campbell learning cities

7/27/2019 Campbell Learning Cities

1/60

1

Learning Cities:Acquiring Knowledge, Intelligence,

and Identity in Complex Systems

by Tim Campbell, PhDUrban Age Institute


2/60

2

Cities on the Rise

This paper is written in support of an initiative into the concept of

urban sustainability being carried out by the National Academy of Sci-

ences, the University of California at Berkeley, the Healthy Communi-ties Foundation, and the Urban Age Institute. The initiative aims to

develop tools and methods to achieve sustainable cities. Companion

pieces to this paper, Learning Cities: Acquiring Knowledge, Intel-

ligence, and Identity in Complex Systems (Campbell 2006) and Les-

sons from Pittsburghs Water and Sewerage Crisis (Feller and Feller

2006) are published separately by the Urban Age Institute.

The author wishes to acknowledge the support of the Gordon and Betty

Moore Foundation for this work. The author is grateful also for the as-

sistance of Gordon Feller and Yuan Xiao of the Urban Age Institute.

Urban Age Institutue

870 Estancia, 4th floor

San Rafael, Calfironia 94903 - USA

tel: +1-4154914233

email: [email protected]

www.UrbanAge.org

Urban Age Magazine:

www.UrbanAge.org/magazine.php


3/60

3

Campbell Learning Cities: Acquiring Knowledge, Intelligence, and Identity in Complex Systems

Table of Contents

4 Executive Summary

5 IntroductionRising Cities, the Need for Learning

6 The Urban Transformation

10 The Emerging Market for Learning

10 Cities and Competitiveness in the Globalized World.11 Regional Development and Knowledge Economies.

13 How Cities Learn: A Typology and Cases

15 Type 1. Dedicated Agency. Case of Bilbao, Spain

18 Type 2. City and Regional One-on-Many Exchange: Seattle, Washington,

Study Missions

20 Type 3. Individual Cities in One-on-One Exchange. Cases of International

City Managers Association (ICMA), City Links Program and Sister Cities

International

22 Type 4. City Clusters in Active Networks. Cases of UNESCO World Heritage

Cities, ICLEI Sustainable Cities (and Bertelsmann Cities of Change, UCLG

and Metropolis, CityNet, Cities Alliance, Association of CDS Cities, and oth-

ers)

25 Type 5. Cities in Passive Networks. Cases of UN Habitat Best Practice and

Local Government Information Network (LOGIN)

27 Observations from Cases

34 Implications for Urban Sustainability

37 Annex 1

39 Annex 2

48 Annex 349 Annex 4

51 Annex 5

53 Annex 6

55 Annex 7

57 Notes

58 Bibliography


4/60

4

Cities on the Rise

Executive SummaryBoth the number of urban residents and the spreading physical size of cities around the

globeand in particular, the 4000 cities in the population range of 100,000 or more (see

Angel, et al 2005)prompt renewed attention to a quest for environmental balance. Policy

concerns about urbanization and environmental balance posed 40 years ago, but never fully

answered by national authorities, arise again now for several reasons. First, environmental

pressures are increasing in cities; also city-state relations have entered a new era. More than 70

countries are undergoing decentralization at a time when globalization of economies and trade

are transforming the role of cities and states. It is timely and prudent to review prospects for

achieving urban sustainability from a local, rather national perspective.

e problem of achieving sustainable cities is not merely one of technology transfer. Rather,

it is a much more involved process of institutional change. A key sequence in city decisions is

the process by which city institutional tissue gets formed, achieves a self-conscious identity, is

accepted as valuable and endorsed by the broad community, and takes on the policy and prac-

tical tasks of achieving sustainable development. A decade of research and analytical work in

academic and development agencies has begun to reveal the importance of collective modali-

tiesfor firms, university researchers, venture capitalists, innovators, regions, and citiesas

a strategy in achieving learning entities. e paper reviews empirical data about city learning

drawn from both developed and developing countries and presents a typology to describe

common modalities of city learning.

Cases are drawn to represent a range of city learning experiences and, for purposes of later

stages of proposed work on urban sustainability, to identify factors to be addressed. Among

these are the importance of broad, collective leadership, motive and incentives of decision

makers; the related problems of longevity and sustainability of incubated ideas and technolo-

gies; the strategic difficulty of managing networks; the need for broad-based support and local

initiative to launch new policy initiatives; and the sustained guidance in the effort to import

and successfully implant innovations transferred from elsewhere. e overarching conclusion

of the paper is that cities learn a great deal, maybe the most important lessons from each other,

and that learning cities are able to create and draw on stored memory that consists of shared

experiences between and among people who take part in a learning process. In essence, capac-

ity building is to develop a proto-culture of shared values, and this requires long term support

to stimulate and nourish shared understanding and effective action.


5/60

5


IntroductionRising Cities, the Need for LearningAs cities around the globe continue to grow, in terms of both population and physical size,

their impacts on the environment will worsen. is prospect revives questions about urbaniza-

tion and environmental balance first posed in 1972 with the UN Conference on the Human

Environment but never fully answered. Since then, some progress has been achieved at the

national and global levels in the search for sustainable cities, but progress has been consider-

ably slower and certainly more uneven at the local level.1 With more than 70 countries now

undergoing decentralization, it is timely and prudent to explore new approaches to the prob-

lem or sustainable cities starting from a local, rather national perspective.

e underlying assumption of this paper is that cities can learn how to achieve sustainability.

Having access to more and better inputs about science, engineering, and technology for city

decision-making is part of that process, but the task is much more complicated than a simple

adoption of new technologies. Rather, the central task is institutional capacity building that

leads to a learning environment and the ability of cities to create home-grown solutions or to

recognize and adapt solutions invented elsewhere.


6/60

6

Cities on the Rise

The Urban Transformatione first major factor in the new global reality of cities is the shi to an urbanized world. Many

studies, including those by the National Research Council (2003) and UN-Habitat (2004),

paint a stark, troubling picture about the state of cities and their heavy impact, both short and

long term, on the environment. Within the next 20 years, 2 billion more people will be living

in cities, and this addition will signify that more than half of the global population is urban.

Virtually all of this increase will occur in the developing part of the world, while rural popula-

tions remain essentially flat. Another feature of this change is that poverty will be moving to

cities. e rural poor who do migrate will add to the numbers of low-income urban residents

already there, making the challenge of developing cities all the more difficult.

Many authors have been probing the significance, scope, and risk of environmental problems

at various scales in cities (Campbell 1989; Leitmann 1999; Hardoy, Mitlin, and Satterthwaite

2001; McGrannahan et al. 2001; UN-Habitat 2004), each working up in scale from the indoor

environment of households, to sanitation at the neighborhood scale, to pollution and other

problems at the city-wide and larger scales. In the past decade, a new set of issues has begun

to pervade the dialogue, such as security and safety from human-made and natural calamity.

Natural disasters in particular have struck forcibly in recent years, wiping out whole sections of

cities in rich and poor countries alike.

What will be new and different in the next several decades is the spread of citiesthat is, the

territorial expansion beyond city limits into agricultural areas and oen into adjacent regions

not suited for settlement, such as floodplains (Angel, Sheppard, and Civco 2005). e ques-

tions for urban sustainability are whether and how cities can plan and manage the scope of

urban problems as they move steadily through a predictable pattern of growth.2

In a common-sense definition, Bartone et al (1994) saw urban environmental problems as

threats to present or future human well-being, resulting from human-induced damage to

the physical environment, originating in or borne in urban areas.

is definition includes:

Localized environmental health problems such as inadequate household water and

sanitation and indoor air pollution.

City-regional environmental problems such as ambient air pollution, inadequate waste

management and pollution of rivers, lakes and coastal areas.

Extra-urban impacts of urban activities such as ecological disruption and resource

depletion in a citys hinterland, and emissions of acid precursors and greenhouse gases.

Regional or global environmental burdens that arise from activities outside a citys

boundaries, but which will affect people living in the city.


7/60

7


It does not encompass:

Problems in what are sometimes termed the social, economic, or cultural environ-

ment.

Natural hazards that are not caused or made worse by urban activity.

e environmental impacts of urban activities that are of no concern to humans, either

now or in the future.

Table 1.1: Urban Population Size and Growth by Income

Table 1.2: Urban Population Size and Growth and Region

1950 1975 2000 2030 1950 1975 2000 2030

mid-yearpopulation(millions)

% growth rate

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

high income countries

middle & low income countries

World total 2.9 2.4 1.8

1.8 0.9 .06

3.7 3.2 2.2

1950 1975 2000 2030 1950 1975 2000 2030

mid-yearpopulation(millions)

% growth rate

Asia

Africa

EuropeLatin America and the Caribbean

North America

Oceania0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3.5 3.4 2.2

4.6 4.2 3.3

1.8 0.6 .04

2.0 1.2 1.0

2.5 1.7 1.1

4.2 2.7 1.5


8/60

8

Cities on the Rise

Annex 1 presents a table depicting a wide range of common, city-related environmental haz-

ards. Despite their diversity, all fall within the definition, provided the phrase resulting from

urban activities is itself interpreted broadly. Most are the unintended side-effects of human

activity in cities. Some might more accurately be ascribed to a lack of preventive measures. In

all examples, however, better urban practices and governance could help reduce the burdens,

and it is this distinction that is most critical operationally.

e impact of human settlements on the environment can be gauged roughly by the shiing

weight of populations living in cities. Tables 1 document the inexorable transition to an urban-

ized world that has occurred over the past six decades. ough terms like population explo-

sion and massive urbanization are used to describe the current picture, in reality the fastest

phases of urbanization have already passed.

Perhaps even more significant than the total population in cities is the number of large cities

on the planet. During the last two decades, the number of cities with 1 million or more in

populationso-called intermediate-size citiesin developing countries will have increased,

and they will continue to grow in number. Where such cities numbered around 200 in the lat-

ter part of the 20th century, they will reach around 400 by 2015 (table 2). Only about a quarter

of these intermediate-size cities are in the rich world. ough the so-called megacities, those

with populations of more than 10 million, have understandably attracted much attention, the

cities of 1 million or more will be important engines of growth, the movers and shakers of the

urban planet in this millennium.

In short, a very large number of cities need solutions to growing environmental problems.

But new tools and policy instruments will be needed to help them cope with the next set of

challenges of this millenniumpoverty and shelter, basic infrastructure services, large-scale

infrastructure in water supply waste disposal and power, new solutions to transportation, and

forms of metropolitan governments that have yet to be invented.

Table 2: Number of Cities of Various Population Sizes, 2015

Population size

(Millions)

World Total Economic status

More

Developed

Less

Developed

10 > 21 4 17

5-10 37 6 31

1-5 496 118 378

0.5-1 507 107 400

Total .5-10M 1061 235 826


9/60

9


e hundreds of new cities in the size range of 1 million will also be challenged in ways for

which they have little preparation. Decentralization, democratization, and the opening of the

global environment all pose new challenges and represent new conditions for which social

institutions and political organization are poorly prepared.

Cities are particularly ready to address these intertwined issues of growth and the environment

as they set about creating strategies to retain or advance their position in the global market-

place. In the face of new global competition, cities and regions are discovering that the old

approaches and tools are obsolete. Models of growth developed over the past 50 yearsfor in-

stance, in import substitutionhave no applicability in a globalized economy. Cities in which

industry and manufacturing were once protected are now more vulnerable to competitive

pressures. As trade barriers are erased, the protective shells around city economies fall away.

Decentralization and democratization impose added challenges on cities. More than 70

countries around the globe are currently decentralizing, meaning they are passing on deci-

sion-making and spending powers to local governments. Nearly 25 republics in Latin America

accomplished this change during the 1990s. Dozens of other countries in Asia and Africa as

well as Eastern Europe are also going through the transformation of political power, increas-

ing the importance of cities in the conduct of public business. Decentralization means that city

leadershipmayors, elected officials, private sector, civic leaderswill play a more important

role for their nations, as well. is puts extra weight on local leaders to organize the direction

of growth, shape public choices, engage the public and decision-making process, and imple-

ment decisions that are made.

Democratization further complicates the decentralized model of government. Popular elec-

tions in scores of countries around the world subject public-sector decision-makers to a kind

of scrutiny and a clamor for participation for which they have virtually no experience and poor

or underdeveloped tools. Participatory democracy requires new levels of sophistication in

structuring decisions, informing the public, and channeling feedback on the implementation

of programs in the public sector. Cities everywhere are hungry for lessons of best practice that

help them make better decisions in decentralized democratic regimes.

ese political and economic transformations place new emphasis on good and better practice

in achieving a local distinctiveness, attracting pools of talent, and improving environmental

quality. Accordingly, cities are more ready to learn than in the recent past. eir growing pres-

ence on the international scenein sheer population as well as numbers of citiesmakes the

challenge of facilitating learning much more important than ever.


10/60

10

Cities on the Rise

The Emerging Market for Learninge global trends all work in the direction of exposing and challenging cities in economic,

political, and environmental terms. Many signs indicate that cities are searching for answers.

Development assistance agencies, such as the World Bank and sister regional banks, and re-

gional organizations such as the European Union (EU), have witnessed an increasing number

of requests for knowledge exchange about urban development. Also, cities in both developed

and developing economies are reaching out to each other for concepts, theory, and methods in

economic development at both the local and regional scales.

Cities and Competitiveness in the Globalized World.

In the developing world, a growing demand for learning is leading to a process of discovery.

Cities and regions have limited institutional capacity and oen, but not always, operate outside

their national sovereign states. Cities in the developing world are aware of progress in the EU

and the US. ey feel the same pressures of regional and global competition. For decades,

programs like Sister Cities International have supported community-to-community programs

that include transfer of knowledge as a core activity.3 is dynamic has been replicated in City

Links (formerly Resource Cities) of the International City and County Managers Association

(ICMA), where more than 50 pairs of cities have been engaged in technical exchanges since

1997. ough not always catering to city business, more than 100 think tanks have been estab-

lished in Eastern Europe since the fall of the Berlin wall (Struyk 2002). Sister Cities Interna-

tional (SCI) reports more than 2000 relationships between cities, 750 in the developing world,

some of them going back 25 years (SCI 2005).

e EU and UN systems are also preparing for more work at the local level. e European

Commission recently announced a new program for the period 2007-2013 worth EUs200

million for local authorities and NGOs. UNDP asserts that links between cities over the past

several decades number in the range of 15,000 to 20,000 UNDP (2001), and City to City Co-

operation has become a recognized field of development assistance (UN Habitat 1999; UNDP

2001).

One striking example of the growing market for technical exchange is provided by the city of

Seattle. Blanco and Campbell (2006) documented the number and range of technical visits to

Seattle from developing countries. Technical visits is meant to distinguish those visits designed

to address specific technical problems in urban management as opposed to visits that involve

cultural, trade, and symbolic friendship between and among cities. Blanco and Campbell

found that in 2002, Seattle hosted more than 150 technical delegations, averaging seven per-

sons staying a period of four days. e delegations consisted largely of technical and policy

teams, mostly from Asia, and covered topics in governance and policy, private public coopera-

tion, legal and regulatory systems, health care, primary and secondary education, environmen-

tal quality, and community-based planning.


11/60


12/60

12

Cities on the Rise

is evolution in thinking about competitive firms and regions can be seen as gradual widen-

ing of focus (see figure 1). In this view, the boundaries of individual entities, for instance firms

or planning organizations in cities, blend into their surrounding environment of knowledge

resources. e upshot is that learning city regions succeed if they can manage the networks of

knowledge resources within their purview and, according to authors like Florida (2002), at-

tract talent to feed this process.

ough the literature has probed quite far and is helpful in understanding the nature of learn-

ing cities, two key limitations still must be overcome. First, the literature reviewed above,

while relevant, focuses on knowledge economies and is mainly concerned with technological

and economic growth. Less attention is given to policy and political issues that impinge upon

public choice, as environmental sustainability does. Second, except for Landry and Matarasso

(1998), few authors have paid attention to the process and dynamics by which cities as organi-

zational units engage in learning and change behavior. In the view of Landry and Matarasso, a

learning city is one which ... develops by learning from its experiences and those of others. It

is a place that understands itself and reflects upon that understanding...[and develops]...new

solutions to new problems (p. 3).5

e present discussion aims to help remedy some of these limitations. It focuses on collective

learning and the culture of public business so that a city becomes reflective and steers itself in

strategy and action. Our focus is also different from most of the preceding work in that it con-

centrates on cities in the developing world and the search for sustainable urban development.

Figure 1: Focus of Analysis in Competitiveness

Organization < Unit of Analysis > Interactive Milieu

Concept in

Theory

Organization

Learning

The firm and firms in

clusters

New Regional

development

Managing

complex

networks

Innovative Milieu,

Concept of Ba

Learning city

Date < 1970s 1990s 2000s >

Example

Referencesin the

Literature

Churchman

Schon

Marshall, Penrose,

Porter

Sabel Sotarauta

Crosby & BrysonKostiainan

Landry and Matarosso,

Amin&To-maney

Examples Italian small

producers

Silicon Valley,

SE England

Tampere

Minneapolis


13/60

13


How Cities Learn: A Typology and CasesExperience accumulated over the past four decades forms a picture of many different ways that

firms, cities, and regions organize themselves in order to learn to solve problems. Knowledge

exchange is a central component in this experience. is section presents a simple typology to

categorize the ways cities engage in learning processes (See table 3).

Table 3: Typology of City Learning: Agencies and Networks

Modality Example Characteristics of

Learning

Observations & Lessons

Organized Agency

Dedicated Agency Curitiba,

Ho Chi Minh

Bilbao

Full or part time staff dedicated

totally or mostly to city ques-

tions

Self-starters create their own

tools

Close, but Not Dedicated Shanghai,Tangin

Tampere, Finland

Metro Research Institute,

Budapest

Closely connected and fre-

quently consulted, but indepen-

dent agencies

City agency is secondary, i.e.,

a tool for, or consequence of,

LED

City and Regional Develop-

ment

One on many in Europe

and US

Birmingham, UK

Seattle, ,Silicon Valley;

Minneapolis; South

Florida, USA

Assembly of knowledge

intensive firms, buttressed by

universities; special purpose

learning events

Deliberate efforts to form a

nexus of shared learning

Individual Cities

Cities One on One ICMA City Links

Federation of Candadian

Municipalities

Sister Cities

One on one exchanges over one

to two years

Vibrancy requires long- term

commitment

(Khuong 2002).

City Networks

Active

Cluster on Cluster UNESCO World Heritage Cities

Bertlesmann Cities of Change

ICLEI

Metropolis

World Technopolis

City members of a class

involved in more or less

sustained, regular program

of exchanges, punctuated by

intermittent technical meetings

and visits

External agent provides a forum

for a designated class of cities

in formal network

City Networks

Passive

City Network Conveners UCLG,

InfoCity, .

Asia City Net

Apex agencies convene and

work on class action basis

External agent for open network

of cities, broad agenda

City Network Managers UN Habitat Best Practice

LOGIN

Largely passive

networks.

External agent, learning

depends on initiative

of cities.


14/60

14

Cities on the Rise

e organizing principle of the typology is the tightness of city-focus held by the learning

agent (whether a firm, a city or a region). Agents can be narrowly focused on the business of a

city, as in the case of Curitiba, Brazil, or loosely interested, but available, as are some universi-

ties in their home cities. (See Campbell 2006 for a description of the Curitiba case.) Alterna-

tively, a more lose focus might be represented by the Metropolitan Development Authority in

Budapest. is Authority is like a think tank group that can consider many public and private

sector issues, depending upon the client and business demand (Municipality of Budapest

2003). In practice, many kinds of agents, mandates, and learning processes can be found.

is typology illustrates the widely varying arrangements in which cities tap knowledge and

effect learning. e universe considered here is not exhaustive, but it is reasonably represen-

tative of typical arrangements observed in the field. e table describes changing character of

agencies as our view moves across a spectrum (from the top to the bottom of the table) from

narrow to broadly focused mandates. At the top of table 3 are cities that invest in learning

and focus on themselves. At the bottom of the table are looser arrangements represented by

a large number of networks, such as United Cities and Local Governments, Metropolis, UN

Best Practices Data Base, and others. (Refer again to Annex 2 for a selected list of international

city networks and organizations.) At this bottom end of the spectrum, the agency is actually

external to the city and takes the form of an international NGO. Between these end points are,

respectively, individual cities without a dedicated agency, and clusters of cities engaged in loose

dialogue.

Case illustrations will be presented, below, to represent each of these five main types. e five

cases are as follows:

Dedicated Agencies: Bilbao, with occasional reference to Curitiba

One on Many: Cities in Regional Development: Seattle with occasional reference to

Birmingham

Individual Cities One-on-One: City Links with reference to Sister Cities

City and Clusters in Active Networks: UNESCO World Heritage Cities, with occasional

reference to UCLG and Metropolis, ICLEI, AsiaCities, CityNet

Cities in Passive Networks: Local Government Information Network (LOGIN) and UN

Habitat Best Practice Data Base

e rough scope of coverage for each of the cases is first, a description of the type, its defini-

tion, typical origins and key features, and reference to examples and reasons that they are

representative of their class. Second, each case is probed to understand something about how

learning takes placea concept we might call the learning style of the organization or city.

Where possible this understanding is extended to the larger class. e discussion will include

observations about the motive and leadership requirements to launch and sustain learning

and, if applicable, to replicate and scale up.


15/60

15


e cases are selected to illustrate varieties of learning. More important, they show how dedi-

cated attention can build a shared vision over time and create the tissue of self-aware organiza-

tions. At the same time, particularly in one-on-one and clusters, the cases illustrate learning

modalities for specific kinds of policies and practices. Finally, the cases provide grist to draw

lessons for promising modalities in a program on urban sustainability.

Type 1. Dedicated Agency. Case of Bilbao, Spain

e city of Bilbao is a textbook example of a community that perceived and reacted successful-

ly to a pending economic crisis and then created an agency, reshaped the city, and reinforced

its image and identity. rough the creation of a public private think and action group, Bilbao

devised and implemented a long-term strategy that transformed its economic base, increased

environmental quality, and elevated its status in the regional economy.

e story of Bilbao begins in the late 1980s, when city leadership began to realize that its

economic structure based on shipbuilding and steel would no longer be competitive aer the

formation of the European Union and the reduction in trade barriers. Much study and a struc-

tural analysis on the part of the EU helped Bilbao to this realization.

For decades Bilbao had been a shipbuilding center, relying on nearby deposits of iron ore, the

production of steel, and its position on the river to build and export medium and small size

vessels. Aer the formation of the economic community in Europe, Bilbaos leadership under-

stood that they would no longer be competitive in these industries. By their own assessment

(university and chamber of commerce estimates) Bilbao would lose 10,000 jobs in shipbuilding

alone, and that its competitive position would gradually erode in the succeeding 25 years.

In 1989, civic leaders in Bilbao began to

discuss the organizational arrangements to

perfect and carry out a strategy to deal with

the economic challenges. Reduction of trade

barriers were scheduled for implementa-

tion in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1990, the city

launched the founding of Bilbao Metropoli-

30, a public-private, non-profit partnership

with 19 active members drawn from across a

broad spectrum of entities in the region. e

mission of Metropoli-30 was to carry out the

revitalization of Bilbao.


16/60

16

Cities on the Rise

Metropoli-30 is a leadership group charged with the identification of a new strategy for the city

to lead it through the pending economic transformation and on into the next century. e as-

sociation was formed of the 30 most important players in Bilbaos economy. Members included

business associations, chambers of commerce, chamber of manufacturers and commercial es-

tablishments, trade unions, and other civic groups, as well as elected and appointed leadership.

e mandate of the organization was to carry out planning, research, and promotional projects

to transform Bilbaos economic and industrial structure.

Aer long deliberation, and hundreds of community and regional meetings, together with

international learning seminars staged in the city, the association arrived at ambitious and far-

reaching conclusions: e future economy of Bilbao would center of the creative arts, informa-

tion and culture, and learning institutions. is was a radical departure from its historical role

as a manufacturing and shipping center, and therefore a useful example for many cities around

the globe aiming to undergo similar transformations.

e first major step was the formation of an assembly of stakeholdersa broad network of

local businesses, universities, and governments. e Assembly became a formal institution

with appointed leadership and by-laws, and by 1991, it had published its first major product, a

general plan known also as Metropoli-30. Funds from Spain and the EU helped to finance the

diagnostic and analytical ground work for the Plan.

e learning process in Bilbao took place on many levels. Two major forms are noted here.

First is the internal process of self recognition and awareness, starting with the realization that

the major transformation in Europe and beyond was to leading to drastic economic decline for

the city and its region and that something could be done about that. is process of reaching a

broad consensus about the problem was critical to achieving a plan of action. In effect, many of

the agencies and institutions were aware that their fates were tied to one another.

A second process of learning helped to sustain the continuity of action and conviction. More

than 40 learning eventsmeaning high profile speakers, conferences, seminars held in open

for a with wide publicity. ese helped to build a community consciousness about the mission

of the city.


17/60

17


Timeline for Bilbao

1980s European Union

1989 Formation of Assembly

1991 Creation of Metropoli-30

1992 Revitalization Plan

1993 Bilbao Ria 2000

External Port

Abandoibarra, footbridges, Ribera Park

1995 Metro System

1997 Guggenheim Museum

1999 Bilbao 2010: The Strategy

2000 Airport

1990-2005 more than 40 seminars from World class thought leaders

2006 World Forum on Values for City Development

2008 European Institute for City Development

e flagship building of this plan was to be the Guggenheim Museum. At the time, the com-

mitment fee charged by architect Frank Gheary to even consider the site was thought to be

exorbitant. But by the mid-1990s, again with the help of the European Union, Bilbao mobilized

resources to meet the financial requirements of the new museum, and in 1997 the now famous

museum was inaugurated. Following the Guggenheim came nearly a dozen other major proj-

ects in and around Bilbao including a convention center, a concert hall, a new airport, regional

transportation system, and improvements in university and educational institutions. A decade

later, tourism business has blossomed in Bilbao. Hotel usage has doubled and airline passen-

gers tripled since 1994.

An important part of Bilbaos success is that

the city mobilized resources and support

from many quarters. Even the considerable

economic and financial muscle of Bilbao and

of the Basque community would not have

been sufficient to achieve Bilbaos transforma-

tion. e European Union provided finan-

cial support. Also, the city brought a large

number of organizations and agencies within

the Basque region to support its efforts.

More than 40 institutions and agencies have

subscribed to Metropoli-30, and this organi-

zation itself represents a

significant achievement.

Bilbao Metropoli30 regularly takes part in conferences, organizations

and networks worldwide. Specifically, the Association collaborates with

the Urban Forum Network, International Institute of Administrative

Sciences (IIAS), Standing Committee on Urban and Regional Statistics

(SCORUS), part of the International Statistical Institute (ISI), The System

Dynamics Society, The World Future Society, The International Network

for Marketing and Urban Development or The Global Business

Network (GBN).

In 1999 a decade after the Strategic Revitalization Plan, once the in-

frastructure was built, the Association with the participation of all our

members and support of 20 international experts, launched a study of

advanced international models of urban strategy development. The con-

clusion of Bilbao 2010 is that success lies in ideas and values and these

set the strategy for the future of Metropolitan Bilbao. It is a city capable of

identifying, attracting and materializing good ideas in benefit of all

the community.

Source: Metropoli30


18/60

18

Cities on the Rise

Above all, the lesson from Bilbao is that the city created an entirely new elementa conscien-

tious agency, Metropoli-30in the city and regional political structure. e key factor is that

the structure involves a cerebral function for the city, one that concerned itself with the long-

term development. is collaborative instrument was a significant, possibly indispensable, tool

for the city to grow and thrive. Bilbao 2010 (see Box) carries this vision into the next decade.

Type 2. City and Regional One-on-Many Exchange: Seattle, Washington, Study Missions

In contrast to Bilbao, Seattle has created a process of learning that ventures out to other cities

in an organized exploration of best practice and benchmarking to bring back home. e study

missions of Seattle are elaborate, highly organized, dedicated visits organized on a yearly basis

by the Trade Development Alliance, a dependency of the Greater Seattle Chamber of Com-

merce. e study missions engage up to 100 business and civic leaders in the greater Seattle

area. e objectives of study missions are many, as described below. e overarching objective

is to broaden and strengthen the understanding of city leaders about the position of Seattle

vis-a-vis the visited city, its region and state, all within the context of the global economy. e

Seattle study missions have been called by the head of the National League of Cities arguably

the best study tours of any US city.

According to Stafford (1999), six underlying goals of study missions are:

To continue an ongoing process of relationship building among and between Seattles

civic leadership;

To study and learn from the practices and programs of other cities and cultures that

may provide solutions to Seattles urban problems;

To promote the regions business opportunities including the ports, tourism, goods and

services, educational opportunities, and venues for international meetings;

To build relationships with the people and institutions in the cities visited;

To organize special business and educational opportunity meetings, such as the bio-

medical meeting in London between the leadership of Seattles two industry associa-

tions, the meetings between female leaders in Singapore and Sydney, or the sharing of

experiences with airport noise reduction.

To help develop the most sophisticated civic leadership in our country on international

issues.

Seattle began it study tour program in 1992 with a visit by a small delegation to the cities of

Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Stuttgart. In 1993, Seattle was one of the first visiting delegations

to Vietnam aer the normalization of relations. In 1994 a delegation visited the Kansai region

of Japan (Kobe and Osaka) and in 1995, Hong Kong. Succeeding missions visited London and

Bristol in 1997; Singapore in 1998; and Sydney in 1999; Shanghai 2002; Barcelona, 2003 and

Munich 2004. All of these visits were organized by the Trade Development Alliance and have

included a similar profile of delegates.6


19/60

19


Participants on the missions include the top leadership figures of the city and county and its

utilities, ports, universities, private firms, and NGOs. Not all of the delegates are senior of-

ficials. One high level Boeing executive pointed out that he persuaded Boeing to send three

of their top younger people on the study tour because it was the best value in training that

money could buy. Each of the members, or their respective agencies, covers the travel and

lodging and other costs. Oen the receiving cities provide receptions, meals, and sometimes

local transportation.

Recent study tours (Shanghai, Barcelona, and Munich) involve detailed preparations with

thick briefing books, seminars given in advance, and usually two preparatory visits by the chief

organizer from Seattle. During the mission, oen lasting seven or eight days, the delegates

meet over meals, discuss in plenary what they have seen, and hear presentations by their hosts.

Agendas will include a wide variety of topics and speakers that cover cultural, historical, eco-

nomic and social issues. Speakers include US citizens working in the city, officials from the city

and region, business leaders, and members of civil society. Each day is a mixture of speakers,

site visits, and cultural affairs. Business promotion and networking do take place, but for the

most part, the participants on the study tours spend most of their day together, in a group or

subgroups, divided according to interest. For example, in Shanghai, a large delegation of health

officials and university researchers (from the University of Washingtons Fred Hutchinson Can-

cer Research Center) had parallel meetings with counterparts on issues of public health.

e heart of the learning experience takes place during these plenary sessions and aerwards

when delegates sit during meals, in meeting halls, or on busses. ey have an opportunity to

question and digest what they have seen and heard and to exchange perceptions and opinions

with each other, and they are able to gain perspective and insight on their own issues back

home. Seattle has long considered the merits and demerits of better public transit, for instance

light rail, in the down town area and of the need for a third runway at SeaTac airport. Another

issue is governance, at least government coordination, in the Greater Seattle Area. Debates on

these issues have been protracted over years and emerged as subtext during city visits.

In this context, delegates visiting Shanghai were stunned to see a city nearly the size of Seattle

constructed in the Pudong region in less than 15 years. Surveying the ambitious progress made

in Shanghai provoked a debate among the touring team at the closing meeting. e Seattle

contingent spoke in growing conviction about the swampy terrain of process-oriented plan-

ning and the need to achieve consensus. e Chinese in Shanghai were on the other end of this

decisionmaking spectrum, where expedition and speed over-rode all concerns for environ-

mental care, permit process, hearings, due process in courts, and the like. e same theme of

process paralysis arose a year earlier in Barcelona when the Seattle delegation, the core of

which was also at Shanghai, observed the consensus style of decisionmaking by the leader-


20/60

20

Cities on the Rise

ship elites of Barcelona, a group drawn from the far le on the political spectrum, organized

civil society, conservative business, and political groups from all parties. Barcelona achieved

a strategic vision and a common understanding in decisionmaking that allowed that city to

move quickly to realize its goals, even to incur large debts to do so (Barcelona is the highest

indebtedness on a per capita basis than any city in Spain).

e impact of these observations on the leadership elites of Seattle triggered a retreat-style

meeting at which the assembled group, again drawn from city, county, NGOs, business com-

munity, and specialized agencies like the ports, agreed to form a working group to get their

arms around coordination issues. A year later, an economic development entity was legally

formed, with representation from key elements in government and business. e group began

laying the plans for economic options and infrastructure needs for Seattle over the long term.

e legal formation of the group and pledges to it, including pledges in capital from private

industry, were announced at the Munich study tour in 2004.

e learning style and interactions on study missions also create a personal bond of shared

experiences. Participants oen spoke of the benefits long aerwards, back in Seattle, of having

participated on a mission. Back home, when placing a phone call to a government agency or

business, of having the shared experience, and knowing the face of the person on the other

end of the call greatly facilitated understanding and the speed of doing business (Trade Devel-

opment Alliance of Greater Seattle 2001).

Type 3. Individual Cities in One-on-One Exchange. Cases of International City Managers As-

sociation (ICMA), City Links Program and Sister Cities International

One-on-one exchanges, sometimes called twinning or city-to-city exchange in a binary

fashion, has been practiced for many decades. (See Annex 4 for a Time Line of city-to-city

cooperation.) Recent versions have taken a new twist, adding more strategic and longer term

objectives that fulfill more programmatic needs of sponsoring entities (usually national foreign

assistance agencies). European governments, particularly France and e Netherlands, make

extensive use of individual municipalities, numbering in the thousands, as agents of interna-

tional foreign assistance to local governments in recipient countries. Two programs in the US

are i llustrated below.

ICMA is the professional and educational organization for chief appointed managers, ad-

ministrators, and assistants in cities, towns, counties, and regional entities throughout the

world. Since 1914, ICMA has provided technical and management assistance, training, and

information resources to its members and the local government community. e management

decisions made by ICMAs nearly 8,000 members affect more than 100 million individuals in

thousands of communitiesfrom small towns with populations of a few hundred to metro-

politan areas serving several million.


21/60

21


ICMAs City Links Program (inaugurated in 1997 as the Resource Cities Program), brings

together the best management practitioners from the United States with officials from cli-

ent cities of USAID in developing and transitional countries to share resources and technical

expertise to improve the lives of urban residents.

e City Links program facilitates the exchange of teams of local government officials city

managers, mayors, and department headsbetween US and overseas cities over an 18 to 24

month period. e exchanges enable officials to learn from their peers and adopt pragmatic

approaches to urban management problems. e partners develop a work plan with clear

objectives and expected outcomes to remedy several challenges faced by the overseas city.

Program funds cover international travel and accommodation costs, usually for four trips by

American staff to the host country and three return trips to the American city. Local officials

contribute their time, making the program a cost-effective means to provide technical assis-

tance to developing and transitional countries.

To date, 29 partnerships have been initiated under this global cooperative agreement and 22

other agreements of USAID missions with ICMA. e partnerships have addressed areas such

as solid waste management, budgeting and financial planning, downtown revitalization, citizen

participation, and water and wastewater treatment. e collaborative effort has helped partner-

ships make significant changes in urban management overseas.

Mechanisms of learning.

A program of assistance is agreed in the course of the first of three or four visits and, though

it may be modified on the fly, is carried out in several successive visits by practitioner experts

from the resource city to the other in the field, with return visits by field practitioners to the

resource city. Knowledge is transferred in a direct manner, from practitioner to practitioner.

Activities include such things as strategic planning, conducting surveys, budget forecasting,

incubators for local economic development, procurement documents, auctioning public land,

and the like. For the most part, the city linkages achieve their objectives, usually two or three

discreet management or service delivery issues. USAID has concluded that when reforms are

dramatic departures from conventional practice, as they were with land auctions in former So-

viet states, they can set up powerful models for change that other cities seek to achieve (USAID

2001).

USAID also found that most partnerships result in unanticipated benefits to the overseas cities,

for example in management changes. is is the case when local officials are highly motivated

and become involved in activities beyond those originally envisioned, and the personal rela-

tionships and trust allow more direct one-on-one peer exchange. In a similar vein, US cities

engaged in the relationship sometimes mobilize additional resources beyond those envisioned


22/60

22

Cities on the Rise

in, and over and above those financed by, the exchange program. At the same time, partici-

pants in the program on both sides have expressed interest in more frequent visits and contact.

e problem with this style of exchange

is that sustainability in financial terms is

impeded by the lack of continuity in contact

and support. US Sister Cities International

learned this lesson long ago. at program

has concluded that the most effective solu-

tion to sustainabilityfinancial as well as

institutionalis to build the relationship

within the community, and not just among

city officials.7 Communities of interest

become the glue of sustainability. When new

leaders are voted into office, the relationship

does not end. It becomes a point of interest

and importance by the new mayors constituency, yet is not necessarily a program commit-

ment on the part of the mayor.

Type 4. City Clusters in Active Networks. Cases of UNESCO World Heritage Cities, ICLEI Sus-

tainable Cities (and Bertelsmann Cities of Change, UCLG and Metropolis, CityNet, Cities Alli-

ance, Association of CDS Cities, and others)

Learning through the intermediation of international NGOs is fundamentally different in sev-

eral ways from the previous cases. First, the focus shis away from the city itself and moves in-

stead to intermediate organizations. In effect, the agency of learning is shared, sometimes led,

by an external actor, usually and international NGO. Second, network NGOs provide several

forms of learning opportunities not provided by active cities. Networks provide conventions

and standards (e.g., World Heritage Cities conventions or Agenda 21 programs) as well as best

practice and normative codes and legislation which establish a framework of policy or practice.

A second kind of service is the wide access to many different practitioners. is access to oc-

casional contact at large scale conferences of membership and thematic organizations creates

a loose bond in networks. For instance the UCLG or Metropolis semiannual meetings and

Bertelsmann Cities of Change periodic meetings provide an opportunity for weak ties, which

in Granovetters logic, is a source of fresh, out of the box thinking (Granovetter 1985) and

reference contacts for consultation and advice.

e Organization of World Heritage Cities (OWHC) was established in 1993 to develop a

sense of solidarity and a cooperative relationship between World Heritage cities. Made up of

218 cities having sites included on the UNESCO World Heritage List, the OWHCs mission is

The Resources of ICMA and CityLinks

An ICMA member is a part of a worldwide network of senior management

professionals who share a commitment to local government excellence

and who are dedicated to the highest standards of honesty and integrity.Information resources that include an On-line library (includes Associa-

tions database of more than 5,000 forms, brochures, plans, guides, and

other materials developed for and used by local governments); GovSearch

(gives ICMA members who are directly employed by local governments

the ability to search local government Web sites for program descrip-

tions, ordinances, budget presentations designed for the public, and

the wealth of information available on local government Web sites); Job

center, Salary Information center, Whos Who in Local Government Man-

agement and Discussion Links bring together the combined expertise and

knowledge to 8,000 members that work in the areas of local democracy,

professionalism in public administration, fiscal decentralization, good

governance, and economic development.


23/60

23


to promote the implementation of the World Heritage Convention by helping municipal ad-

ministrators access the information they need to meet this challenge. To this end, the OWHC

organizes symposia and seminars dealing with the challenges to be met in the realm of man-

agement and strategies pertaining to the development and preservation of historic sites.

e OWHCs headquarters, located in Qubec City, Canada, organizes OWHCs initiatives,

which are geared to the implementation of the World Heritage Convention. OWHC meetings

lead to international conventions, some of which have the moral force of law, that help cities

understand the rights and responsibilities of being designated as a World Heritage City. e

OWHC organizes symposia and seminars dealing with management and strategies pertain-

ing to the development and preservation of historic sites. e OWHC also strives to heighten

awareness among officials of the United Nations, UNESCO, the World Bank, and the Council

of Europe, of the importance of better protecting historic cities. In the coming years, the Or-

ganization is to focus on the establishment of an electronic communications network linking

member cities through the Internet, and the creation of a data bank on historic cities.

In 1991, the first international symposium of World Heritage Cities was held in Quebec City.

Two years later in Fez, Morocco, the Organization was founded. Since then, the OWHC has

held six international conferences at which heritage cities take part, discuss the framework

documentation and best practices, lobby national governments and exchange information and

best practice. See Annex 6 on the international meetings and agreements.

Several other important networks operate actively to engage their members in a more or less

prescribed range of activities. A notable examples is the International Council on Local Envi-

ronmental Initiatives, ICLEI. ICLEI was formed in the 1990 when its key founder, Jeffery Brug-

man, discovered that it was possible to affect behaviors of citiesthat is to change operational

policiesin a way that would have positive impact on green house gasses. His experience with

a single municipality in Southern California mushroomed into a solid organization that made

Local Agenda 21 a cornerstone of its actions.

Today ICLEI advertises 475 member local governments and is focused on sustainable cities.

According to their website, members carry out campaigns to improve environmental condi-

tions. A fundamental component of our performance-based campaign model is the milestone

process. Each campaign incorporates a five-milestone structure that participating local govern-

ments work through: (1) establish a baseline; (2) set a target; (3) develop a local action plan; (4)

implement the local action plan; and (5) measure results.

Lately, ICLEI has focused on sustainable development. Over the decades, ICLEI has built up a

data base of more than 70 successful sustainable city case studies. ICLEI has developed a net-

work of activists that operate at the municipal level in scores of cities around the globe to lobby


24/60

24

Cities on the Rise

city councils, provide public education, and promote community support for environmental

improvements at the city level.

Many other organizations offer platforms for

learning by cities. Perhaps the most visible in

the past decade has been the Union of Cities

and Local Governments (UCLG), a confed-

eration of 10,000 local governments forged

from the previous world-wide federations

of the Union of Local Authorities (of elected

city representatives), Cities Unies/United

Towns, and their counterparts in Arabic

speaking world, and in sub-Saharan Africa.

ough regional networks are active and

important, UCLG (and its subsidiary, Me-

tropolis, for major cities) became the focus

of official sanction by governments represented at the United Nations and the World Bank.

Launched in 1996 at the Istanbul, UCLG and Metropolis are membership organizations that

seek to facilitate a common agenda for cities and regions in their own fora (annual and semi-

annual meetings) as well as at the UN and (through the Cities Alliance) at the World Bank.

Regional organizationsEuroCities, MercoCiudades (association of cities in the Mercosur

trading bloc) and CityNet are good examplesalso maintain active networks of exchange in

which apex secretariats si demands and problems from among the membership and frame

learning events for cities in their respective domains.

In this class of cases, networks, organized as secretariats with technical staff of various sizes,

are the centers of action. As opposed to passive networks (next section, below) each of the

active organizations has the means, budget, technical information, and staff to foster learning

events that attract cities as members and clients. e main dynamic of learning takes place

in these face to face meetings, in plenaries, parallel groups, and myriad bi-lateral exchanges.

e importance of these groups is that the agenda is broadly agreed and framed to serve the

common interests of cities in relation to higher powers (political issues such as federalism and

fiscal relations) as well as technical and lobbying strategies. e upshot for most members is

to build a common understanding and a solidarity about the role of cities and an agenda for

action at regional and global levels.

ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability is an international associa-

tion of local governments and national and regional local government

organizations that have made a commitment to sustainable development.

More than 475 cities, towns, counties, and their associations worldwidecomprise ICLEIs growing membership. ICLEI works with these and

hundreds of other local governments through international performance-

based, results-oriented campaigns and programs.

We provide technical consulting, training, and information services to

build capacity, share knowledge, and support local government in the

implementation of sustainable development at the local level. Our basic

premise is that locally designed initiatives can provide an effective and

cost-efficient way to achieve local, national, and global sustainability

objectives.

Source: ICLEI website


25/60

25


Type 5. Cities in Passive Networks. Cases of UN Habitat Best Practice and Local Government

Information Network (LOGIN)

In contrast to the active push of network clusters, discussed immediately above, key organi-

zations like LOGIN and UN Habitat Best Practices operate in a more passive mode. ese

groups develop information of interest to members and make it availablefor those who wish

to access itvia electronic or print media oen reinforced by regular meetings. Both organiza-tions offer documentation of best practices, exchange of information and technical knowledge,

along with networking support.

UN Habitat Best Practice is not the only award conferring sponsor of best practice cities, but

it is certainly the best known globally. e structure resembles (and may have been patterned

aer) the Kennedy School of Government Innovations program for cities and counties. e

Best Practices data base features award winners of best practice selected by international jury.

Winners are posted on the data base with brief write ups. ese are widely recognized, if not

actively promoted by international agencies. e data base does offer stimulating ideas in

many experiences, but there is little or no effort to certify or adopt award winning practices as

a standard of excellence and little evidence that these are replicated.

e Local Government Information

Network (LOGIN) is a development part-

nership to increase the flow of useful in-

formation and experience to those people

who develop, enact, implement, and moni-

tor policy local government decision

makers. LOGIN can be characterized ascity network cooperation. LOGINs main

objectives are to promote the professional

development of local government officials

and to build their capacity to make better

policy decisions through large scale, ex-

tensive provision of information. Another

purpose of the program is to strengthen

the capabilities of organizations that sup-

port the reform of public administration in

the framework of decentralization. Finally,

LOGIN aims at facilitating the exchange of

best practices and other policy related information at inter and intra regional level in the area

of local governance.

The Best Practices and Local Leadership Programme (BLP) is a global

network of institutions dedicated to the identification and exchange of

successful solutions for sustainable development.

The BLP partners network identifies initiatives in such areas as housing,

urban development and governance, the environment, economic develop-

ment, social inclusion, crime prevention, poverty reduction, women,

youth, infrastructure and social services

Every two years, up to 10 outstanding initiatives receive the Dubai Inter-

national Award for Best Practices to Improve the Living Environment, a

biennial environmental award established in 1995 by the Municipality of

Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Those initiatives meeting the criteria for a

Best Practice are included in the Best Practices database.. The lessons

learned from selected best practices are analysed and made available t

to other countries, cities or communities. A searchable database contains

over 2150 proven solutions from more than 140 countries to the common

social, economic and environmental problems of an urbanizing world. It

demonstrates the practical ways in which public, private and civil society

sectors are working together to improve governance, eradicate poverty,

provide access to shelter, land and basic services, protect the environ-

ment and support economic development.


26/60

26

Cities on the Rise

Acting as an information clearinghouse for local government decision-makers, LOGIN has

five core activities:

LOGIN assesses information need in the target group;

gathers or produces the information requested;

processes the information e.g. in the form of executive summaries, and controls the

quality of the information;

disseminates the information on the Internet and by traditional means; and

markets the service.

Funding resources originate from local partner contributions, development project and

program funds, as well as from resources from foundations and trust funds. LOGINs major

financial support comes from Steering Committee member organizations: the Open Society

Institute, UNDP, the Council of Europe, USAID and the World Bank. Other donors include

the Danish and the Czech governments. Local partner organizations also contribute to the

program with their own financial resources.

e Committee provides policy guidance and oversight for project implementation. e LOG-

IN Program Manager prepares the agenda and background materials for the meetings, which

take place eight to nine times a year, using a video conference facility. e Steering Committee

makes its decisions by unanimous vote (thus every member has a veto power).

LOGIN represents a unique way to share information and improve the services that are pro-

vided to municipalities. e Network brings together the combined expertise and knowledge

of several leading international organizations that work in the areas of local democracy, profes-

sionalism in public administration, fiscal decentralization, good governance, and economic

development. LOGIN has documented know-how for building a multi-lingual information

network based on the cooperation of national partner organizations in the local government

sector; developed experience in selecting, managing and evaluating national partner organiza-

tions; developed training materials for the operation of the web based site management tool, as

well as for marketing, content development and fund raising.


27/60

27


Observations from CasesFrom this brief survey, we can glean lessons that may have relevance for learning in sustainable

cities. First is the purpose of learning. One key question is whether the city, understood in a

very broad sense, agrees on a problem. e issue of why has sometimes run to a larger question

of reform, structural change, or even survival, and if these are the stakes, is the city cognizant

of the need for learning? If so, how broad is the scope or narrow is the subject of learning?

Second, is the nature of the entity responsible for learning. At a minimum, it is important to

understand whether an entity has been identified for the job, for instance for environmental

planning, for governmental reform, or for economic transformation, and whether the institu-

tional arrangement is formal or informal. Also, the cases bring out the role of leadershipin

a singular or collective formas well as the mandate, formalized and legal or informal and

customary. A key factor is whether a schemea vision, a broad outline, a strategy or a planis

already in hand or needs to be developed. Also important is the extent to which the larger

community, and particularly the private sector, is engaged in the process.

ird is the learning modality or features of learning. In many respects, this is the core area of

concern. By learning style is meant to include whether the city or its agency is active in pursu-

ing knowledge, or passive in receiving from outside sources such as conferences and networks

of best practice. e source of knowledge has taken many forms in the cases. Cities can opt

for a style that generates its own knowledge internally, or seeks knowledge from outside its

domain. e subject has ranged from benchmarking and competitiveness in Types 1 and 2,

to best practices and specific techniques in Types 3, 4, and 5. What balance is struck on this

score, and what are the main subjects of concern in knowledge acquisition (policy, technical,

managerial)? Style includes issues of regularity of learning events, their duration and whether

or not follow up activities are a regular part of the scheme. e size, importance, and degree of

bonding among the core learning group has figured importantly in the cases and in the WBI

evaluations.

Fourth, is whether policies are in place to sustain the learning process and whether these are

backed up by investment in the learning activities, follow ups, complementary exercises, youth

and young leader programs and the like. In other words, are cities conducting their own capac-

ity building?

Fih is the efficiency of learning. Nowhere in the body of experience is there much guidance

on the best way to go about learning.

Each of these aspects is reviewed for the five types of cases. (Note that for convenience, Bilbao

and Seattle are classified in table 4 as Cities and Agencies.) e objective here is to register


28/60

28

Cities on the Rise

what is in common among the types and to identify where important differences lie. is is not

intended to result in the selection of one type over another, but to appreciate the advantages

and contributions of each type of learning and to understand what conditions should be con-

sidered when selecting cities for participation in an urban sustainability program.

Table 4: Features of Learning by Case Type

Feature of

Learning

Type 1 and2

Cities and Agencies

Type 3

Binary pairing

Type 4

Clusters

Type 5

Networks

1. Why Learn

Purpose Crisis, or economic

transformation,

Competitiveness

Specific policy issues,

and best practice tech-

niques

Norms and standards

of practice in class of

issues

(e.g. heritage, reform)

Issues of standard best

practice in municipal

government

Subject and Focus Approaches and strate-

gies, benchmarks, elite

awareness

Improvement in man-

agement, budgeting,

procurement, etc.

Conventions, standards,

techniques within class

of subjects

Varies widely

2. Agency

Mandate Specifically defined, long

term strategy

Contiguous with local

government

Extends or en-hances

typical municipal

mandate

Contiguous with local

government mandate

Leadership

(Individual/

Collective)

Strong collective Strong, less collective Strong, moderately

collective

Moderate and variable

Formal/Informal

Action Plan

Mixed

Yes

Mostly formal

Yes

Formal

Varies

Formal

No

Community

Engagement

Yes Limited Varies Limited

3. LearningModalities

Active/Passive and

Source of Learning

Active

imports and outbound

Active

Imports and outbound

Medium term

Mixed

Mostly imports

Passive

Mostly imports

Regularity

Term

Follow-Up

Regular,

Long term

Yes

Regular,

short term,

No

Varies

Medium term

Varies

Irregular

Short

No

Core Group Size,

Level,

and Bonding

Large,

High

Strong

Moderate, medium to

high,

Medium

Varies,

Moderate,

Medium

Varies,

Varies,

Varies

4. CapacityBuilding

Sustained Policy

Guidance

Substantial Moderate Moderate Little

Investment in Learn-

ing

Substantial Moderate Moderate Little


29/60

29


Why Learn ?

e spectrum of cases reveals an underlying question implied if not explicit in each of the ex-

amples. Cities will learn by accident but they can learn efficiently in deeply transforming ways

if they see a reason to do so. But seeing that reason, and finding a feasible platform that reflects

the common interests of key stakeholders, is an indispensable part of the process. Bilbao is

a good place to start on the question of motive: that citys leadership elite foresaw a pendingcrisis and mobilized broad-based support to take action and avert a crisis. It succeeded.

Seattles motivation was similarly triggered by the recession in 1993 and layoffs by Boeing. But

the purpose of learning among Seattle elites was one of understanding competition. In Bilbao,

the purpose moved also into wholesale retooling of the city. e one-on-one relationships in

City Links, Sister cities International, and other binary exchanges are typified by smaller scale

tactical and managerial issues.

e point is not how big the problem, but how big the motivation. is issue should be central

in the selection of city cases in sustainability pilot program. When purpose is not clear, or mo-

tivation not widely shared, learning at least at the city level does not get started. e first step is

oen identifying a problem. Much of the literature on learning regions and firms starts with an

issue of economic survival, and this can be seen in some cases discussed here as well. On the

other hand, many cases of failure, for instance in the City Links, were traced to the difficulty

or absence of agreement about whether a problem existed in the first place (USAID Program

Evaluation 2001)

Agency and Mandate.

e central actor or agency for learningthe Metropoli-30, the Trade Development Alliance(TDA), the municipality itself (in the case of Sister Cities International, the community based

NGO in the city)four key features emerge: leadership, mandate and focus of actions, plan

and time horizon, and degree of community engagement.

In the case of Types 1 through 4direct agents, binary pairing, one on many, and clustersthe

leading force has been a collection of stakeholders, a small cadre of individuals who share a vi-

sion or commitment to a long term goal. But it is implied that broad based community support

lay behind most of these cases. (Even in the case of Curitiba where a small number of indi-

viduals were identified with that citys success, the leadership changed hands over the years,

but the fundamental direction was sustained by broad based community support reaffirmed

periodically at the ballot box.)

On the other hand, the formality of arrangements was mixed in Type 1 and 2; Seattles group

was organized by a formalized entity (Chamber of Commerce TDA), but the group itself par-

ticipated on an informal basis. e Seattle case demonstrates the construction of a governing


30/60

30

Cities on the Rise

elite, teaching itself the ways of the world by going and looking. In effect, the city has deputized

the TDA to be its scout, and has engaged in shared-values of exploration and bonding to build

a leadership group and loose governance structure. In contrast, Bilbaos Metropoli-30 was

highly organized with staff, budget, responsibilities, and accountabilities. Note that in Curitiba

(Campbell 2006) a strong internal focus and specific organizational arrangements were drawn

up to protect the agency from political manipulation.

City Links, and city networks, both passive and active, functioned merely as municipal

governments and rely on external agents, the UN, USAID, national governments, or regional

confederations such as Metropolis or United Cities and Local Governments. Partly because

of external agency, these cases are either less focused or more difficult to sustain. Precisely

because these larger, external organizations are viable only with economies of scale, there are

perforce less focused on the needs of specific places. Progressively, the active, and in an even

more pronounced way, passive networks, rely on the initiation of cities themselves to access the

benefits of best practice.

However, these passive sources of information, data, and exchange can play an important role

in inspiring new ideas, even for the active Type 1 and 2 cases. A research project at the World

Bank documented the sources of inspiration of innovations, and these were oen an idea or

practice found outside the immediate setting, and oen in international settings (Campbell

and Fuhr, 2004).

Individual or small groups of leaders cannot move far without support from the larger com-

munity. Single leaders do not succeed by themselves. e best efforts, as shown in the learning

city regions and managed networks, are those that consist of a group that sees its own self-in-

terest aligned with the larger interests of the city. But the reverse must also be true. At the same

time, as illustrated by Seattle and Bilbao, without concrete achievements, it is unlikely broad

based community support can be sustained.

Learning Modalities.

At the core of this analysis are the features of learning. e cases illustrate a variety of ways that

cities can learn. e cases listed in Table 3 represent one of the most important dimensions of

learning: the active and passive, that is, cities may gain occasional access to networks whice

passively offer data and knowledge. At the other end of this spectrum are cities that aggres-

sively pursue knowledge and learning in order to achieve specific goals.

One aspect of the learning modalities is the extent to which the city or its agency is expected

to obtain lessons and learning from afar, already packaged and partly digested. Bilbao brought

experience from many quarters to its stakeholders at home. Seattle is singular in the cases

reviewed here in demonstrating a commitment to see best practice in its native habitat. Other


31/60

31


cities not reviewed here, Johannesburg and Barcelona for example, also recruited world class

sources of information for presentation to the home team.

It should be noted that the source of knowledge in virtually all of the cases is overwhelmingly

from other cities. ough many avenues are available to transmit information and experi-

encepolicy seminars, conferences, small group meetingsvirtually all of the official devel-

opment assistance organizations rely on city to city exposure as a key ingredient. Exposure

to new ideas in their native context enriches the Arthur Koestler Aha experience, especially

if this takes place in the company of a core leadership group, as in the case of Seattle. City

Rounds in the World Bank Institute endorse the importance

of observing best practice and knowledge management itself

in the native setting of the practitioner.8 Learning practitio-

ners know that context is everything in the understanding

of relationships.

Regular, long term, sequential and follow up activities have all proved important for the active

cities and are identified as factors of effectiveness in the evaluations of World Bank Institute.

ese features, along with those of engagement, sources of learning, and action planning,

deserve attention in program design for urban sustainability.

Institution BuildingManaging Knowledge

Sharing the learning experience and bonding appear to be important elements in building

institutions. In essence, capacity building of learning in cities is the development of a proto-

culture of shared values, and this requires support to nourish and maintain that shared under-

standing over time. A similar phenomenon takes place in networking among very large groups

of cities in conferences as they come to recognize consensus. For this reason, both individual

and collective modalities of learning are important. Each brings a different contribution, indi-

vidual and collective, to the learning process.

e special purpose agencies also suggest strongly that cities dedicated to learning invest in

policy and in a learning effort, that the effort is sustained over a long period of time, and that

the system of learning extends widely into the community. e dedicated agency cities like

Seattle are running into their second decade of sustained policy support to learn; Bilbao is en-

tering its third, and Curitiba its fih. London, Barcelona, and many others also sustain a long

running process of learning. Financial support is supplied in different ways. Seattle through

pay as you go scheme; Bilbao drew cleverly on EU funds and private donations; London builds

into its own city budget and Barcelona has incurred debt. In each case a strong commitment

is evident.

Cities learn from each other because they understand

and trust each other more than commercial firms that

have something to sell or even international institutions

which are laying conditions on lending.

Bill Stafford, Trade Development Alliance.


32/60

32

Cities on the Rise

Of equal importance is the extent to which the cities have nurtured broad community support

into the learning effort. e Type 1 and 2 cities in this review are clearly engaged in dedicated

institutional capacity building that extends far beyond agency boundaries. Indeed in the

Seattle case, one of the objectives of study tours is to create a permeable layer across jurisdic-

tional, agency, and public private boundaries. e most purposeful of these casesrepresented

in different ways by Bilbao, Seattle, Curitiba, among many othersare cities that are able to

create learning experiences and draw on stored memory in order to bring that knowledge to

bear on present and newly emerging problems.

e evidence from cases suggests that the secret to learning cities lies in the skill in managing a

tension between two opposing, but not necessarily competitive, forces. On the one hand is the

tightness of bonds that need to be developed so that the city, understood in the broader sense

of community of interests, begins to acquire a shared set of values and a coherence of action.

e tighter the network among like minded players, the more likely a coherent response can be

expected to challenges and risks. On the other hand, the city, like individuals and firms, must

also manage a set of loose ties that connects the urban community to outside networks where

new sets of resources, skills, and innovations can be tapped to meet special challenges and

risks. e cases suggest that the learning city is one that holds reins to both sides.

We expect that advanced learning cities will begin to show evidence and skill in managing, or

at least taking part in, broad learning networks where common objectives are observed.

Efficiency of Learning

ough we have ample evidence that cities are eager to learn and actively engaged in it, we

have very little guidance on the efficiency factors in the learning process. e World Bank In-

stitute (WBI) evaluation of capacity building activities provides some hints about effectiveness

that may be useful in interpreting the issues and cases (Quizon et al 2005).

WBI organizes thousands of learning events each year in regional, national, and local fora.

Only about 60 events per year are aimed at officials from municipal governments. Of these,

a small handful (e.g., City Rounds) is organized for specific cities or regions. Most learning

events involve high level policy makers as well as middle level practitioners. Evaluations are

performed regularly. Periodically, in-depth follow up studies are also conducted.

Findings from these reviews indicate that, in general, and not referring specifically to cities or

city groups, the most effective learning in strategic areas and approaches to problems, as in the

case of our Type 1 and 2 cities, above, is when action planning of some kind is performed and

when higher level personnel are involved. Reviews for specific countries reaffirm these points

and also indicate the importance of a series of events and of engaging the client partner in the

design of the events. Finally, the evaluations also indicate the importance of language. More

effective outcomes are obtained when the learning event is held in the language of

the participants.


33/60

33


Hypothetical Sequence of Events: Learning and Exchange in USI (Cities in Nation X)

Year 2Parallel Work Groups,

(National)

Year 3

Team Review of Goals& BenchmarksYear 4Parallel Work Groups,

(National)

Team Formation

Goal Setting

Benchmarking

International

City Tour

Year 1Launch & Visioning

Conference

Work Groups Seminars

(Internantion)

campbell learning cities

Documents