[bouldercouncilhotline] Hotline: Report on 100RC Summit

[cmosupport at bouldercolorado.gov]

Sender: Appelbaum, Matt


Colleagues – As you know, I was invited to take part in a City Leaders Summit on Urban Resilience as part of the 100 Resilient Cities (100RC) program sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation. About two dozen mayors from around the world attended the two-day Summit, which was held the beginning of October; the number was limited by a requirement that attendees speak English, and a number of invitees weren’t able to attend.
 
As seemed clear from the agenda, the main goal of the Summit – or so it appeared to me – was to convince the mayors that resilience is of critical importance, that it should be fully funded, and that their city organizations should ensure that resilience is taken into consideration in a wide range of city activities.  Since I’m not an executive mayor, and since Boulder already understands the critical importance of resilience, that message was
 not new to me.
 
Another key goal was simply for the mayors to share information about their cities’ resilience issues and how they are being addressed.  A bit unexpectedly, this almost entirely focused on chronic shocks like crime, education, poverty, etc., to the exclusion of acute shocks like natural disasters.  And since these issues were largely raised by cities in the developing world, there was a limited link to Boulder.
 
We heard presentations from experts on a variety of topics, including a (questionable, in my view) poll suggesting how citizens understand resilience and how to best communicate the issue to them, how to finance projects (mostly about social impact bonds, which are very unlikely to work for us), how cities can get a significant return on investment by becoming more resilient, and some basic introductions to the concepts of resilience.  There was also a quite fascinating presentation on the current refugee crisis, punctuated by observations from the mayors of Athens and Amman.  In general, these were fairly high-level presentations that offered limited specificity.
 
As always, meeting the other attendees and making connections with them was most interesting and, I think, worthwhile.  I spent considerable time chatting with the mayors of Berkeley,CA, and New Orleans, as well as my good friend from Bristol, England and new acquaintances from Christchurch and Wellington, NZ, and Sydney.  Some of these folks and others raised issues that certainly resonate in Boulder, like lack of affordable housing and transportation concerns, but these were not really followed up on.
 
There may well be a follow-up meeting(s) at some later date, but it’s hard to know whether it would be better to again gather the entire, rather diverse, group or to focus each meeting regionally or topically.  Regardless, the CROs will be meeting again soon, and I think that their meetings will naturally go into more depth on many of the issues that more directly concern Boulder.
 
Needless to say, the retreat center in Bellagio was more than a little spectacular, and we were certainly very well treated.  The Rockefeller Foundation will pay my airfare and of course put us up at the center for a few nights (I should note that they offered to pay my wife’s airfare as well but we declined since that is not allowed under our rules) – so there was no cost at all to Boulder.  Except, I suppose, for the thirty OSMP caps that I carried with me and gave out as very much appreciated gifts.
 
There’s no doubt that Boulder’s recognition as one of the 100RC cities is a considerable honor and also quite important for us.  Not only is Rockefeller funding our CRO for two years, but we also have access to their network and team of professionals, and possibly some additional funding for projects.  As such, it was clearly important that we attend this summit of mayors, and I suspect that any subsequent meetings will be more focused as the 100RC team better understands how to best engage the mayors in more detailed conversations and as the mayors become more educated about and supportive of creating more resilient cities.
 
--Matt