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    Next: What Will Columbus Look Like in 2044?

    The June 18 Columbus Futurists monthly forum will explore the future of Columbus in 2044, the trends that will shape the city and our visions for what the city will look like in thirty years. Here’s one of the ideas I will suggest:

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    The city of Barcelona has a Deputy Mayor for Culture, Knowledge, Creativity and Innovation. I do not know the scope and scale of this person’s portfolio, but I find the idea of such a position intriguing, as a statement of how the city of Barcelona values creativity and innovation such that it is an established part of city government. Barcelona sees culture, knowledge, creativity and innovation as being as important to the life of a city as the urban infrastructure or the jobs and employment outlook.

    With the mayoral election coming up in November, I ask Mr. Ginther and Mr. Scott: what if Columbus established a similar position with the city government? What if Columbus became the first city in the country to have an office for the promotion of creativity and innovation?

    I envision this position as much more than an arts organization like GCAC, much more than an organization that merely dispenses funds or picks creative winners and losers. In the same way that the city is responsible for sanitation, public safety, and IT infrastructures, the Deputy Mayor would be charged with developing and promoting an infrastructure that encourages Culture, Knowledge, Creativity and Innovation.

    The Deputy Mayor would encourage fruitful interconnections between schools, universities, research institutes (like Battelle), arts organizations (like the Columbus Museum of Art), technology incubators (like Rev1Ventures), social entrepreneurs (like Forge Columbus), maker spaces (like the Columbus Idea Foundry), COSI, the Columbus Zoo, Nationwide Children’s, the Columbus Metropolitan Library, Independents’ Day, TEDxColumbus, the Columbus Food League and on and on. Focused not simply on the arts, the Deputy Mayor would oversee the maintenance of an infrastructure that connects all of the creative clusters in the city: private and public, for-profit and not-for-profit, arts and technology.

    During my TEDxColumbus talk in 2010, I envisioned an institution that would forge connections between disparate groups, incubating serendipitous creativity and innovation, although at the time I did not imagine a specific office within city government. But I did make the claim that the city of Columbus itself is just the right size and of just the right disposition for such a mashing-up of our many creative clusters. When disparate ideas collide, creativity and innovation are born. The city itself could become a large “third space,’ and the Deputy Mayor would promote this city-wide third space in the same way the city’s Chief Information Officer maintains the 311 system.

    According to Shoshanah Goldberg-Miller — Assistant Professor in the Department of Arts Administration, Education and Policy at Ohio State, whose research focuses on arts and cultural entrepreneurship and creative economic development — cities that have well-developed cultural policies (and the leadership necessary to achieve it) seek to make the city a place that attracts and keeps creatives. She also emphasizes that such culture policies are carefully crafted to be broadly inclusive, to ensure against the persistence of a “creative underclass,” and that the creative infrastructure exists not only for the benefit and amplification of the creative class. Both would seem to be important elements of the Deputy Mayor’s portfolio.

    I am aware that some readers will immediately object to the idea of this position because any growth in government is by definition a bad thing. I do not desire to expand government needlessly, but I would point out that cities and their governments have proven to be effective — moreso than the federal government — at governing and getting things done. What better expression would there be that Columbus is a “smart and open” city, worthy of its designation as the #1 Intelligent Community of 2015, than its promotion of curiosity and creativity and innovation?

    What is your vision for Columbus in 2044?

    David Staley is president of Columbus Futurists and a professor of history and design at The Ohio State University. You have also seen him co-hosting TEDxColumbus.

    The next Columbus Futurists monthly forum will be Thursday June 18 at 6:30 PM at the Panera Bread community room (875 Bethel Rd.)  Our topic for the evening will be “Columbus 2044”.

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    David Staley
    David Staley
    David Staley is president of Columbus Futurists and a professor of history, design and educational studies at The Ohio State University. He is the host of CreativeMornings Columbus.
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