City-to-City: Creativity in Government Can Accelerate Urban Innovation
In November 2018 I traveled to Turin, Italy — a city that beckons exploration. It was my first time visiting Italy’s cultural center located just one hour by train from the world’s fashion capital, Milan.
Turin is more than the city next door. Though better known as the birthplace of FIAT, Juventus, the Royal House of Savoy and for its sacred religious artifacts; the Alpine city is an epicurean backpackers dream — on this side of the mountain, the streets are bustling with unassuming creative entrepreneurs, a novel start-up scene, emerging innovation districts, breathtaking architecture and world-class public art installations. Turin is also home to some of the best quality chocolate and coffee in the world, and it doesn’t hurt that prime real estate is still affordable here. Once you’re in Turin, it’s hard to sleep on this city because there is so much to see and do in the most unexpected places.
The more I discovered, the more I realized how iconic brands like Nutella, Arduino and Lavazza could grow in a city like this. The nuances of innovation are a cultural element that makers seem to embed in every physical product, service, and experience. It’s a novel concept to think of cities as brands within a brand, but its a synergy that Turin and local entrepreneurs master quite well.
ESTABLISHING A RELATIONSHIP FOR INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION:
My participation in this exchange/trip came through support from the European Union’s International Urban Cooperation City-to-City program. IUC City-to-City pairs a European Union (EU) city with a United States (US) city facing similar challenges related to sustainable urban development and I work for the City of Baltimore.
Specifically, I am the City of Baltimore’s first Equity Officer in the Mayor’s Office of Small, Minority and Women Business. I represent a new vanguard of entrepreneurial professionals who are returning home to address racial equity challenges from the inside of government. I was one of three delegates selected to represent Baltimore abroad, traveling with Colin Tarbert, Deputy Director of the Mayor’s Office of Strategic Alliances, and William Cole, President of the Baltimore Development Corporation.
This experience was meaningful to me because it provided an opportunity for peer-to-peer learning with the City of Turin’s Office of Innovation. So much of my learning in government affairs happens in the field or in formal settings, so, the opportunity to reflect and think critically among colleagues facing similar decision-making challenges was invaluable. The more we interacted the more I learned about how much we shared in common — both through our roles in government and as creative problem-solvers figuring out how to affect change through political systems.
As the youngest of our delegation, and only woman and person of color, this trip empowered me to be present, also on behalf of the many constituency groups I represent — Immigrants, Millenials, Afro-Americans, Women, and Locals. This engagement was in many ways a lifeline to a civic community that sees the value in intersections between culture, identity, creativity, policy, and economic development. A group who could relate to my sense of obligation in the public sector and my urgent desire to develop modern, evidence-based solutions that help resolve opportunity gaps compounded by multi-generational social and systemic issues.
I am optimistic about the ways our collaboration can be mutually beneficial for our respective cities beginning with a knowledge-share of best practices, which we’ve already ignited.
A significant aspect of my day-to-day role involves leveraging public resources and policy to convene reinvestment in high-potential, low-opportunity entrepreneurs so I found that I had much in common with Frabizio Barbiero who is the Public Manager of the Innovation Department of the City of Turin and works to expand the capacity of Turin’s business ecosystem also as job creators.
I’ve been in my role for 10 months while he has led this work for nearly 15 years in Turin. The fact that we will have an opportunity to co-develop a project is perhaps the best part of this learning exchange. We’ve already begun to discuss developing a data project, entrepreneur exchange and financial tools.
CONTEXTUALIZING OUR SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES:
Prior to this Learning Exchange, our delegation knew that we shared much in common with Turin as it relates to population trends, industry, workforce and infrastructure, but we were not as familiar with the sequence of historic events that led to the city’s shifting identity from a manufacturing to creative hub.
Similar to Baltimore, Turin is known for its industrial heritage. Once the largest automobile manufacturer in Italy and Europe, FIAT (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino), stabilized their local economy as the city’s primary employer and third largest auto manufacturer in the world. Baltimore also served as a major industrial center with notable companies like Bethlehem Steel, which for 35 years reigned as the largest steel mill in the world and our city’s largest employer. However, both of our cities have grappled with the decline of manufacturing, and the impact this decline has had on investment, physical land use, employment opportunity, population, public safety, social cohesion, and neighborhood development.
With every great challenge, there is an even greater opportunity for innovation. By embracing the tech economy and tourism, Turin, like Baltimore, is amidst a renaissance and creating a new identity for itself as a tourist destination, ed-tech and bio-tech hub, and destination for the creative class.
The public sector can play a sizeable role in a City’s revival, largely through its ability to implement integrated strategies for urban regeneration. We started to discuss common ways we’re moving the needle. For example, through Torino Social Innovation, the city is applying Smart City approaches to modernize public infrastructure, and connect residents to transportation, job hubs and entertainment. Their administration has also adopted an “Urban Commons” place-making strategy to transform abandoned buildings into vibrant public meeting places.
In Baltimore we have a significant level of vacancy, blight and underutilized industrial buildings, which is why historic preservation and adaptable reuse is also a priority for us. Turin has transformed street-level parking lots into public plazas, palaces into co-working spaces, and abandoned corporate headquarters into start-up incubators. We’ve had success stories as well and following our visit we are even more inspired by the possibilities of re-imagining Baltimore’s urban landscape for public use and benefit.
BOLD IDEAS IN ACTION FOR PUBLIC GOOD:
In addition to best practices, both of our cities recognize the importance of capital access in business and urban development, and the obligations of government and business as stewards of the environment and natural resources. During a visit to Intessa Sanpaolo’s Innovation Center we began to dig deeper into this topic.
Intesa Sanpaolo is Italy’s leading banking group with more than 11 million customers. As an Ellen MacArthur Foundation Circular Economy Global Partner, they are promoting regenerative innovation among businesses as the world’s first impact bank supporting the circular economy. According to their 2018 strategic plan “… Some $65 billion worth of recoverable materials from e-waste went to landfill in 2016, including aluminium, copper, gold and plastics.” They’ve created a new value proposition for sustainability and social impact, one that is economically sound.
“The bank is committed to helping businesses monetize recycling, assisting them to obtain a market share of a sector that the World Economic Forum estimates will be worth US $1 trillion annually worldwide by 2025.”
Though impact investing is still in its early stages, Baltimore’s Department of Planning has adopted a robust Sustainability Plan which now provides a framework for how the city can evolve to better serve a triple bottom line.
To leverage this impact, Baltimore also created the Neighborhood Impact Investment Fund (NIIF) to spur responsible development and business growth in underinvested communities. NIIF is an independent non-profit investment seed fund with over $50 million from the City. NIIF is place-based and will leverage additional private capital to reenergize the market in distressed neighborhoods. NIIF is one of Baltimore’s latest social innovations we intend to share with Turin.
As we work to strengthen community through collaborative social, environmental and economic planning, thinking ahead in collaboration with industry leaders will have many benefits.
This type of collaboration inspires me to believe that innovation can take place within government. At our core we are people with limited resources who rely on relationships to create and become solutions. By networking intrepreneurial public administrators who focus on solving society’s biggest challenges, locally, and through programs like this it is quite possible to sustain positive impact with and for the residents and communities we serve in ways unlike ever before.
Grazie Mille, Torino! I learned so much, but certainly have more to discover and discuss over the next several months in anticipation of Turin’s visit to Baltimore.
Amanda Rodrigues Smith is the Senior Development Officer of Equity Initiatives and Partnerships for the City of Baltimore’s Office of Small, Minority and Women Business.
This story is part of the #USEUCities series, featuring stories written by EU and US participants in the EU’s International Urban Cooperation (IUC) City Pairings program that helps achieve local and international political objectives on sustainable urban development and climate change.
Read the press release and visit the IUC website to learn more.
