Obama’s Urban Retreat

For me, there is nothing more exciting about the Obama’s presidency than his decidedly urban lifestyle. I am particularly captivated by the thought of him using his current residence on the South Side of Chicago as his place of retreat from the hustle and bustle of 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue in D.C.

As a child of urban environments, imagine my glee when in a recent interview with the Chicago Tribune Obama made it abundantly clear as to where his place of retreat would be. “MyKennebunkport is on the South Side of Chicago,” he commented.

Kennebunkport (Massachusetts) by the way was the preferred hideout of former President George HW Bush. And of recent times, his son George W. Bush found solice in a town called Crawford, Texas, likely the last place you’d find someone like Obama wanting to hang out. Of course, Obama will have access to Camp David, the U.S. Presidential retreat nestled away inCatoctin Mountain Park in Maryland–a place that somehow that just doesn’t seem like his cup of tea in terms of the urban culture he has grown so comfortable with.

But the South Side of Chicago? Anyone who hails from the Windy City knows that this part of town conjures up some interesting opinions depending on what side of the tracks you grew up on. For many, the South Side symbolizes a lower class, industrial, crime-riddenoaisis of abandoned houses and shuttered up school buildings. It also carries the vestiges of segregation–a reality that has lead many urban experts to mint Chicago as the most segregated major city in the United States. It short, thecliffnote version reads as follows: People of color are expected to live on the south side of Chicago while others live on the  preferred north side.

I recall  an African-American friend of mine, a radio station executive, who was moving from Washington D.C. to Chicago a few years ago calling me in total disgust over his realtor insistence on him touring homes exclusively on the South Side. As a Chicago area resident at the time, I shared with him some of the unfortunate realities he would face in a city where these sort of perceptions run rampant.

Enter Obama’s neighborhood. Known as the Hyde Park-Kenwood area, it is often affectionately referred to the “Other South Side” to people who are familiar with it. Uniquely diverse in it’s racial, ethnic and cultural makeup, it features million dollar homes surrounded by some of the city’s most impoverished neighborhoods. Home of the University of Chicago, an Ivy league calibre institution, the area attracts many high brow intellectuals who find comfort in a diverse community brimming with progressive ideas.

Obama first moved there in the early 80’s as a community organizer and then returned once again after attending Harvard Law School. He then met his wife Michelle who grew up in the nearby South Shore neighborhood. Word has it that they shared their first kiss at the Hyde Park area Baskin Robbins located at 53rd and Dorechester.

But why would Obama chose this as his place of retreat when he has so many more remote, low profile locations at his disposal? Because Obama is truly urban at his core–his family ties, homeboys, local gym, and barbershop are all a part of the Hyde Park-Kenwood neighborhood he will always call home. This is the area where he established his reputation as a community organizer; where he and Michele built a wonderful family. As I see it, his desire to stay connected with the neighborhood that brought him this far, and that he is most comfortable with, will allow him to make history as the most urban engaged President in our nation’s history.

Crowdsourcing Urban Solutions

One of my most meaningful experiences as a graduate student at The University of San Francisco was the Economics and Finance course that I took during my second year.  The instructor, a widely respected authority in public government, took a real interest in my burgeoning interests, suggesting at one point that I might want to explore, among other possibilities, a career as a City Manager.

While my professional aspirations have taken me in other directions, I do from time to time ponder the “What would I do as a City Manager if I were faced with the fallout of our nation’s economic and fiscal crisis. Given that I have been recently engrossed in Jeff Howe’s eye-opening book entitled Crowdsourcing: Why The Power of The Crowd Is Driving The Future of Business, its no wonder that a profound insight occurred to me recently relative to this question. The insight was:

Why Not Seek Input From The Crowd

Just so you know, the crowd is defined as you, me, anyone who has a bright idea or solution to problems that ail our urban areas. And certainly during these turbulent economic times, cities have plenty of these issues to address.

Author James Surowiecki in his book The Wisdom of Crowds was among the first to explore the superiority of collective intelligence over a few supposed experts. Now Jeff Howe has taken this concept to another level suggesting that the power of many can be put to good use in achieving breakthroughs that only a specialized few previously had control over. Crowdsourcing as defined by Howe involves taking something performed by a designated agent and turning it over to a group of people–a sort of open call to solutions that produce more efficient, better outcomes.

This is where the private sector is light years ahead of the public sector in terms of applying these principles. Many of the science and technology innovations of the past ten years or so have come to us by way of a concept called open source where the collective intelligence of the masses is embraced over the often self interested, myopic plans of a select group of individuals. This movement is largely being driven by a new breed of web portals on the Internet that serve as gathering points for information shared by the masses. Perhaps the most well-known of these is InnoCentive, a website that began in 2000 as an in-house incubator of knowledge for the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly. It has now morphed into a world wide organization that links companies seeking innovative ideas from grassroots contributors–individuals who participate for personal reputation, financial incentive, and pure “love of the work” reasons.

So the operative question is whether cities in a similar vain can capitalize on ideas offered by groups of people to create new solutions to urban issues such as housing, transportation, and schools? I would suggest that a city like Vallejo, California, located 35 miles northeast of San Francisco, whose fiscal woes sent it into bankruptcy, certainly could. And what about New Orleans, stilled mired in a rebuilding effort after Hurricane Katrina. Once the nations third largest city a century and a half ago, it has now lost one-half of its population since Katrina’s wrath.

What’s unfortunate about these and many other urban problems facing our nation is that the seeds of the solutions lie in the collective intelligence of our citizenry–ideas that could yield a positive outcome if the mechanisms were in place to give them credence.  For example, a retired business leader from the private sector may have a innovative new way of looking at economic development. Or local residents in a distressed area may have witnessed inefficiencies in city services that could serve as a catalyst for addressing ballooning city expenses. Even our urban youth may have a congruent thought or two on how to address the social issues that plague their demographic.

As Howe and others have suggested, the Internet provides an ideal laboratory for collecting and disseminating information thereby fostering new solutions to the pressing issues we face. Fueled by the belief that city governments can no longer resist broader participation from its citizens, web organizations are sprouting up at an unprecedented rate, engaging users in their efforts to offer creative ideas. And on the coattails of President Elect Barrack Obama’s accendancy to the White House online collaboration is exploding as citizen increasingly are seeking to have their voices acknowledged and heard.

The National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation and America Speaks are among those organizations successfully utilizing an online presence to foster a more participatory climate–one that supports our urban and regional centers. There is also the Portland, Oregon based Charrette Institute that has long been on the forefront of promoting public participation on a local and regional basis.

So here’s the bottom line: America can no longer afford to squelch its citizens. Extending the open call for participation through crowdsourcing  is vital to our urban future for it allows us all to ask, “what can we do for our cities versus what will our cities do for us?”

Will you accept the call?