I would wager I am one of few or possibly the only person blogging about the Brookings Institution and Greater Ohio’s movement building event. They hosted the Restoring our Prosperity Policy Summit yesterday (Sept 10, 2008) in Columbus. I think it would be unfortunate if I were to be the only person to blog about this event. The event is important for the following reasons:
- Attendee estimates were at 1000. For a smart growth summit in Columbus Ohio this is tremendous. 1000 people are concerned about developing Ohio’s core urban regions. Truly tremendous.
- Brookings partnered with Greater Ohio to not only bring all these folks together but to also put forward a smart growth plan they call “Restoring Prosperity”.
The lack of technology integrated into the Summit is a bit of a concern. I only heard technology mentioned in the form of questions to the speakers. Technology was not defined as integral to the plan during Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institution’s presentation (which was very well presented and received). Technology training nor distance education was mentioned during the Human Capital break out I attended. I do not know if broadband was mentioned during the Infrastructure breakout.
In the full group sessions, I can tell you it was not. Technology was barely evident in the room. I saw few laptops out, the presentation was being video recorded but the break outs were being audio taped onto cassette decks for the purposes of being transcribed. I talked to the AV guy and he said the audio cassette recording equipment is more expensive than digital recording equipment. Since the sessions were not digitally recorded I would assume there will be no podcasts made available. Bruce Katz’s verbal remarks are available in text format via the Greater Ohio conference page and I am told all powerpoints from the breakouts will be available by the end of the week but Bruce's powerpoint will not because it was crafted with non-web friendly software. Bruce Katz hit 1000 people with his message yesterday. The internet provides him with an opportunity to reach even more. His slides were very helpful to his verbal (ie, what you can read via text) presentation. The movement could be aided by easy access to his supporting visuals. Update to blog post 9/11/08 4:22 p.m. - Turns out they were able to save Katz's slide presentation in a format that could be posted. His slides are now available via pdf. Below is slide 25.
Here is why the tech being used by the summit organizers is important to the issue of saving our cities:
-- If nobody involved in the project on the Greater Ohio side or the Brookings side recognizes the value of providing access to data and information electronically and to possibly even engage interested individuals electronically, it is reasonable to be concerned they may not recognize the need to include technical innovation during their work to revitalize our cities. --
On a positive note regarding the tech, I was supremely impressed to see Al Ratner of Forest City Enterprises read a quote from his pda. ☺
Tech aside, I do view this event as momentous. (Which is why I would bother with pressing for the inclusion of technology in the discussion). Bruce Katz provided us with full evidence of why OUR cities are so important to the health of OUR state. He broke it down into four bite size chunks for us. Innovation, human capital, infrastructure and quality places. And do read his remarks. They are well defined.
The Greater Ohio website does provide a full download of a report “Restoring Prosperity: The State Role in Revitalizing Ohio’s Core Communities”. If you do not have time to read the full 42 page document, run it through Lumifi’s Analysis. Create a free account, download the paper into Papers inside My Library. Double cick on the downloaded paper to have it anlayzed. I would imagine the folks at Greater Ohio would prefer you read the whole doc but reading the equivalent of cliff notes of this important document is preferable to not reading it at all. (Disclosure for those not familiar with my bio – I am the VP of Business development for Lumifi).
After Bruce Katz’s presentation we heard multiple folks, a good deal of them elected or appointed civic leaders give us their impression of the situation in Ohio. We heard a lot of “glass half full” statements. None of them used visuals. By the time we heard the governor (the 8th individual to give his 2 cents), it was getting a bit difficult to stay focused. The most engaging elected official during the morning session was Jay Williams, the Mayor of Youngstown. He said the report absolutely got it right and that our greatest challenge will be the status quo. He asked how do we move this forward?
Mayor Williams provided superb real examples of how state policy is dividing his metro area rather than bringing it together. He explained how when the state route that runs between the city and multiple suburbs got repaved, the construction stopped at the city line. The state only paved outside the city. He explained how citizens use this street to go between the suburbs and the city and how the line does not make sense in today’s world where those who live in the suburbs often come to the city to work or play. He said only having the nice smoth street outside the city limits exacerbates the problem of Youngstown being viewed as a declining urban core.
The afternoon held breakout sessions and a final plenary discussion. I attended the Human Capital break out session where the message of needing to train and educate our state’s current uneducated adult population was made very clear. Each speaker mentioned the need for an educated workforce and many provided statistics as to why it was important for us to educate the uneducated adults now, not just the children. They also had stats on how difficult this is. 2/3 of all jobs in 2014 will require a college degree. If an individual is coming from the lowest income quartile, that person has an 8% chance of acquiring a college education. I asked the speakers if any were working with existing community technology centers? Only one on the panel knew what a community technology center is. I encouraged them to work with community technology centers considering Ohio’s unique history of community technology and that the centers were already teaching undereducated adults how to use a computer.
About half the attendees headed out after the break out session. This is unfortunate because the final plenary was the best full group panel of the day. They were given a great question – How do we implement the recommendations we heard today? Is it mission impossible? They had specific ideas, they were realistic that it will not be easy. They referred to challenges currently being faced. Nice discussion.
Nancy Zimpher, the President of the University of Cincinnati stated the need to coordinate capacity. She recommended the state create an asset map.
Jon Husted, the Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives told us we need to change the way we think. He also told us that it will be not hard to make positive changes when so much is screwed up. 20% of worst performing counties. 4th slowest growing state in population. Speaker Husted’s focus was on population. He rebuffs the idea of only inviting the educated creative class to move to Ohio. He flat out stated we need immigration – which he defines as anybody who does not live in Ohio. He asked “How many of us would not be here if our parents had to be educated to get into the country?” The crowd laughed. I laughed. I know it includes me.
The last speaker was David Berger, the Mayor of Lima. Lima is my hometown and it has been through some very tough times. Mayor Berger spoke like someone who has been fighting the fight and has been frustrated by state policy. He said we need agenda we can get our arms around. He is a proponent of rail. He asked for a state discussion on crime. He said the report put forward by Greater Ohio and Brookings must be a tool. He told us that regions in other states that have been successful at revitalizing their urban regions have taught us we need state policy first. He emphatically stated the power of the status quo is enormous because those who are doing well under current rules of the game like the status quo and will do what they can to protect it.
Lavea Brachman ended the summit by telling us all that Greater Ohio would be coordinating regional planning groups. I suspect the 500 people who had already left would have loved to hear that. It speaks to the “how do we move forward” issue that was being repeated by speakers and attendees alike.
Ohio is MY state. I want to see Ohio prosper by strengthening our cities. And this event shows there are a 1000 Ohioans who want the same.
