implement urban strategies for a green world and to spread knowledge city-to-city.
Yes, state/provincial governments and nations are also charged with these responsibilities, but the more abstract and political these concerns become, the more challenging it is to deliver effective policy or to leverage inter-jurisdictional agreements.
Cities and city-regions are where the rubber hits the road-literally and figuratively. Their scale is right and the culture of local interaction is direct and immediate. Collectively, cities are where most of us live, consume and produce.
Because of this immediacy, the conference hopes to play a meaningful role as a platform for Vancouver’s emergence as a green city. The timing is right, and the city is poised.
Some take the view that cities must become resilient to respond adaptively to imminent ecological changes and to energy and other imperatives. We’re not denying that need-and the conference will have much to say about these matters. But in using the word “resilient,’ the conference title implies something else, too: that cities as social and economic units are nimble; can hold meaningful local conversations; can work with constituent interests in productive collaborations; and can do this quickly.
In Vancouver, this is being expressed in part through a plan for a green economy. We believe that this is an intuitive approach, as opportunity will drive more things faster than paralyzing worry or issues that divide interests and force people to take sides.
We hope that this is a conference that will make-or more accurately help you to make-history. Vancouver needs the green economy and a deep sustainability plan for its own sake, but North American cities need an urban exemplar. We will never know the extent of Vancouver’s recent influence on other cities in Canada, the US and elsewhere, but “Vancouverism”-the city’s branded urban planning and design miracle-has powerfully influenced politicians, planners, architects, developers, writers, and advocates from other cities. And in the process, Vancouver has developed a critical piece often missing in other places: a culture of trust, self-confidence about its innovation skills, and belief in its ability to deliver change.
Resilient Cities heralds all of this and hopes to be a milestone in sustainable city progress. We look forward to seeing you there.
www.gaininggroundsummit.com
Gene Miller
Center for Urban Innovation
Hope to see some of you there, stop by the Building Opportunities with Business booth and say “hi”.
