This is a monograph from Charlier Leadbeater about the impact of a new breed of civic innovators using new ways to connect people and place for initially small changes that build to larger shifts in the way a city thinks and works.

“Cities need capable mayors and good public administration. Yet much of the time the most important contract is between the citizens themselves—what matters is how we regulate our behaviour, peer to peer, through shared norms and practices”.

Attachments: More Together - Charlie Leadbeater

This is the second #wethecity Issues Paper. It provides an update on, and some more examples about, new practices of connection and collaboration, especially using new digital tools and platforms, for city outcomes in growth, jobs, mobility, governance and social inclusion.

“One of the new challenges is to recognise how the management of liveability and productivity will change – is being changed – in this digital and collaborative era. At the heart of that challenge are the same digital and disruptive driving forces for connection, communication and collaboration that are upending settled institutions everywhere and their practices of investment, performance, governance and leadership. The economy and society are now irretrievably digital. Nowhere is that revolution being played out more fiercely and with more consequence than in our cities.”

Attachments: #wethecity 1

Co-authored with Committee for Sydney CEO Tim Williams, this Issues Paper sets out the case for connectedness and collaboration at the heart of new platforms for innovation, services and inclusion.

“In the current age, it is the cities whose governance, infrastructure and communications best enable such collaborations to flourish – and who harness most effectively the energy, talent and creativity of the people who live there now or who might be attracted there – that will be the most innovative, will secure the most investment and will attract the most talented. Cities are collaborating to compete and the ones that collaborate most compete best”.

Attachments: #wethecity 1