Apropos of the week those interested in moving forward into a brighter future for Downtown Albuquerque with Captain Jeff Speck, author of Walkable City who led the just finishing up Walkability/Urban Triage study with the assistance of a cast of experts, and in my case, one advocate (cheerleader). The short article that follows addresses the issue that concerns me the most: implimentaton. Please take note Mayor Richard Berry, and all other decision makers which includes the entire City Council, Department of City Planning, Department of Municiple Development and others who will need to take on the difficult task of deciding which of Mr. Specks recommendations ABQ will move forward to implement, based upon a cohesive vison shared by Municiple Departments and elected officials. Please lets not make this week, the excitement around it, and indeed the expense of having the services of this renown consultant come to naught. Susan Deichsel The Problem Is Not Enough Implementation, Not Too Few Ideas Posted: 20 Mar 2014 09:24 AM PDT Arron Renns latest column from his blog: Urbanophile is online in the March issue of Governing magazine. It’s called “How to Harvest Good Ideas” and it focuses on a theme he has written about before, namely that the real problem in cities isn’t a lack of good ideas, but a lack of an ability to select and implement good ideas. Thus the focus we tend to have on ideation can be misplaced. Here’s an excerpt: Indeed, if you look at the cities that have achieved notice for their accomplishments, it’s usually as much or more an implementation story than an idea story. Most of the transportation changes implemented by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan were not original ideas. The real lesson to take away from New York is less the ideas than the implementation strategy. It’s about a mayor who provided air cover and empowerment to his department chief. And about a commissioner who used very low-cost pilot projects, often done with little more than cans of paint, to create working demonstration projects without getting bogged down in endless planning studies and red tape. True, some cities have better ideas than others. But the bigger divide is between can-do and can’t-do cities, or perhaps more realistically, cities in which its easier versus harder to get things done.
Posted on: Fri, 21 Mar 2014 13:32:46 +0000
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