Ten years of place leadership seen as needed for Kingston's urban evolution
Published:Thursday | October 13, 2022 | 6:58 PM
International urban development expert Professor Greg Clark is recommending a decade of what he calls sustained place leadership as an imperative for the redevelopment of downtown Kingston.
Place leadership is joint endeavour between governments, citizens, civic bodies and business to promote urban revitalisation and regeneration. Clark made the recommendation on Wednesday as he delivered the second annual Maurice Facey Lecture at the Jamaica Conference Centre under the theme ‘The Business of Cities: Partnering for Urban Revitalisation’.
He said the past 100 years has seen rapid urbanisation with explosive growth in the number of cities worldwide, and that a main feature of urbanisation is that cities host more diverse activities and economic sectors — which means that nations are increasingly competing and thriving through cities.
While there is credible argument that running a city is like running a business, Clark said, the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted the focus of cities towards quality as well as efficiency, and improvement policies must be complemented by place leadership.
“The key issue is how to get cities and business working together to improve the quality of life, accelerate urban revitalisation and regeneration, partner with higher tiers of government, position and promote the cities as a destination for population, investment, enterprise and visitors, and increase co-investment and risk sharing between public and private sectors,” he argued.
Research over the past five years has shown that business leadership organisations have become key parts of how thriving cities work, the professor noted.
“What they’ve been good at is creating a long-term vision for the city, building a business culture around how certain projects are implemented, creating a strong lobby on behalf of business, coming from a broad base of sectors, not narrowly from one sector or another,” he said.
Such a group, he added, should behave in an a-political way rather than taking sides in debates and shying away from use of public subsidies. It should also be evidence-based and enterprising in its positioning.
The body should have four to six key people from each sector or entity, forming a tight working group, and should be held accountable for delivery of programmes, he added.