Across the world progressive city leaders are working to limit the damaging impact of decisions made by place-less leaders, meaning powerful interests that are unconcerned about the consequences of their decisions for particular places and communities.  This article outlines a new way of thinking about place-based leadership and reports on the steps being taken by Mayor Marvin Rees and other civic leaders in Bristol, UK to test out this model in practice

Hambleton, Robin

English

UWE Bristol Research Repository

Inclusive  Place-Based  Leadership:  Lesson-Drawing  from  Urban  GovernanceInnovations in Bristol, UKRobin HambletonSeries: Progressive Mayors and Urban Social MovementsAcross the world, progressive city leaders are working to limit the damaging impact of decisionsmade  by  “placeless”  leaders,  meaning  powerful  interests  that  are  unconcerned  about  theconsequences of their decisions for particular places and communities. Robin Hambleton outlines anew way of thinking about place-based leadership and reports on the steps being taken by MayorMarvin Rees and other civic leaders in Bristol, UK, to test this model in practice.Elected  as  mayor  of  Bristol  in  May 2016,  Marvin  Rees  is  orchestrating  the  creation  of  anunusually inclusive one-city approach to governance in the city. Impressed with the strategy, theEuropean  Union  has  shortlisted  Bristol  for  the  International  Award  of  European  Capital  ofInnovation 2018.1The context for modern mayoral efforts at local coalition-building is that the forces of economicglobalization have resulted in the transfer of an extraordinary amount of power and influence fromlocal communities to “placeless” leaders. Such leaders are unconcerned about the impacts of theirdecisions on particular localities. For example, profit-maximizing multinational companies, oftenoperating  on  a  global  basis,  tend  to  neglect  the  social  calculus.  A consequence  is  that  currentpolicies  are  creating  increasingly  unequal  societies,  divided  societies,  unsustainable  societies(Mason 2015; Sandel 2012; Stiglitz 2012).The concept of place-based leadershipIt would be misguided to suggest that all place-based leaders seek progressive outcomes. Indeed,the  international  evidence  suggests  that  just  about  all  cities  contain  neighborhoods  where  it  ispossible  to  find  local  leaders  striving  to  exclude  “other”  kinds  of  people—gated  communitiesprovide an obvious example.The  argument  presented  here,  however,  is  that,  with  the  right  kind  of  inclusive  leadership,progressive mayors can mobilize the feelings of attachment people have to “their” place to advanceeconomic, social and environmental justice in the city.1 The European Capital of Innovation prize—or iCapital, as it is known—is awarded to the city within the EuropeanUnion that is considered to be the most innovative. The Bristol bid, which was shortlisted (meaning it is one of thelast  12 cities  in  the  competition at  the time of  writing),  went  beyond conventional  “smart  cities”  and  similarconcepts  to  outline  the  benefits  of  developing  inclusive,  place-based  leadership.See: https://ec.europa.eu/info/research-and-innovation/funding/funding-opportunities/prizes/icapital_en#finalist-cities-for-2018.1Place-based leaders are not free agents able to do exactly as they choose. On the contrary, variouspowerful forces shape the context within which civic leaders operate. These forces do not, however,extinguish the possibilities for progressive local leadership. Rather, they place limits on what urbanleaders may be able to accomplish in particular places and at particular moments in time.Places have traditions and identities that are built up over a long period of time; moreover, placehas significant  meaning for many people and can be an important  source of identity (Bell  andde-Shalit 2011; Tuan 1977). In my recent book,  Leading the Inclusive City,  I explore how thesefeelings of  attachment  and loyalty can  provide a  source  of  energy and power.  The New CivicLeadership framework presented here stems from research on progressive cities and localities in14 different countries.Figure 1 suggests that, in any given locality, place-based governance is likely to comprise fiveoverlapping  realms  of  place-based leadership,  with  leaders  in  each realm drawing  on differentsources of legitimacy:• political leadership, referring to the work of those people elected to leadership positions bythe citizenry;• public  managerial/professional  leadership,  referring  to  the  work  of  public  servantsappointed  by  local  authorities,  governments  and  third  sector  organizations  to  plan  andmanage public services, and promote community well-being;• community leadership, referring to urban social movements and the efforts of many civic-minded people who give their time and energy to local leadership activities;• business leadership, referring to the contribution made by local business leaders and socialentrepreneurs, who have a clear stake in the long-term prosperity of the locality;• trade-union leadership, referring to the efforts of trade-union leaders striving to improvethe pay and working conditions of employees.Figure 1. The realms of place-based leadershipSource: Hambleton 2015, p. 127.2All  of  these  leadership  roles  are  important  in  cultivating  and  encouraging  public  serviceinnovation and, crucially, they overlap. The areas of overlap can be described as innovation zones—areas providing many opportunities for inventive behavior. These zones are especially fertile forinnovation because they enable different perspectives to be brought together and this can promptactive questioning of established approaches.It is fair to say that the areas of overlap in Figure 1 are often experienced as conflict zones, ratherthan innovation zones. These spaces do, of course, provide settings for power struggles betweencompeting interests and values. Moreover, power is unequally distributed within these settings. Thisis precisely why place-based leadership matters. The evidence from my international research onurban governance suggests that civic leadership is critical in ensuring that the innovation zones areorchestrated in a way that promotes a culture of listening that can, in turn, lead to innovation.The one-city approach in BristolMarvin Rees, who was the Labour party candidate for directly elected Mayor of Bristol in theMay 2016 local election, developed the City Office concept in 2015. In the simplest of terms theCity Office, which underpins Bristol’s one-city approach, strives to unite civic purpose in the city; itseeks to bind together all those who care about the city in a much more effective collaborativeeffort. From an early stage, Rees made use of the New Civic Leadership framework set out above todevelop his approach to collaborative governance.In  the  May 2016  election,  Rees,  a  young  and  charismatic  candidate,  delivered  an  emphaticvictory for the Labour Party. Rees, who is mixed-race and was brought up in the less well-off partsof Bristol, is strongly committed to reducing inequality in the city. On election, he immediatelyattracted national media attention, partly because he was the first non-white political leader of thecity of Bristol, a city that played a prominent role in the transatlantic slave trade.Figure 2. Marvin Rees, mayor of Bristol© Bristol City Council.The swearing-in ceremony for Mayor Rees, held on 9 May 2016, took place in the M Shed, amuseum documenting the history of the people of Bristol. Note that this ceremony was not held inCity Hall; rather, this important civic event was located in a public building in the center of the city3that is visited by large numbers of Bristol residents. The symbolism was clear—City Hall is onlypart of the governance of the city.Most unusually for a swearing-in ceremony, the Mayor was not the only speaker on the platformoffering  ideas  on  the  future  of  the  city.  After  the  formal  swearing-in  procedure,  Mayor  Reesintroduced Miles Chambers, later to become the first Bristol poet laureate, who read a passionatepoem about the history of the city. Rees then invited three other civic leaders in Bristol to offer theirviews on the future of the city. Rees did not know in advance what these civic leaders were going tosay.  From the  get-go,  then,  Rees  was  signaling  his  interest  in  sharing  power  and  valuing  theleadership contributions of other agencies and actors.The City Office aims to  mobilize energies  from the  different  realms  of  leadership  shown  inFigure 1 for the benefit of the whole city. The central ethos is to focus on making an  additionalcontribution  over  and  above  the  activities  of  existing  agencies  and  established  collaborativearrangements.  From the outset, the City Office approach has emphasized the co-creation of newpossibilities for progressive action. Rees stresses that effective place-based leadership involves aprocess of opening up conversations with different stakeholders, one that involves risk-taking andexperimentation.It is possible to summarize the main aspects of the one-city approach by referring briefly to fivefeatures. First, inclusive city gatherings of civic leaders, drawn from the different realms of place-based leadership  shown in  Figure  1,  have  been  held  on  a  regular  basis  since  the  City Officefounders’ meeting of July 2016. City gatherings, which take place every few months in differentlocations across the city, create highly interactive “city conversations”, with participants workingtogether in cross-realm teams, to examine the major challenges facing the city and to explore ideason how to tackle them. These gatherings identify topics for in-depth work.By way of example, the September 2016 city gathering identified homelessness as a priority forattention.  Rees  immediately asked  local  leaders  to  work  together  to  create  100  extra  beds  forhomeless people in the first 100 days of 2017. A Street Homelessness Challenge team, chaired bythe City Office Director, was set up to develop ways of achieving this ambitious target. City Officepartners launched a “spectrum of activity” to tackle homelessness.2 The one-city approach broughtin actors not normally involved in addressing this sort of challenge, such as local businesses—forinstance, the local bus company helped to create 20 bed spaces by providing two double-deckerbuses for conversion into emergency accommodation.A second step towards improving collaborative leadership was the creation of a shared workspacein City Hall not far from the mayor’s office. People—from any of the realms of leadership in thecity—who are working on activities relating to the one-city approach are invited to work in thisspace on Tuesdays.  It  is  a simple,  cost-free step,  but it  is  an important  one because it  enablesinformal  communication and relationship building to  take place between stakeholders  from thedifferent realms of place-based leadership shown in Figure 1.Third, the One-City Plan, now in preparation, is designed to deliver the main strategic aim of theBristol  City  Office.  It  is  orchestrating  the  creation  of  a  “big-picture”  strategy  for  the  futuredevelopment of the city, one that looks forward to 2050. As with progressive planning in some othercities, the plan is multi-agency. City partners and activists are actively involved in preparing theplan and are expected to  commit  to  delivering it  via  their  own policies,  practices  and actions.Interestingly, as part of the One-City Plan, a new initiative is being developed to provide a range ofplace-based leadership programs, including ones that target underrepresented groups in the city.2 See: Morris, S. 2017. “Bristol launches ‘spectrum of activity’ to tackle homelessness”,  The Guardian, 25 January.Available  online  at  the  following  URL: www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jan/25/bristol-launches-spectrum-of-activity-to-tackle-homelessness.4Figure 3. St Paul’s graffiti wall, Bristol© CB Bristol Design/Bristol City Council, 2018.A fourth feature of the model is the creation of a City Funds Board. Discussions at city gatheringsin  2017 led  to  a  suggestion  that,  partly  because  of  the  drastic  cuts  in  UK central-governmentfunding to  local  governments  across  the country,  the  city needed to create  innovative ways  ofgenerating new funding streams to support public purpose in the city. Established in April 2018, theCity Funds Board—which brings together representatives from communities, business, finance, thepublic sector and local universities—is developing new match-funding initiatives to focus finance,via repayable loans and grant-giving, on the priority areas set out in the new One-City Plan.Lastly, the City Office is strongly committed to international city-to-city learning and exchangerelating  to  progressive policymaking.  The  city  of  Bristol  has  a  strong  international  strategy—“Bristol: Global City”3—and the city will host the Global Parliament of Mayors (GPM4) AnnualSummit in October 2018. This international event, which will bring together up to 100 mayors, plusexperts and global city networks, is designed to bring about an expansion of city, or  place-based,influence in national and international policymaking.The one-city approach is not without its critics. For example, some of those who are opposed tothe UK central-government  attacks on local  public  services  and local  democracy argue that  aninnovative City Office, in a particular city, is unlikely to make much difference in a country that hasbecome so centralized. Others argue that a consensual approach, one that strives to bring togetherdifferent stakeholders, just takes too long, when a more decisive approach to place-based leadershipis needed.Defenders of the one-city approach respond by noting that it is still early days and that, over time,it  just  might  be  that  imaginative  collaborative  leadership  at  the  city  scale  can  bring  about  anexpansion of the collective power of people living in the city. Over time, as more cities developmuch  more  inclusive  strategies  for  policymaking,  it  may  be  that  the  dominance  of  placeless,uncaring decision-makers can be challenged.3 See: www.bristol.gov.uk/policies-plans-strategies/bristol-global-city.4 Website : http://globalparliamentofmayors.org.5BibliographyBell, D. A. and de-Shalit, A. 2011.  The Spirit of Cities. Why the Identity of a City Matters in aGlobal Age, Princeton: University of Princeton Press.Hambleton, R. 2015. Leading the Inclusive City, Bristol: Bristol University Press – Policy Press.Mason, P. 2015. PostCapitalism. A Guide to our Future, London: Allen Lane.Sandel, M. 2012. What Money Can’t Buy. The Moral Limits of Markets, London: Allen Lane.Stiglitz, J.  2012.  The Price of Inequality:  How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future,New York: W. W. Norton & Company.Tuan,  Y. F.  1977.  Space and Place:  The Perspective of Experience,  Minneapolis:  University ofMinneapolis Press.Robin  Hambleton is  Emeritus  Professor  of  City  Leadership  at  the  University  of  the  West  ofEngland, Bristol. He is the author of  Leading the Inclusive City.  Place-Based Innovation for aBounded  Planet (University  of  Bristol  Press  –  Policy  Press,  2015;see: http://policypress.co.uk/leading-the-inclusive-city-1).To cite this article:Robin Hambleton, “Inclusive Place-Based Leadership: Lesson-Drawing from Urban GovernanceInnovation  in  Bristol,  UK”, Metropolitics,  9  October  2018,URL: https://www.metropolitiques.eu/Inclusive-Place-Based-Leadership-Lesson-Drawing-from-Urban-Governance.html.6

Inclusive place-based leadership: Lesson-drawing from urban governance innovations in Bristol, UK

https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/859014/1/Article as published on 9 October 2018 181009.pdf

Inclusive place-based leadership: Lesson-drawing from urban governance innovations in Bristol, UK

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

UWE Bristol Research Repository