On a night when ideas were flowing freely, the central one was that cities offer promise and possibility. And that was just how the curtain went up on the Provocation Ideas Festival’s talk, CBC Ideas: Shaping Tomorrow’s Cities.
Radio host and journalist Nahlah Ayed welcomed guest speakers Jay Pitter, Robin Mazumder and Greg Lindsay to the stage at Stratford city hall’s auditorium for the discussion about how and what will help shape cities in the future, and the trio of experts spent nearly 90 minutes opining about a wide swatch of topics that all play some part in city building.
Among the themes explored were that cities serve as serendipity engines, that citizens belong to many communities all at once and that a city is not a community because it has to be available to everyone, that there is a human right to the city, and that urban design combined with healthcare helps tend to the basic human needs city dwellers require.
While probing these questions, the central premise of a city’s promise and its ability to live up to that promise kept appearing over and over. Pitter, an author, international placemaker and lecturer who holds a masters in Environmental Studies from York University, spoke after the discussion ended about what kind of calculus a city like Stratford needs to figure out when it comes to plotting their future.
“It should start with an audit of its assets, both places and people, because I think a mistake a lot of cities make is that they look outward too quickly before acknowledging what’s there,” she said. “The first step is that internal audit of its people and its wonderful places and then thinking about how do we build on that? How do we optimize what we already have, so I think that’s key. A second thing I think it key is thinking about the kind of infrastructure is in place to welcome new demographics. Not only physical infrastructure but social infrastructure to make sure that when new people come that they are properly welcomed with tangible things that people need to thrive in a city. But also with the types of social supports and sense of belonging that people require to really make a home in a city, and I’m not sure if this is the case for Stratford, but a lot of cities like this are facing out-migration of youth – they go away for school and career opportunities, so I think a lot of cities like Stratford across Canada need to think about calling the young people back home.”
Youth played a large role in Pitter’s responses, saying they need to be a valued part of any conversation about the future.
“Consulting with young people is important because people always say that they’re the future yet rarely centre them in terms of consulting with them to find out what their vision of the future is and what they need to thrive in place moving forward,” she said.
Returning to the idea of a city’s promise and possibility for all who live there, Pitter acknowledged that the primary challenge in that concept is accepting the fact that promise can mean different things to different groups of people and finding a way to collectively deliver on that promise can be problematic.
“I think that while there’s diversity in terms of responses to that question, I think that in the work that I do I find that there are some core and fundamental truths or fundamental answers to that promise and I shared some of those things tonight,” she said. “Freedom of expression, freedom of movement, abilities to connect, the ability to belong to many communities and not be just a singular identity. I have asked this question across more than 25 cities and these emerge as common themes, but of course every city is distinct and depending on where that city is at in terms of its own historical and cultural evolution, you’ll get more specific answers, and I think it’s really important to listen. I think that even asking the question is a powerful thing to do.”
Mayor Martin Ritsma was in attendance for the discussion and seized on the idea of engaging the public in this discussion. But he also pointed out that Stratford has already incorporated a number of ideas mentioned during the panel discussion, primarily capitalizing on open communal spaces.
“I think of the times when people were fearful of creating open spaces when we took the buses out of this area behind city hall to create Market Square, how some stores told me that move was going to bankrupt them and destroy them because the buses weren’t stopping here any more,” he said. “I don’t think we can be afraid of embracing public spaces and bracing opportunities for people to connect.”
Given how much the demographic face of the city has changed in the last 20-30 years and how it will continue to morph in the future, Ritsma was asked to consider how the promise of a city can mean different things to those faces. He harkened back to the city’s past and how native Canadians had their own idea of what their home meant and how it has constantly changed with the march of time.
“Our indigenous people had a thought and a dream of what was going to be in this land for them, as did the earliest settlers and the first black merchant that came with his family to be here,” he said. “And saying this is the promised land is something that applies to my parents when they came as newcomers. That’s why I intentionally do things like a mayor’s newcomers breakfast so I can engage with them and, most importantly, that they believe and know their value. If you can build that trust and belief, then they’re going to be more willing to take a risk in our society – they’ll start their own little shop or something like that. I’ve met so many individuals that their first place they opened was at the Stratford Farmer’s Market. I see them and they’re going, ‘we did it.’.”
The Provocation Ideas Festival continues on November 30 with two more events.
