In May 2010, a few months before he was elected mayor of Calgary, Naheed Nenshi spoke at TEDxCalgary on ‘Calgary 3.0.’ Using insights drawn from his work in business, entrepreneurship and social change—as well as modern GIS data—he explored the challenges of how a modern city grows, and what some of the implications are for creating inclusive communities.
While all of the presentation is excellent and well worth the 13 minutes of your time, near the end of his remarks, Naheed mentioned something that resonated with about the importance of increasing community engagement:
“But the most important [aspect of creating a great city] is… increasing civic engagement. People need to feel as though they belong to, and have voices in their communities in order for all the rest of [the aspects of achieving a great city] to happen and all of the rest of this to work together.“
Some of the ‘rest of this’ include:
- fighting urban sprawl
- creating a new transportation strategy
- improving human potential and social inclusion
- tuning up the economic development engine
- fostering creativity and culture
- building great universities
