Civic projects are how we accomplish big intentional changes in cities. Why, then, do we know so little about them?
Leadership as “a Kind of Genius”
Seeing the opportunity for change is the genius of leadership and often involves finding paths that are hidden to everyone else. Herding people through those passages is the practice of leadership. Here’s how to be better at the genius parts of leadership.
Lesson Five: Vision and Demographics
By design or by chance, cities are headed somewhere. But where? And if there’s a vision for your city, how do you know if it can succeed? The answer lies in demographics.
Why Blame Is the Death of Reform
You cannot reform an organization without the support of those who work in it. But to gain that support, you must give up the habit of blaming others when things go wrong and persuade others to give up the habit as well. Only then can you pinpoint problems and begin fixing them . . . as a team.
Lesson Two: The Switching Yard of Change
City hall isn’t so much a public policy factory as a switching yard, where ideas come in from the outside and are acted on. So where do big public policy ideas originate in your city? And what happens to them as they move along the tracks? This could be a rich source for your reporting, and an eye-opening series of stories for your readers.