An Equation for Community Potential, Part I
What 5th grade math, birthday cakes, and a $50 million shrine to comedy can tell us about the future of our places.
Within a community, the word "potential" can be an agonizing one.
Mix three cups of hopes and dreams together with a few heaping spoonfuls of pessimism and doubt, put it in the oven for "this is taking way too long", and out pops a birthday cake we like to call "potential".
Will it taste good? Will the candles light? Is it baked all the way through? Who knows, but potentially...
“Potential” is usually just a guess sprinkled with sunshine. The word saturates our cities. We use it in conversations of hope, of disappointment, of doubt. We say it when we know for sure but want to leave a little wiggle room. We say it when we have no idea what we’re talking about. We use it as our highest calling as well as the lowest common denominator because at the very least, if we don't have potential, what do we have anyway?
We don't know the future (except for maybe your astrology friend who brings her tarot cards to every Girl’s Night), but what if there was a way to put some meat on those vague bones of potential?
What if there was a way to evaluate, as best we can, what our potential actually is?
In my first couple years of teaching, I would tell my fifth graders that they would "use math every day!". That, of course, was a lie. But let's dust off the ‘ol Order of Operations and take a crack at creating an equation that could describe potential in a substantive way.
Here’s my first draft:
Trust + action + resources = potential
It's important to note that the equation isn't evaluating the current state of things. Whether you have a world-class city or one full of crumbling, vacant buildings owned by prospecting slum-lords (I'm bitter), this equation is only trying to estimate what can happen from here on out, making it a relative equation and not a prescriptive one. It puts our places on equal footing and prevents the deduction that "rich cities have great potential and poor cities don't". It also gives flexibility in what potential means for an individual community and doesn't define potential as simply becoming bigger and richer. Resources play a part, but only a part.
Additionally, the equation could be applied at the macro or micro level. It could evaluate the city as a whole or look at small, incremental possibilities. The equation could work just as well for, "Where could we be as a community in 10 years?" as it does with "How do we address crime in our neighborhoods?" or “How do we conduct more effective meetings?”
The elements of the equation are listed in order of importance, and trust comes first. Without trust, community needs won't be met because they aren't understood and action will be slow or nonexistent because there isn't any perceived value to action ("What good would it do if they don't even listen to me?"). Resources come next. Resources are tools and cities can do a lot with a little, but they can also do a lot with a lot.
Remember, though, that the converse is also true--cities can do very little with a lot.
In 2018, the city of Jamestown, New York, a city of only 30,000 people, built the National Comedy Center, a museum dedicated to the history of comedy.
It cost $50 million to build, or $1700 per man, woman and child in a city where the per capita income is $19,000 a year. In other words, the museum cost most of the people of Jamestown more than they make each month.
And there's more. From Jeff Siegler of Revitalize, or Die:
"The Jamestown public school system has the highest rate of poverty amongst school-age children in Chautauqua County and 17th highest in the State of New York, at 40%. A city that had its status as a Central Library revoked by the State of New York for failing to provide adequate local funding. A city that seemingly is struggling in nearly every regard, was somehow able to pull together $50 million for the National Comedy Center. How can this be?"
Money helps, but can also hurt. A hammer is useful on a nail but not on a thumb.
So, how do you evaluate your current state of potential? Ask questions, give true answers.
Here are some questions to start:
Trust: Do we know each other beyond names and Facebook? Do we have clear, consistent, and transparent communication? Who has a say? Who is being listened to? Do our actions show that we are both listening and capable? Do we display both empathy and authority? Do we act like humans or institutions?
Actions: What are we actually doing? Are those actions working? Are they meaningful and timely? Are they incremental and organic as well as gutsy and transformative? Who is doing the work? How many are doing the work? Is there accountability? Do we get things done?
Resources: What do we have? What do we need? What do we want? Are the resources we have in the right hands? Who controls the resources? What is their best use? Who has access? Do people even know about the resources in the first place? Is the pipeline clear or bound by red tape?
Potential: Do we understand that potential can be good, bad, transformational, inadequate, and all the things inbetween? What’s the possibility? What’s the goal? Is the potential informed by reality or is it just a hopeful guess?
This is just a start to the questions that should be asked. It’s important to note, though, the answers will take more than just individual experience or perceived condition. Your experience or perception does not define your community. It's also important to say that this isn't a fault-finding equation, although someone committed more to grievance and retribution than possibility and potential could use it that way. Let’s look forward, not backward.
The power of looking at our communities in this way is three-fold :
1) It forces a close examination of the current state of things instead of relying on mostly individual, subjective perceptions.
2) It estimates where we will end up based on the reality of where we are instead of what we want or think will happen.
3) It shows we can influence the future by taking stock of what we have and what is holding us back.
That last point is the one we’ll leave with for now because it helps point us towards what is possible, and, if we don’t like what we what we see, what needs to be done to improve it.
A city with more than enough resources to go around and people equipped to act but lacking trust needs to improve its human-to-human relationships to realize its full potential.
A relatively poor but tightly-knit, passionate city full of citizen-owners can do a lot with what they have…but imagine what could happen if the pipeline of resources was even just a little bit bigger?
This equation for potential, is well, just a guess with some sunshine and polish. It’s only my equation and an imperfect one at that, and I’d be thrilled to hear what you have to say about how this applies in your own city, how you would change it, or if you already have your own equation. Jump into the comments and give me your thoughts.
If anything, it can serve as a call to look at ourselves a little more closely, evaluate a little more truthfully, and understand the reality behind our possibilities is more important than dreams and birthday cakes.
You can also connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.