It doesn't take a room full of super geniuses to figure out that what made cities successful 50 years ago won't work nowadays. What does work, Carol Coletta says, varies from city to city. But she has a plan.
Coletta, CEO of
CEOs for Cities and host and producer of the nationally syndicated public radio show,
Smart City Radio, rolled out a presentation on what she feels is a direction for city prosperity at the Model D Speaker Series on Aug. 3.
Her ideas sound so simple.
Cities need to only increase the number of 25- to 34-year-olds with four-year degrees by one percent; drop by one the average miles per day traveled by car; and reduce the poverty percentage by only one percent. If they do that, the country could stand to pull in a national gain of $166 billion. As she points out, that's not stimulus money, that's pure, unadulterated revenue. And Detroit's chunk of that revenue -- if it accomplished these things --could possibility make it America's next generation of great cities.
Yet, at its heart, Coletta's plan begins with talent retention.
"Retention is key," she says. "You can make it, try to attract it, or retain it … but it's key."
Attraction is the hard part. Out of the 50 largest metro regions, only 16 made gains in the 25- to 34-year-old/four-year-degree population, she says. This particular population is, essentially, the demographic a city wants to attract. That means 34 metro regions lost their college educated talent.
"Attraction of talent out of the metro area is a tough nut to crack," Coletta says. "So you have to grow your own, and keep it here. And, to do that, you have to have quality of place and opportunity. That's also key."
Nearly 60 percent of a city'w success can be explained by the percentage of grads in the population, she says. "If you're not working on college attainment as part of the economic and community development strategy, then you're not working on an economic and community development strategy."
Coletta says another point to a successful city is figuring out and understanding what makes a community, a city, different. "Detroit, you need to ask yourself 'How are we distinctive?' and then capitalize on that," she says. "I'm not the expert here, you are."
She displayed a slide that listed 17 theories that have worked and proved successful for other cities. Pointing to those 17: "Some make sense for some cities, some don't make any sense," she says. "Just because something worked for one city at one point doesn't mean you have to copy it."
Yet Coletta believes that Detroit is on a positive path to being part of America's next generation of great cities.
"The path is getting clearer and more focused," she says. "There is a lot in the line of moving toward a new Detroit, moving forward in a positive direction. Not only with passion, but toward the right thing."
Writer: Terry Parris Jr.
Source: Carol Coletta, CEOs for Cities
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