Creative Class

Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an “architecture of participation,” and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences.

- Tim O’Reilly

To the popular press “hacker” means someone who breaks into computers. Among programmers it means a good programmer. But the two meanings are connected. To programmers, “hackers” connotes mastery in the most literal sense: someone who can make a computer do what he wants-whether the computer wants to or not.

- Paul Graham, Hackers & Painters

Welcome to the Open Cities blog on CCE. My name is David Eaves and I’ve been writing, speaking, and thinking about open, citizen engagement and public policy for a number of years. Most recently, I worked to help push forward the City of Vancouver motion that requires the city to share more data, adopt open standards, and treat open source and proprietary software equally.

Cities have always been platforms – geographic and legal platforms upon which people collaborate to create enterprises, exchange ideas, educate themselves, celebrate their culture, start families, found communities, and raise children. Today the power of information technology is extending this platform, granting us new ways to collaborate and be creative. As Clay Shirky notes in Here Comes Everybody, this new (dis)order is powerful. For the meaning and operation of cities, it will be transformative.

How transformative? The change created by information technology is driving what will perhaps be seen as the greatest citizen-led renewal of urban spaces in our history. Indeed, I believe it may even be creating a new type of city, one whose governance models, economies and notions of citizenship are still emerging, but different from their predecessors. These new cities are Open Cities: cities that, like the network of web 2.0, are architected for participation and so allow individuals to create self-organized solutions and allow governments to tap into the long-tail of public policy.

And just in the nick of time. To succeed in the 21st century, cities will have to simultaneously thrive in a global economy, adapt to climate change, integrate a tsunami of rural and/or foreign migrants, as well as deal with innumerable other challenges and opportunities. These issues go far beyond the capacity and scope of almost any government – not to mention the all-too-often under-resourced City Hall.

Open Cities address this capacity shortfall by drawing on the social capital of their citizens. Online, city dwellers are hacking the virtual manifestation of their city which, in turn, is giving them the power to shape the physical space. Google transit, DIYcity, Apps for Democracy are great urban hacks, they allow cities to work for citizens in ways that were previously impossible. And this is only the beginning.

Still more exciting, hacking is a positive sum game. The more people hack their city – not in the poorly misunderstood popular press meaning of breaking into computers but in (sometimes artful, sometimes amateur) way of making a system (read city) work for their benefit – the more useful data and services they create and remix. Ultimately, Open Cities will be increasingly vibrant and safe because they are hackable. This will allow their citizens to unleash their creativity, foster new services, find conveniences and efficiencies, notice safety problems, and build communities.

In short, the cities that harness the collective ingenuity, creativity, and energy of its citizenry will thrive. Those that don’t – those that remain closed – won’t. And this divide – open vs. closed – could become the new dividing line of our age. And it is through this lens that this blog will look at the challenges and opportunities facing cities, their citizens, and institutions. Let’s see who’s open, how they’re getting open, and what it will all mean.

In an intriguing post, Stirling Newberry suggests that Reaganism set in motion basic economic and geographic forces that have led to a “self-inflicted recession” and shaped the demise of the conservative movement.

[T]he epicenters of that “Reagan Democrat” revolt are now the areas that are hardest hit by the present depression: California, the Upper Midwest, and the Sunbelt South. This is not an accident …

The only places that are doing well in the Republican universe are those strongly associated with mining, plus Republican metro centers such as Phoenix and Salt Lake City, which are the recipients of the labor draining from the rest of the Republican heartland. Resource extraction is the only bright spot in the Republican world …

The Bush boom produced a moment where it seemed like the producers of Residential Real Estate, the back bone of the Republican donating and agitating base, were finally at their pinnacle. Truck Dealers, Home Builders, Real Estate Agents, and the Small Business class that catered to the people who lived in the “boomburgs” saw rapid increases in employment, wages, and social power. They had the money and the confidence to try to press their social agenda on the rest of the country. It was, of course, doomed to failure; since none of these people made anything that could be exported; or if they did, it came at the costs of increased imports that counter-balanced them.

Remember the television program Lost in Space?

There was a robot that would usually at times of relative tranquility begin shouting “Danger, danger, danger.” On this optimistic bright-side blog, I feel like a terrible Cassandra. My apologies to Rich and my cheerful colleagues. I have kept silent while Obama has had an incredible bear rally, but it is time for some more “realistic” comments.

Today, the Pew Research Center shows that Americans are not becoming more populist, but rather are quite optimistic about the future. For most of you this is a good outcome. We, as Americans, dare I say in deference to Rich, North Americans believe optimism is good. What could possibly be wrong here?

My concern is that this optimism and the Obama Administration-sponsored talks of “green shoots” in the economy is lulling Americans to sleep regarding the extraordinary seriousness of the economic crisis we are facing. Already, concerns regarding controlling executive pay at the banks, letting shareholders and lenders suffer from the business decisions they made to invest, and general moral hazard arguments have been forgotten even though the miscreants have received tens of billions of government funds through a myriad of programs, bailouts, and other mechanisms. This will come back to haunt us as the world economy takes another leg downward in the months to come.

This second leg downward, as the entire U.S. including California basically declare bankruptcy, will finally wipe crackpot optimism off the faces of Americans. It is only then that we will be able to become realistic about the circumstances that we face and begin the grim task of reregulating, rethinking the role of finance, and rebuilding our economy.

Rich has always and correctly warned of the problem with the “squelchers.” However, today in this economy full of crackpot optimists, Cassandras are an important social asset, if they can prevent suicide by the delusional. To put a point on it, when the robot warns of danger, foolish optimism is not a survival response.

How do you folks see the current economic conjuncture?

Where does democracy come from? What are the social, demographic, and economic factors that shape the onset of democracy in a country and its subsequent stability and subsequent development?

This is a question that has vexed social scientists for decades. A new study puts the question to perhaps its most systematic test yet.

Researchers from ETH Switzerland and Georgetown University used a statistical procedure called “extreme bounds analysis” to test the salience of 59 factors identified in more than three million previous statistical regressions (h/t: Charlotta Mellander). The study finds a “humbling result”: Out of all those studies, all those variables, and all those millions of statistical analyses, just five factors predict the emergence of democracy, while four predict its survival.

Most surprising of all is the role played by economic growth, measured as gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. The study finds that GDP per capita is negatively associated with the transition to democracy. Contrary to “modernization theory”, the study finds that richer countries are not more likely to become democracies. Richer countries are more likely to remain democracies once they become one.

A new Gallup poll finds that:

Here are some snippets from Michael Ignatieff’s speech accepting the leadership of Canada’s Liberal Party.

We know that economic recovery cannot be purchased at the price of leaving anyone out in the cold. We know that economic recovery means unlocking the creativity of every citizen. … To unite our people, to treat everyone fairly while this crisis lasts, we need a common national standard of eligibility for Employment Insurance … A strategy for recovery must be a strategy for learning …Government cannot predict where the economic opportunities of the future will emerge. But government can prepare our people to seize those opportunities when they arise. We must create a society where learning is a way of life and learning is life-long. A knowledge society—where what counts is what you know, not who you know. A knowledge society – where learning creates hope and opportunity. A knowledge society—where every child gets an equal start with world-class early learning and childcare.

A Canada where every new Canadian has the chance to work hard and achieve their goals, like my father did. A Canada where our researchers and scientists know that their governing is supporting them, not undermining them. A Canada where every creator, artist and filmmaker knows that their federal government will do everything to help them succeed on the international stage. A Canada where hope and opportunity take root again in our farming communities, our small towns, our northern and remote regions.

The way out of this slump is hard, but the direction is clear. In the union hall, in the lecture hall, in the concert hall, wherever one Canadian is teaching another to do something they never thought possible, far-sighted government must be there to provide the resources to help everyone realize their full potential.

We need a government as competent, courageous, co-operative and creative as the people themselves.

The whole thing is here.

What can be done to kick-start the housing industry, and also make housing more affordable for the poor and middle class buyers? A new book by economists Ed Glaeser and Joseph Gyourko takes on these questions and more. Here’s a blurb from the American Enterprise Institute which commissioned the book:

Even after the burst of the housing bubble, homes remain unaffordable for the poor and the middle class in many parts of the country. In a new NRI-commissioned book, Rethinking Federal Housing Policy: How to Make Housing Plentiful and Affordable (AEI Press, December 2008), Edward L. Glaeser and Joseph Gyourko examine why. They show that local building restrictions are the cause of much of the continued high cost of housing.

Glaeser and Gyourko argue that reform of the home mortgage interest deduction would provide incentives to local governments to reduce these barriers, allowing the market to provide more housing and reducing costs. Additionally, they believe that federal subsidies for the production of low-income housing should be eliminated and the funds reallocated to increase the scope of federal housing voucher programs, which allow poor households to relocate to areas of greater economic promise.

Here’s a link for the PDF of the entire book.

Richard Florida for President? OrgTheory.net makes their plea and nomination simultaneously.

“Ross Douthat’s debut as the new conservative voice on the New York Times editorial page was eye-catching, to say the least. The title of his first missive: “Dick Cheney for President.” …

Douthat pulled it off: the article shot to the top of the Times’s most read articles list and his debut generated significant (and generally positive) buzz. And, I say if it worked for him, it might just work for me. So, I am starting off my guest stint with a similar stunt: Richard Florida, please run for President. The office of President of the United States may be out of reach for some time (and given you are currently living in Canada, probably impractical). But President of the ASA might be within reach. And I hereby offer you my nomination.”

Click here to read the entire article.

Your thoughts?

David Leonhardt interviews President Barack Obama for the New York Times Sunday Magazine on the crisis and what the the financial system, economy, society, and life might look like on the other side.

I actually think that there was always an unsustainable feel about what had happened on Wall Street over the last 10, 15 years, and it’s not that different from the unsustainable nature of what was happening during the dot-com boom, where people in Silicon Valley could make enormous sums of money, even though what they were peddling never really had any signs it would ever make a profit.

That doesn’t mean, though, that Silicon Valley is still not a huge, critical, important part of our economy, and Wall Street will remain a big, important part of our economy, just as it was in the ’70s and the ’80s. It just won’t be half of our economy. And that means that more talent, more resources will be going to other sectors of the economy. And I actually think that’s healthy. We don’t want every single college grad with mathematical aptitude to become a derivatives trader. We want some of them to go into engineering, and we want some of them to be going into computer design.

And so I think what you’ll see is some shift, but I don’t think that we will lose the enormous advantages that come from transparency, openness, the reliability of our markets. If anything, a more vigorous regulatory regime, I think, will help restore confidence, and you’re still going to see a lot of global capital wanting to park itself in the United States.

The whole thing is here. The interview shows how focused Obama is on the economy and his grasp of core economic issues. But it’s a little heavy on the current moment and on immediate tactics. I wish – I really wish – Leonhardt would have pushed harder on the issue of broad economic transformation – and that we’d have gotten to hear more of what the President thinks the economy and society will look like after the Great Reset.