Brave new leadership buoys city for future
Today's lead editorial.
The leadership style in Greensboro is less authoritarian than it used to be. If we value inclusion, the community should try to involve even more people.
Goodbye, paternalism.
Hello, collaboration.
That, in a nutshell, is how leadership style in Greensboro has changed in the last several years.
Gone (for the most part) are the CEO power meetings, the behind-the-scenes decision-making by a few.
They've been replaced with Action Greensboro and synerG, young professionals with ideas and foundations with legacy industry money.
Want to help shape Greensboro's future? If you have the will, there are plenty of ways to become involved.
As Dick Barron reported in his stories on Sunday, leadership in the Gate City in the 21st century is about inclusion, not exclusion.
It's about encouraging people of all walks of life -- from students to seniors, from the poor to the wealthy -- to have a say ... and an opportunity.
This is all good. For places with such an ethos are the healthy ones.
Just read Richard Florida's new book, "Who's Your City?" In it, he talks of the importance of networking, of the "strength of weak ties" in creating communities with resilience. He points to research showing that areas such as California's Silicon Valley and Boston's high-tech Route 128 owe their vitality to "decentralized but cooperative networks" that connect universities to businesses, venture capital to talent.
The hemorrhaging of the textile industry might have forced Greensboro to change its leadership style, but more recent revisions have come voluntarily. Nowhere is this better seen than with our institutions of higher education, which have put community service on steroids in the last few years. They provide Greensboro with formidable talent and resources and, perhaps most important, vision. From GTCC's "Quick Jobs with a Future" effort, which retrains people in little time and for little money, to UNCG's and N.C. A&T's Gateway Research Park, these institutions are helping us all.
But more can be done. Those in leadership positions need to examine how to increase community connections. What people still feel left out of the loop in Greensboro? How can we get them involved? How can we help the next generation -- our children -- get on board?
Are we doing all we can for small business owners? What about the persistent concern that developers are calling the shots and trampling neighborhoods? And does anyone even hear those with a more grim view of the future and the problems it holds? (Such people aren't just naysayers; they may be able to help the city prepare for harsh times.)
Greensboro has seen the value of setting more places at the leadership table. Will it see the value of setting some more?
Comments (2)
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Since you backed her editorially, one can understand you not mentioning the most salient example of this trend-the wholesale rebellion and rejection of GC career-politician Dot Kearns' effort (HP Choice Plan) to upgrade her neighborhood school via force-busing in children from other parts of the county and her faux-maternalistic cover-story that she was doing it for the benefit of minorities-an activity that ten years ago would have simply been accepted as Dot's right-to-political-spoils.
Posted on April 15, 2008 2:27 PM
What about the persistent concern that developers are calling the shots and trampling neighborhoods?
Once Greensboro citizens get to use Protest Petitions in zoning cases, like every other city in the state has the right to do. You will see a different ball game in the planning department.Power to the people will be restored not power to the TREBIC CARTEL.
Posted on April 15, 2008 8:43 PM