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I had the pleasure of recently attending the Smart City Connect conference in Kansas City. For one, talk about a hidden gem. I had no idea what I would expect when I was landingâŠjust having images like this flash in my head. (Yes, weâre all subject to stereotypes and biases.)
Secondly, I was taken back by the juxtaposition of the culture and history of the city. I opted to stay in a small bed and breakfast. A big reason why I love travel is for the chance to hear stories from others and to learn more about the place Iâve managed to land myself into. Hello World.
Straight away, I was blown by the history due to the railwaysâŠKansas City was the hub for the United States and to my surprise, jazz and art was bleeding from different sections of the city.
I had a moving conversation with another guest about what the future meant for the city and how we could better preserve the personality while also building a city where life could be lived again. Where the diverse culture could be elevated in line with the technology.
And there you had it. Munching on toast, I could feel the weight of loss settling in our conversation. So how should our cities evolve?
- We should grieve together
- We should celebrate together
- We should build together
How do we deal with loss?
We donât talk about it enough.
We love to shine the bright lights and the potential of the future. But itâs much harder to deal with the true grief that is felt by communities. And itâs totally valid that they feel that way.
As someone who has recently lost a dear family member, shouldnât we be treating this aspect with a little more care? As much as you might want to be denial about it, the truth is that we have to still go through the process and that can be a little painful.
Iâve found success in tackling loss by sitting in the uncomfortable conversations and allowing for the array of emotions to be set free by asking these questions:
How does it feel to have new installations in your city?Have you felt an improvement?What is your history to your community?Tell me about how you and your family found yourself here?What do you love about where you live?What would you change?
Itâs utterly fascinating to hear the stories of all those who make up the community and itâs important to check the vital signs. How is everyone feeling?
From there, the next follow up is talking about celebration.
How do we celebrate?
From hearing about memorial day parades and extreme weather stories (the blizzard of 2013), there are so many memories made together in a community.
In Austin, we have everything from âBlues on the Greenâ (a low-key music series) to âHot Sauce Festivalâ (You guessed it. A festival where you eat hot sauce and attempt to survive.) These community memories are key and they should be celebrated.
When thinking about how our future cities are going to be, itâs important to understand where we have come from and also focus on what weâve achieved together.
I love the idea of technology playing a role in the celebration and enhancing our connectivity to one another. More than that, it can play a role with keeping the memory alive and being the glue for the community rather than a divider.
How do we build?
As a civic hacker, Iâm always repeating myself about the power of civic hackathons to bring communities together in a way that allows us to play, debate, and build our future together.
We need more and more communal spaces to be with folks who think like us and certainly those that donât. We need to break down the barriers and stereotypes which have been implanted through various mediums.
We donât have to be what one group wants. We also donât have to all agree. But Iâve found that everyone can find compromise. We do it all the timeâŠand the situations where we find ourselves bending are often for love. Love for others, our family, for a cause, for a friend in need, or for our ambitions.
ATX Hack for Change Planning Committee
We can share ideas, capitalize on our joint potential, and actually, drive things forward. We can incorporate everyone into the conversations around the future of a community and how technology can improve their lives.
Technology is a tool and itâs certainly not perfect, but we have to give credit to those who have driven the bar higher for what we all can achieve. Iâm always amazed at what gets built at these hackathon events and we should strive to build more spaces like them.
Here is a fun quote, I will leave you with:
âArenât smart cities going to just be cities like your smart phones are just phonesâŠsmart cities are all about potential.ââââHerb Sih
Thank you to Mozilla and U.S. Ignite for making my attendance possible this year and for the opportunity to hear from other community leaders in this movement across the U.S.âââHere we go together!
How to Evolve into a Smart City Without Leaving Anyone Behind was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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