Highlights from McKinsey report on “How to Make a City Great”:
-by 2030 60% of the world (5 billion people) will live in cities.
-While cities are world’s economic engines, they also account for the most resource consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
-The report focuses on what successful leaders do to make their cities great. Cites 3 things: smart growth (that balances the economy, social conditions, and the environment), doing more with less, and winning support for change by delivering results swiftly.
-Smart growth: simpler tax codes, focus on clustering industrial sectors in city, invest heavily in infrastructure, train English speakers, constantly set short term achievable goals, adopt regional perspective and collaborate within that region, make planning inclusive (bottom up), build high-density areas (smaller more compact infrastructure), regulate construction projects to build “green” projects, provide opportunities and infrastructure for the marginal residents of the city.
-More with less: embrace technology, rigorously monitor expenses.
-Win support for change: be accountable, provide citizens information, build a high-performance team, invest in education, create culture of accountability.
Not surprisingly, there was little ground breaking information in the report. What did strike me was actually how balanced and, in my view, spot on much of the report was (although it was corporately vague and general also). I guess I was hoping it would be actually prescriptive rather than just descriptive couched in prescriptive language. I was looking for it to layout steps and priorities at each stage of development rather than a laundry list of everything cities should be doing (even when doing more with less it’s impossible to do everything). I have an image in my head of representatives from a global corporation equipped with the McKinsey report on Africa sitting down at a meeting with the governor of an African city who has a copy of this city report in his briefcase, and each side being miffed at McKinsey: the governor annoyed of the portrayal of Africa as a fruit ripe for the picking, where resources can be extracted and consumerism sold, and the corporation disappointed that the governor is demanding infrastructure investment and environmental pledges in exchange for business licenses and trading rights. I guess that’s the nature of soliciting information from a consulting firm.
Image source (Kinshasa skyline)
Arcade Africa 