A number of cities in the developing world have implemented innovations over the past few decades drawing on systematic learning, i.e., deliberate and continuing acquisition of knowledge often gained from outside sources, on topics such as bus rapid transit, historic preservation downtown, and participatory planning. But very many large cities lag behind or are bogged down.  Why are not successes in a few places spread more rapidly?  Why don’t cities learn?

• On a macro scale, a web-based survey of 45 cities (not yet published) found a large volume of trade in a shadow economy of city-to-city exchange, reflecting a strong demand for learning. See Light on a Shadow Economy in Papers & Articles.
• At the level of the city, a typology of learning cities published in Urban Habitat (Campbell, 2009)-- also in “Past Papers and Articles.”  This study showed that some cities have distinct organizational styles of learning.
• Still another, third angle, pursued in 2009 in connection with a Senior Fellowship with the German Marshall Fund, was to delve more deeply into specific cases of successful cities. See “Torino as a Learning City” and “The Janus Face of Learning” in Papers & Articles.
  

Three factors about learning are emerging from this body of research.  Successful cities 1) are openly committed to learning and sustain investment in knowledge acquisition from external sources over time; 2) form mechanisms at the city or regional level to manage and help to store learning; and 3) create conditions of internal sharing and trust.  The climate of trust in network ties internal to the city appears to be one of the most telling aspects of city learning.  Network data, so central to diagnosis and possibly critical to policy for speeding up learning, have not been explored until now.

These perspectives are being woven into a single volume Beyond Smart Cities—The Janus Face of Learning in an Urban World (PDF).  The contribution of this book is to describe and document not only the global phenomenon of a voluminous exchange of knowledge between and among cities, but to explore and articulate the mechanisms by which successful cities gather and make use of knowledge.  The book will also explore policy consequences for cities to improve learning and foster innovation.  The analysis drills down to the DNA of learning:  the bonding and sharing of values that takes place during learning experiences.  The focus on tacit-to-explicit knowledge of persons engaged in the shaping of the public realm leads to fresh policy ideas in planning, community development, local economic development, infrastructure provision, and many other areas of concern in urban development. See Beyond Smart Cities book proposal in Articles and Research.

Urban Age Institute

[1] See for instance the Dubai International Award for Best Practice , established in 1995.