The Good Oil by Rod Brown *
Charles Landry, urban planning guru, has headed back to the UK after a stint as Adelaide’s Thinker in Residence. He certainly got Adelaide thinking at Playford City Council’s ‘Investing in the Future’ conference last month. His basic argument is that Adelaide is defensive about its positives, and passionate about its negatives. He says the city is still drained of confidence, and that watching someone else – in this case, Sydney and Melbourne – is only playing catch-up. Psychological stuff matters.
Charles went on to argue that critical mass is important for people to bounce ideas off, and that Adelaide is slightly too small in this respect. Collaboration is therefore vital.
Adelaide’s strategic dilemma is fourfold – lack of critical mass and density; lack of urgency (life is too pleasant); a crisis is difficult to feel; and talent leakage. He believes that cities like Adelaide need multiple networks and crossovers, and should aim to be world class in niches. He suggested Sci-Art and the creative industries, and wondered whether Adelaide can make a virtue of its ageing population.
Another sharp observation of Charles’ was the Adelaide mentality of having to ask permission to do things. The SA Government needs to open out more. Make it a ‘yes’ place, rather than a ‘no’ place.
The new language of competitive tools are network capacity; cultural depth and richness; governance; and design awareness. The governance system in Adelaide is too structured – it should become wilder. By contrast, if you’re too wild, such as Calcutta, be more structured. In a poignant conclusion, he said that Adelaide also needs to think of hubs or nodes – otherwise it will continue to drift out to the far suburbs. (A great image – bit like Canberra and indeed most Australian cities!)
His insights generated front page news and call back radio debated the pros and cons of being wild, including the suggestion that he go home on the next plane.
Where to now?
The SA Government should be commended for its Thinker in Residence initiative, and Charles should be thanked for his brilliant insights. However the debate could die, along with his recommendations, unless the SA Government rides the Landry themes and other local stakeholders take up the slack. The City of Adelaide is well placed to do this, together with other Councils such as Playford City Council, which has credentials in investment attraction, networks and clusters at the local level. SA Business Vision 2010 also provides a solid industry consultative mechanism to further some of Landry’s ideas.
Thinkers in Residence for small towns
The drawback of being a first mover like the Adelaide folk is that someone will pinch your ideas. So, here we go – why not extend the Thinker in Residence concept to small towns, albeit with a few modifications?
Why small towns? Well, I think they get a raw deal. I never warmed to the views expounded a couple of years back by an academic friend in Warrnambool, that many small towns be allowed to wither. Small towns can deliver great lifestyles and a sense of community, and their residents are arguably more environmentally aware than their city cousins.
But small towns don’t have much clout. There are not huge numbers of advocates out there, at least in an organised sense. Moreover there are very few programs to boost the standing of small towns, as is the case in Europe, USA and Japan where they have a much higher standing.
Thus the solution is self help. My suggestion is as follows.
- A group of Councils form a network, chip in $5k each and collectively employ 20 or so ‘small town experts’ as thinkers in residence. If 40 Councils participated, this would deliver $200k, and with matched funding from the feds or states, there is a total of $400k.
- Ten experts would come from Australia, and ten from overseas – New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, USA, UK, France, Italy, Ireland and so forth.
- Each expert would spend three weeks as a thinker in residence – four to five days in each of four small towns – a total of 80 towns nationally, that is each of the 40 participating Councils would nominate two towns.
- The thinkers would workshop, discuss and debate with Councillors and other stakeholders the key issues, including jobs, investment, infrastructure, education, entrepreneurship, environment, water treatment, social welfare, re-invention strategies and the like.
- At the end of three weeks, the 20 thinkers would deliver their findings and ideas at a national two day conference organised by the ALGA or one of the State associations – journalists and politicians would be invited, but more as observers. Attendance would be open to all regions.
- The $400k budget would cover the conference costs, and airfares and per diems for the 20 thinkers.
We have some great suggestions as to who the international thinkers might be, and where the conference might be held. Please let me know if the concept interests you. Note – I am not touting for business! We would hand pass the agenda to the right organisation.
OECD insights
An excellent thinker in residence would be Alistair Nolan of the OECD in Paris, who was in Australia recently speaking about how to make communities entrepreneurial. The value of the OECD is that it has a clear perspective on what actually works, and its views carry a lot of weight in government circles.
Alistair’s main point was that entrepreneurship is a vehicle for structural change, and it drives innovation. It distinguishes successful economies from the unsuccessful.
The determinants of entrepreneurship are complex – demographics, wealth, unemployment, educational and occupational profile of the workforce, prevalence of small firms, extent of owner-occupied housing, infrastructure endowment, history and so forth.
His main message was that barriers to enterprise growth in disadvantaged localities are lack of work experience and skills, lack of role models, cultural obstacles, path dependency and high crime rates. He argues that Local Government can play a vital role in getting local communities out of a rut (the path dependency he talks about) by helping SMEs become investor ready – especially by helping them improve the quality of proposals to the investment community.
Alistair has just written a book, ‘Entrepreneurship and Local Economic Development’ – described by the US National Commission on Entrepreneurship as “…likely the most detailed and comprehensive look at various strategies and policies designed to support high growth entrepreneurial businesses at the local level.” (ISBN 92-64-19978-0). Visit the OECD’s online bookshop www.oecd.org/els/leed)
* Rod Brown’s Canberra based consultancy group, Australian Project Developments Pty Ltd, specialises in industry/regional development and government liaison. For further information telephone (02) 6231 7261 or email apd@orac.net.au
