COVID 1000 and Beyond: Making Better Communities

Full Panel
Transcript

Note to readers: This video session was transcribed using auto-transcribing software.  Questions or concerns with the transcription can be directed to events@canurb.org with “transcription” in the subject line.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:02:04
Sorry I hope you’re gonna hang with me, while we move to the next session, which is all about making better communities and we’re really glad.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:02:12
And fortunate to have 2 folks come back on who delivered leadership lectures to see you.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:02:16
I in during the Pandemic, in 2,020 and in 2,021 Dan Helen, Rosan Hagery and Dan Hill is going to win the Award for the most Devoted Canadian Urban institute Guest, because it is 7 in the morning there, I think

[Dan Hill] 14:02:32
6, 6,

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:02:34
Dan excuse me even worse. It’s 6 Am for Dan, who, when he spoke with us, was in Northern Europe, and now he’s living in Australia, so Dan, thank you so much for coming back and joining us in Rosanne I’m, assuming are you in Concord where are you you great New

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:02:47
I am in new Hampshire. Yeah, no, no, no special prizes for me.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:02:50
Hampshire. No, you will the only that you continue to be on the vanguard of the issues that are so important to us so I’m, not sure, which of the 2 of you want to go do you want to do age, before beauty, to we want to do we want to salute the the and this the effort that Dan.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:03:03
Is weighed to get out of bed, and go for Dan first or rose in

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:03:06
Okay, I think Dan deserves the first lot. Here.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:03:10
Thanks.

[Dan Hill] 14:03:11
And that might be a place in chat, because, you know, I just woke up.

[Dan Hill] 14:03:14
So I mean who knows what I’ll say

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:03:15
Sorry Zara, and I will sit in the background, and very happy to have you folks with us for the next 3 min, to just give us a sense of what you think lessons are from the last 1,000 days and going forward what’s the Covid Dividend.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:03:27
So over to you first, Dan, thanks for joining us again

[Dan Hill] 14:03:28
Oh, total pleasure and Thanks for inviting me and yeah, no.

[Dan Hill] 14:03:34
It’s actually great to be here, and the what I was reflecting on actually was that I as I woke up at 4 45 in the morning, and and then and then got on my Bike actually I then cycle, into work, so I’m not sitting here, in the University of Melbourne where I Work

[Dan Hill] 14:03:48
in the Melbourne School of Design I’m probably the only person in the building.

[Dan Hill] 14:03:50
I imagine maybe there’s a cleaner in here as well. Either.

[Dan Hill] 14:03:53
So some stuff outside, the door, There, and I was cycling through it’s about 10 Kilometers on my bike, and it’s an ebay.

[Dan Hill] 14:04:01
So it’s like a pedal assist ebike, which I think is much magical thing, is one of the best things to come out of the last 1,000 days what it’s worth actually is the huge upsicking those things was that the streets, were Completely empty the Roads are empty it was

[Dan Hill] 14:04:13
Just me, it was it was dark, but quiet. It was kind of beautiful, actually I could hear the birds singing.

[Dan Hill] 14:04:20
I was listening to audio books, but there’s no one else, around and it kind of struck me how eerie it was, and it reminded me of those First Days of Covid when I was in Stockholm at the time and similarly obviously the Streets were quiet and people are Kind

[Dan Hill] 14:04:35
of groping around in the dark as well, Kind of literally and metaphorically, and those in a strangely magical moment, and an awful moment at the same time, and it was very hard for us, all to Process obviously what was going on there because it was Fearful and Distressing and People, were Dying

[Dan Hill] 14:04:52
as possible Scenario, but at the same time there was cool, so this understanding of there was a moment of discovering another world in the places that we lived and I was very Visceral and Confusing and Magical, as I said and There’s some Immense Benefit, came from that

[Dan Hill] 14:05:13
it seems to me as well as the Horrific Dis benefits, and the things that people are struggling with so it’s very hard to talk about as you know, because it was one of the worst things you could imagine happening.

[Dan Hill] 14:05:23
A global, pandemic, and at the same time, people were kind of rediscovering, their neighborhoods.

[Dan Hill] 14:05:28
And there was a lot of talk early on in those days of discovering, community resilience reaching out to Neighbors, Understanding, the Rich Biodiversity, the Urban areas Host the Possibility of Streets, Without Traffic, the Possibility of a City that Wasn’t Predicated on

[Dan Hill] 14:05:48
Consumption purely, but you know the cities are more than just.

[Dan Hill] 14:05:50
The Cbd, the central business District was something else, possibly and people were kind of stumbling around and There’s Amazing Footage from those times.

[Dan Hill] 14:06:00
As you know, so to get to my point. I guess I would.

[Dan Hill] 14:06:03
At the time I I wrote relentlessly about that and spoke I probably did like 30 talks, Mary, or one of them was with you guys and talking about those so that we should not lose this moment and to be careful about the urgency, the urgences that will come on us to Kind of build

[Dan Hill] 14:06:20
back, and sometimes that would go build back better which look in the Uk where I’m from that was the mantra, from the government, at the time, but it’s felt a little bit empty if I can say that well, meaning often but at the same time, it was kind of like a chlorine, back of

[Dan Hill] 14:06:34
what was that before I was very worried about that, seeing that happen after floods and bush fires and things.

[Dan Hill] 14:06:42
You know you get the same instinct to go backwards rather than forwards.

[Dan Hill] 14:06:46
And so just to kind of leave it, and I’d love to hear Rosam’s point here what I was then talking about was the possibility of Neighborhoods that were places, that not just people went to sleep in and then kind of got Back Onto the Commute the Day after and then back into the Cbd and then

[Dan Hill] 14:07:01
Back, into the neighborhood and to sleep in and then back into the cvd.

[Dan Hill] 14:07:05
You know just, the relentless monocity of that which people had always said was the least favorite activity, any kind.

[Dan Hill] 14:07:12
You know Daniel, Kahneman’s Work and Others, for Decades of churn, that commuting to Work is the least favorite thing that humans do of all human Things, in Any of those Surveys, which is Kind of Horrifying, so then We’ve heard this Moment now then coming

[Dan Hill] 14:07:28
Back and now of course the agency is to pull people back into offices and to get people back to the work quite often.

[Dan Hill] 14:07:33
But there’s a strong resistance against that I don’t mean like a resistance in any kind of organized way.

[Dan Hill] 14:07:38
Necessarily. It’s just. There’s a there’s a possibility of that.

[Dan Hill] 14:07:41
People have discovered that maybe the central business district, could be the central, question, mark district, or something else, centralized district, central, cultural district these are things that are beginning to emerge in a central community district, Down town, has a meaning because downtown is a big visceral vibrant most dense place

[Dan Hill] 14:07:57
Usually in particular kind of urban environment, but it’s not necessarily dominated by that same rhythm of you know, 9 to 5 Monday, to Friday, Shopping and working offices are still in Melbourne, here, half Empty most of the time, and I think that’s a very positive

[Dan Hill] 14:08:12
thing, because it kind of shows as a latent compet potential in the other half shops are running well below what they were before.

[Dan Hill] 14:08:20
I think that’s immensely a positive thing, because it makes more space, for a more diverse city center, full of all kinds of things.

[Dan Hill] 14:08:27
And then the Corollary, as I said, is this idea of a much richer kind of patent city.

[Dan Hill] 14:08:32
You know, like a polka dot city of multiple neighborhoods, all of which has living, and working, and playing, and producing going on in them all the time, so so there’s that moment that a bunch of us imagined, I suppose many people then Felt Viscerally I know We’ve, lost some of that moment, because

[Dan Hill] 14:08:47
You, do. You have to move on psychologically, if nothing else.

[Dan Hill] 14:08:50
But I’d like to kind of just sort of remember that moment again, with all the Ju sensitivity that it requires because again people were dying but just to to speak about the possibility of streaming not dominated by suvs, of central Business, Districts, not Dominated by the B in

[Dan Hill] 14:09:09
Cbd, but many other things of possibility, of birds on Defining, the Audio, and The Surrounding Environment, not Suvs are Gonna come back to us, so so so that’s what I just found on the Way, in and so I’d, like to kind, of Pop Posit, that applause, it, or let

[Dan Hill] 14:09:29
Hang that experience in the air, not to say that it’s a design or a solution, or a strategy, but it’s a as a kind of personal visceral understanding of that and that’s that’s, what i feel right now

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:09:34
Sure. It’s interesting, you know, we our opening session was about making better choices around transit and Benjamin Dilapena was joining us.

[Dan Hill] 14:09:43
Hmm. Alright, I know you

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:09:45
Who you guys both know. And he and he raised a point.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:09:49
He said that the he’s very concerned about Suvs and the new electric Suv, that is 30% heavier, then the previous Suv, so it’s Ghg admitted, you know it’s Impact and It’s Making Roads not safe and It’s putting More people Back into Cart You

[Dan Hill] 14:09:56
Yeah

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:10:03
Know etc., etc. So the the statement that you just suggested and this notion of commute, that the thing that the factor that maybe the biggest Factor keeping people from coming back into offices.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:10:15
Is that they don’t want to do the commute.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:10:17
Hmm.

[Dan Hill] 14:10:18
Yeah

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:10:19
We just failed. We didn’t. Build we didn’t build complete communities on the first place, right

[Dan Hill] 14:10:23
Oh, I think so I mean, I seen that, like 45 min a day on average in Australia, you know sorry at least well, at least an hour, actually 45 min, each way, and then I guess it’s or for Canada so it’s an hour, and a half in it per day back in

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:10:30
Yeah, same here, same here.

[Dan Hill] 14:10:36
People’s diaries, and that’s an extraordinary amount of Time per Week, which can which is opened up possibilities.

[Dan Hill] 14:10:41
A better child care, but a you know better gardening better engagement.

[Dan Hill] 14:10:45
But whatever you want to do with that time or more work is also fine.

[Dan Hill] 14:10:49
Just like depends on the work. But that possibility that I suppose the last thing I’d say, and I will shut up is that there’s a sense of kind of a Wrapping together society in a different way where we were talking about citizens not Consumers and that’s there was a lot of that

[Dan Hill] 14:11:04
Kind of richness emerging from that time, and and we we’ve managed to keep that I think, to some degree I mean He’s Serving, some of the Projects I was involved in in sweden were very predicated on citizens Not consumers, and then moving here to Australia they caught the back end

[Dan Hill] 14:11:19
Of your previous session, the First nations perspective in Australia is this I’m going to share with Canada, is immensely strong and has been getting strong through that time as well, and Unrelated to Covid.

[Dan Hill] 14:11:32
I think, but in the same way that it’s a similar movement around Relationships, around, recognition of how much deeper set of understandings of place and people, and Environments, an injustice there which needs to be Corrected and Rectified but at the core of that sense that people are part of their

[Dan Hill] 14:11:52
Environment, part of nature, and they are not consumers in that sense.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:11:56
Right.

[Dan Hill] 14:11:58
And that very different shift that was possible then is possible.

[Dan Hill] 14:12:02
Now something’s happened to them, which were amazing and continuing.

[Dan Hill] 14:12:05
Some things have stopped because of the desire to build back, and so we’re we’re in the mail, strum of all of that Storm. After the Storm.

[Dan Hill] 14:12:09
I still think it’s a quiet storm now, but it’s still raging that question

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:12:12
It’s still, it’s still we’re still in the mess.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:12:15
But at Rosan let’s go to you next and then Zar will come in with some questions for both of you go Ahead Roseanne, I know, you have

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:12:21
I do and I’ll I’ll pull ask you to pull it up in a minute.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:12:24
But just so appreciated Dan’s observations, and I’ll just come out the question from the point of view of the work that we do which is helping communities across the Us and Supporting A similar Set of Communities.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:12:36
In Canada, and Australia, on moving toward what we Call functional 0 homelessness.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:12:41
And this idea, that homelessness, if it’s approached as a public health problem, collectively with shared aims that that’s where you begin to move through what has been a problem I think characterized by lots of technical solutions and good intentions that really don’t add up to

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:13:00
A shared result. And in so many ways it might take away and I, think the the theme of the conversation.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:13:09
Here is the power of urgency. And yeah, with certainly acknowledging dan’s caution, that you know, like misused, yeah, like the Urgency like in a hurry to get back to something is not what I’m talking about but the way.

[Dan Hill] 14:13:23
Hmm.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:13:25
In which the atmosphere of urgency, released Us.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:13:31
From Rules, and hierarchies, and made it possible to organize around, clear shared aims that more people experienced, a sense of agency around what their own role in the crisis could be in their response to it and and and and ways, that we’re just very you know affirming for what

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:13:54
We had been learning through our work, and certainly reinforced and sort of accelerated, a sense of how these complex problems actually can be faced and shifted yep really beginning with what that shared AIM is you know in time time of covid you know keep people safe stop

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:14:16
The course of disease. Get to vaccines. You know, build a delivery mechanism.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:14:23
Well, we saw. Yeah, and we’ve seen for many years, and increasingly, that if you approach issues like homelessness with that same sense of urgency, that that that is really preconditioned for any kind of movement path stasis and so we had seen prior to Covid and now

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:14:44
Reinforced. You know, in the last few years that you need a nimble team.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:14:51
You need. Basically, you know, government not-for-profits, citizens.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:14:56
Anyone who can contribute reallyly, lining up behind the shared, AIM with a shared sense of what progress looks like, and how that will be measured that also?

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:15:05
Requires having kind of a shared truth. You know data That’s trustworthy, not not simply quantitative but qualitative.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:15:11
But that’s co-created, and therefore trusted that there it’s it’s vital to be making decisions based on on that information, not on some you know, kind of pre baked plan, but as the as the issue, is Unfolding, in real time, the the value, of of communication networks so that

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:15:34
You’re not. Yeah. Yeah have every city trying to solve a problem in its own unique way.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:15:39
But also learning, actively, and and and simultaneously from others, and those insights that we’d had in our Work, on Homelessness, just seemed to be reinforced crystallized and so applicable to so many of the problems that you know as Dan was saying you know just

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:15:57
Really we’re were exposed in a new way, you know, problems that we have I I ignored or just seemed at to to treat as just inevitable, you know how we how we think about cities how we think, about neighborhoods, how we think about

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:16:15
Consumerism. How we think about our relationship to land and tradition and culture.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:16:21
And so this atmosphere of urgency.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:16:25
Yeah, how do we retain its power is something I think about.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:16:29
And yeah, a couple, you know, specific, you know, kind of pieces of that I would say, is, how might we hold on to the insight that you need policy to move at the speed of the problem, you know to be so much more dynamic and also I don’t think it’s just in the

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:16:53
United States and Canada like money showed, up, yeah, like, yeah, our our government’s you know, put huge investments out into conditions, that, yeah, frankly, yeah existed before yeah, the the the the Pandemic, yeah, people, Living in Unstable and Vulnerable Housing Conditions, and trying to short that basically, A,

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:17:15
Lot, of problems that we’ve just been struggling with for a long time, all of a sudden We’re sort, of recognized as as the emergency.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:17:21
They are, and you know governments, down money to address them not necessarily as effectively, as they might. But I think that just kind of got exposed. If we value something we find the money to do it and so just stop there

[Zahra Ebrahim (she/they)] 14:17:38
You know it’s funny

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:17:39
You want to show your side brazen

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:17:40
Yeah, we can put up the slide, because it basically just sort of captures.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:17:44
These, these elements, that we had been seeing we’re essential to put in place in communities, dent homelessness and but we were coming to see, is like these were the same things communities were doing, and needed to be doing and have in place to have a you know, an effective response.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:17:51
Okay.

[Zahra Ebrahim (she/they)] 14:17:52
I just jump in very really.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:18:02
To, not just Covid, but the the whole host of things, produced as as urgent challenges by Covid,

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:18:10
Yeah

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:18:11
And and yeah, that this idea organizing behind a shared AIM like that’s that’s sort of a definition of effective collaboration.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:18:18
But this idea of not having a you know, a 1,000 flowers bloom.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:18:23
But you know, how do we actually organize efforts and service of that AIM and in communication with each other, and so so pivotal to that is having kind of a shared shared sense of truth, the feedback loop what that involves Trusted data that has been co-produced

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:18:42
And then just resources that can be flexible and matched to an emerging set of situations.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:18:50
And this notion, of how do we learn quickly from each other, about what what’s working, and not not be responding in isolation to an issue that in many ways is a shared event, though with its important local, characteristics.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:19:10
I, mean I’m, just looking at your graph, there, you’re, and I’d love to just adapt this and add a few other things the horizontal networks, of learning that’s, the business that cuisine and you know, the Pandemic pushed Us into getting those

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:19:22
platforms up so that cities could I and city builders could hear what each other was doing.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:19:26
The idea that we will, you know that we will learn more quickly.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:19:29
If we can hear we tried this it didn’t work.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:19:31
Or we did we tried something else. I’m great. I think we can. Take. I think we’ll take the slide, down, yeah, Zara okay, there, we go go ahead. Sarah

[Zahra Ebrahim (she/they)] 14:19:37
Just actually on that piece right, that that piece you have her and the shared measurable AIM.

[Zahra Ebrahim (she/they)] 14:19:43
So I furiously pulled up my notes from when Dan, and I did the leadership talk.

[Zahra Ebrahim (she/they)] 14:19:47
Whenever it was and one of the first notes I had down dan, from from your comments, was We level power by building a shared language, and so then I saw your I saw your sort of your Piece and building, the shared measurable AIM I’m just a little bit more curious to Scratch.

[Dan Hill] 14:19:54
Hmm.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:19:57
Yeah

[Zahra Ebrahim (she/they)] 14:20:02
below the surface that’s the battle right is getting folks aligned and focused against a singular goal and that singular goal being, the collective good, and so so just wanting to hear a few more stories around like where did you see that happen or come close to happening.

[Dan Hill] 14:20:09
Hmm.

[Zahra Ebrahim (she/they)] 14:20:19
Cause that band across the top of your graph is is arguably the hardest part

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:20:23
The artist, and the most it is it is the highest, leverage, yeah, yeah, I think thing that a community can do.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:20:31
Yeah, my yeah, my work is is about homelessness. And so I can speak most confidently.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:20:37
In terms of storytelling from that space. But you know the the the job of ending homelessness really has to be about having yeah, a sense of what is, the point of all of our work.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:20:50
And It’s interesting We earlier this year, had teamed up with the Menino Survey, which is produced annually by Boston Universities.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:20:59
Institute, of Cities, and we’re able to incorporate a number of questions on homelessness that went into the survey, that I Think it’s about a 100 and 35 Mayors, of Cities, over 75,000 very careful Representative Sampling and It’s a

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:21:18
It’s a a conversation. Yeah, it’s not just you have to let us.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:21:21
And I thought the most valuable insight from yeah, that the whole exercise was the question like, what should be our goal?

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:21:28
What does success look like, and I’d say just about every mayor flank that question.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:21:34
We had responses from like a fewer citizen complaints to services to just like question mark long pauses, and so if you don’t know what you know it’s all supposed to add up to yeah, then that that’s maybe one definition, of a broken system and so starting with the shared.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:21:37
Yeah

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:21:53
AIM, which is fewer people experiencing homelessness and a measure of what an end state looks like what that that we have evolved with the the communities, we work with to Define as the functional, 0 which basically is measurable, place at which a community is is able to stay ahead of the

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:22:12
Problem it doesn’t mean that no one will ever experience homelessness again, but that 99% of your energy is going into prevention.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:22:18
To Rapid detection of new crises, and to rapid and appropriate and sustainable resolution.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:22:28
And it’s basically it. Yeah, it it’s kind of the way, most efforts, you know, in global health or think about aviation.

[Zahra Ebrahim (she/they)] 14:22:29
Hmm.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:22:38
Or vision, 0, and traffic safety, that you basically start with a commitment to solve the problem, all the way through and learn your way.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:22:47
There, but you need to have a common destination that has to.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:22:50
I think, yeah, we’ll be measurable. And that just strike everyone who needs to you, know, collaborate, you know the folks who hold the significant rules and Resources and and and information and a place around an issue.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:23:06
To, really, yeah, just constantly be coming back to that challenge of you.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:23:10
Know, kind of a population level solution, and that that that shared AIM.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:23:16
You can imagine in in any space starting there, but with the intention of solving something all the way through and learning rather than you know, competing ideologies, or or Yeah, or theories of change.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:23:28
I think that that’s one of the things that we found in our work is powerful.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:23:33
But it’s not simple to get there, because it’s very

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:23:37
And I can. I can I push back on the rejection of a 1,000 flowers blooming.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:23:43
I Here’s my concern, Dan I’m wondering if you And Roseanne would respond to it this notion of a shared measurable goal to me might be a bar that a lot of communities can’t Easily they Don’t have the data and they may not have the consensus

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:23:58
So I’m interested it during Covid. I think we saw people improvising a lot.

[Zahra Ebrahim (she/they)] 14:24:03
Okay.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:24:04
And I and I I worry a little bit about that I know how important it is.

[Dan Hill] 14:24:05
Yeah.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:24:08
To have the kinds of systems you’re talking about Rosanne, but I don’t want to immobileize people if they don’t have the capacity.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:24:13
Yeah, but I mean, I think you want as much innovation as as as you as can occur.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:24:20
But in the context of like, do, we agree, like what we’re trying to achieve overall.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:24:25
But, Dan, I’ve been hugging some of the Conversation.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:24:26
Okay.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:24:28
Why don’t you jump in here

[Dan Hill] 14:24:29
Oh, no, it’s fascinating, resentment and it’s so interesting that thank you, and it it does resonate a lot.

[Dan Hill] 14:24:36
I think as Zara is saying with what I was pretty talking about the last time I was on when I was working in the Swedish government.

[Dan Hill] 14:24:41
We were doing mission Oriented Innovation, following their kind of logic with Marianna Mccarthy, my colleague at Ucl but sort of trying to pull it, down to the ground Marianna’s Work is at this Sort of Micro Economic Level, and then National Government Policy, and I was

[Dan Hill] 14:24:56
Working in the national government. But we said to make to get to share measurable aims we need to move away from the sort of abstraction that covers at that level and pull it down to the ground actually like literally our project was about streets and another one about school food, and in the

[Dan Hill] 14:25:13
Swedish context of course, but like with a street, I find it a lot easier to start getting down to the Nitty Gritty of So Let’s talk about the Street as a place that kids, can play safely in it for instance, you know and it’s it’s actually quite hard to get

[Dan Hill] 14:25:27
People disagreeing about that kind of thing, like who doesn’t?

[Dan Hill] 14:25:30
Who’s gonna already go against the idea that we have healthy kids playing right?

[Dan Hill] 14:25:35
It’s like it’s very, very hard. Some people do, of course, try but when you say you’re pulling it down to the level.

[Dan Hill] 14:25:40
Do we want to make the air here, cleaner or less clean you know that we don’t. Do.

[Dan Hill] 14:25:45
We want fit, a ha healthier, people or less fit unhealthy, unhappy people, like you know you, you can really pull it down to that level, because it’s like this tree, then we set up a series of experiments, going so it comes back to the improvising Mary was talking about this we started this pre covid to

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:25:51
Right.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:25:52
Yeah, okay.

[Dan Hill] 14:26:03
Be clear. I don’t think Covid helped or Hind this anyway, in this mission, it happens to look like on the ground a lot of the Street type Parklet type, stuff that was happening but we had the National Government, the Regional, Governments, Municipal Governments, Volvo Cars, Numerous

[Dan Hill] 14:26:19
Consumer, groups, citizen, groups, all kinds of people involved in this mission so Shed End, Goal, right.

[Dan Hill] 14:26:25
Every street in Sweden should be healthy, sustainable, and full of life again, hard, to disagree with Who’s gonna who’s gonna love you for unhealthy streets at this point in sweden who’s Going, to lobby for unsustainable actually Evening

[Dan Hill] 14:26:38
Wherever most people don’t lobby, for unsustainable.

[Dan Hill] 14:26:41
They just don’t talk about it, all. They act differently to what they say but we could then be very clear about that you know they can get it right.

[Dan Hill] 14:26:49
Down to well, this, is okay, but we’ve made more parking space than living space.

[Dan Hill] 14:26:53
You know, for people, that these things are these are data points we can pull out and talk about and we did have stand-up rows in the streets, with people talking about why the street and even going this way. But it was also super clear once we started doing that in a participative way from the ground up we

[Dan Hill] 14:27:07
had school kids redesigning the streets and then building them out.

[Dan Hill] 14:27:11
The in Debt very granular levels. We found, you know, 75% of Google Ratings for taking parking space, away, which is kind of unheard, of you, sort of 400% increase in activity on the streets and you could start tracking or any number of Indices you wanted whether it’s

[Zahra Ebrahim (she/they)] 14:27:20
And

[Dan Hill] 14:27:27
again increase in birds, on what decrease, in traffic, deaths, or whatever it might be, actually increase in retail.

[Dan Hill] 14:27:32
You know whatever it, all of those things they come down to all with exactly the same interventions, every time, so we didn’t start with interventions.

[Dan Hill] 14:27:40
We didn’t say is going to be like more bikes and fewer cars, I know again it is in the end.

[Dan Hill] 14:27:44
But, like you know we installed with that we said, the goal, is these healthy, sustainable vibrant, streets and again, hard to disagree with same with school food, you want school for it to be healthy, and or sustainable and tasty, or not tasty

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:28:00
Right.

[Dan Hill] 14:28:00
Unhealthy, big, shared a position that relatively abstract but color around a real thing, that you can then do, experiments with all of those experiments, got a 1 million, different metrics, in them, but we never really led with those you just use them, for tracking afterwards actually they’re like the

[Dan Hill] 14:28:14
Vapor, trail of learning that you that follows the project, but then it’s you know, can you build these things as vehicles for asking questions in public fold, the participation into that is the reality of politics, on the ground massive, national mission at the same time you know that’s the

[Dan Hill] 14:28:31
Balancing act. Every street is exactly the same and every street is completely different.

[Dan Hill] 14:28:36
So let’s dig into like what’s, different about this one and what’s, the same about this one. And it should do that street Street. It’s like that’s what it comes down so I think and that isn’t add democracy policy, making works, but that’s kind of probably how it should work.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:28:42
Is it

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:28:46
It’s interesting the unit. You’ve just zeroed in on the street.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:28:48
This idea that we have to take it to the granulary.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:28:51
We’ve only got a few minutes left, and then we’re going to go to our rap session.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:28:55
Sarah, did you want to jump in with a question, or something else

[Zahra Ebrahim (she/they)] 14:28:55
Yeah and I have many questions. But the thing that I’ve, been trying to grapple with this whole conversation, is this tension between urgency like, we had this urgency and the urgency was fostering us to slow down our cognition and challenge all of our defaults, right it was urgent that

[Zahra Ebrahim (she/they)] 14:29:09
We rethink how we do everything and so and that’s you know.

[Zahra Ebrahim (she/they)] 14:29:14
That’s where great innovation comes from right. When we slow down our cognition and go, why do we do it this way, right.

[Zahra Ebrahim (she/they)] 14:29:18
Is it just is the rule, or is it just convention with doing things.

[Zahra Ebrahim (she/they)] 14:29:23
So the question I have for both of you, is which defaults you know whether it’s at the Street level, or at the organizational level or Municipal, Level whatever level you want to speak.

[Zahra Ebrahim (she/they)] 14:29:32
To which defaults do you feel like we’re fundamentally challenged, and might hold like what changes.

[Zahra Ebrahim (she/they)] 14:29:39
Did you see things that you thought were impossible were made possible and will hold as we go into the next 1,000 days

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:29:45
And brevity, folks, just saying because We’re at Time and Cup of coffee, so brevity and into Dan, go ahead

[Dan Hill] 14:29:50
Yeah

[Dan Hill] 14:29:53
No I mean, I’ll maybe I’ll jump in and just you know I think the idea that these We’ve been running on assumptions, a lot like streets for Traffic school is to get school. Food.

[Dan Hill] 14:30:03
Is get nutrition into kids, and I said that that is those things, obviously, but at least they could be other things.

[Dan Hill] 14:30:10
As well, and so that’s the nice thing, about it, kind of forced to kind of a reset moment to some degree.

[Dan Hill] 14:30:15
You could imagine something else. We should be doing that continually of course, but we haven’t set the systems up to do that we’ve set them to run up on Autopilot and I’ve just clearly been making everything. Worse.

[Dan Hill] 14:30:26
So the possibility that you could cut assumptions. We we designed all of this stuff.

[Dan Hill] 14:30:31
So we can redesign it. That was very clear for a moment, and and enabled a whole bunch of amazing projects, to flourish all over the world.

[Dan Hill] 14:30:39
And that was the thing in itself, like cutting the cord on the assumptions

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:30:43
Roseanne

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:30:44
I. Would say, ditto to Dan, and and more, people, feeling a sense of of their own you Know ability to accomplish things when free to do so

[Dan Hill] 14:30:54
Yeah

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:30:55
I guess that’s the point 8. I mean. I guess that’s just the question about how do.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:30:59
We each move in the directions that we each can, and are able to.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:31:02
And then how do we bring as many along with us? Dan and Rosen always great to have you with us on the Ci.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:31:08
Platform. We’re very appreciative of you taking the time particularly you Dan, out of next time.

[Dan Hill] 14:31:09
Okay, Hi, fine.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:31:12
We’ll do it at 6 am. In Concord, New Hampshire, and to even it out, and you know, as we always say, this is the end.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:31:19
This isn’t the end of the conversation. It’s just the beginning of the next 1,000 days.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:31:23
So thanks for both joining and we’re going to now go to our final session, which is really about launching this idea, that we need to now spend 2023 focusing on specific areas.

[Dan Hill] 14:31:24
Listen. Okay.

[Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI/IUC] 14:31:33
Of action, and we’ll keep down and Roseanne very in our Loop on that because we appreciate their wise Council as we carry on here in our own Canadian way trying to figure out, what our priority should be for our cities, and Forbidden, Canada so thanks again, you too, for Joining great to see you

[Dan Hill] 14:31:47
Thank you, you too.

[Rosanne Haggerty] 14:31:48
Thank you, okay.