Cities Face a Tough Road – and Even Tougher Decisions

Rommel Sulit isn’t sure, but he thinks he got COVID-19 at a construction site in July. What he does know is that what happened next was pure hell.

Sulit, founding principal of architecture firm Forge Craft in Austin, Texas, spent the next few weeks at home, mostly in bed. He lost his appetite (everything tasted bitter) and 15 pounds. And, most dangerously, fever rocked his body, sending his temperature to 103 degrees, then plummeting down as low as 96 while he shivered uncontrollably.

But Sulit learned to adapt, keeping cold compresses at the ready in the afternoons and late in the evenings, when the worst fevers would strike. Drip-dry shirts and layers of blankets and towels helped him control the low end.

“I was able to track my progress,” he said. “I would go through cycles, but the extremes wouldn’t be as high – because I started to know what I was doing.”

Now, mostly recovered, Sulit sees his experience as a microcosm of what civic leaders must embrace as they seek to guide the world’s urban centers through a crisis that has turned cities’ most fundamental characteristic – population density – against them, with catastrophic results. If they want cities to emerge from the pandemic with their statuses as talent hubs intact and, more importantly, healthier, leaders must learn and adapt on the fly and rethink how to use technology, how to approach philanthropy and how they work together.

“Governments and businesses working collaboratively to help cities through these difficult times is part of a broader trend toward an emerging enlightened C-suite,” said Elizabeth Nelson, Ph.D. candidate and author of The Healthy Office Revolution. “We are seeing some decision-makers surrounding themselves with an unprecedented amount and variety of data. Companies with these leaders will have an important and significant head start in a different way to lead.”

That is the focus of Chapter 7 of Work, Wellness & Space.

COVID-19 a ‘Lubricant’ for Smart Cities?

In many ways, COVID-19 is already changing life in cities around the world, and some experts predict smart cities – where Internet of Things sensors are used in hopes of improving many elements of civic life – will gain more traction. Smart city initiatives could pave the way for more quantified standards, which can lead to a healthier, efficient, sustainable and performance-driven infrastructure, advocates say.

But not everyone is convinced of the benefits of smart cities or COVID-19’s effect on them. Many “urban prophets – with or without much empirical evidence – expect that COVID-19 will act as a lubricant for smart city initiatives,” said Klaus R. Kunzmann, professor emeritus and the former head of the Institute of Spatial Planning at the Technical University of Dortmund, Germany. “For a few years, COVID-19 will be the standard argument and pretext for supporting public and private decisions on almost everything, though particularly for making cities smarter by using digital technologies,” he said.

“Smart” concepts aren’t new – in 1620, Dutch engineer and inventor Cornelis Drebbel built a chicken coop that regulated light and temperature to increase egg production. London was among several European cities heralded in 2019 for smart city initiatives, and advocates across the continent that digital technologies will help make public services more efficient and reduce transportation congestion, air pollution and energy and water consumption. That, in turn, could help cities focus more on creating walking and bike lanes, adding greenways and parks and improving urban gardening. But there are related concerns about privacy and what Kunzmann called “unbalanced digital infrastructure development” – meaning most of the benefits could accrue to the affluent, while those without means fall further behind.

The pandemic has already hit vulnerable residents hardest, even those who haven’t been directly affected by the virus, said Tanarra Schneider, managing director, design at Accenture Interactive/Fjord. She points to unequal broadband access for low-income schoolchildren and the fact that reduced downtown activity hurts the homeless who depend on change from office workers to survive.

That should provide context for business leaders, even as they struggle to stay afloat amid a recession. They should commit to broadly helping cities where they operate and rethinking some old assumptions. For example, just because universal Wi-Fi becomes available, Schneider said, doesn’t mean every business should use it. 

“When I look at what it means to empower every citizen to have the tools they need with distributed Wi-Fi, this is a massive opportunity,” she said. “But if you, as a business or an individual can afford to, please pay for that access – so we can make sure that those who can’t afford it can get it.”

Rethinking Corporate Philanthropy

Given the front-row seat they’ve had to the pandemic-induced economic pain, now is the time for businesses to step up financially, like Salesforce did earlier this month by committing $18 million to support Bay Area public schools, experts say. “That’s the future of the company’s workforce – or somebody’s damn workforce,” Schneider said. Salesforce described their actions similarly: “Public schools are the backbone of our communities – the heart and soul of our neighborhoods.”

Salesforce’s move, and others like it, has some experts hoping that civic-minded business leaders, including those who have been active in community service and investment, might begin to reconsider where they steer their philanthropic efforts.

“Historically, private dollars have tended to go to youth development work, or opportunities for youth,” said Ayanna Thomas, supervisor of grants administration at the Chicago Department of Public Health. “With COVID, it's been a challenge for the city. It’s a really important piece, the relationship-building between corporations and cities.”

Whether the philanthropy is a direct effort like Salesforce’s or indirect, like declining to use free public Wi-Fi, business leaders should be active participants in maintaining and boosting the vibrancy of the cities they call home, said Paul O’Connor, an urban strategist. That means doing more than writing a check – and it can’t be shrugged off as typical talk of business and government working together, he said.

For proof that the world’s business leaders were already changing their thinking before the pandemic, O’Connor pointed to the Business Roundtable’s 2019 statement, which aimed to move past simply prioritizing shareholder interests. A year later, in the wake of COVID-19 and widespread racial tensions across the country this summer, business leaders should know the stakes are even higher. They must see the threat of empty downtowns and talk of flight from cities as reasons to move past “transactional relationships” with governments, O’Connor said.

O’Connor even thinks that corporate chiefs are a step ahead of municipal leaders, who will struggle to cede any control, on the path through these difficult times. But smart business leaders understand the choice before them at this critical moment.

“It’s renaissance,” O’Connor said, “or ruin.”

Finding the Signal

O’Connor and other experts are quick to say that the necessary collaboration isn’t just about business and government. It must involve academia, nonprofits and other members of the community. As an example, O’Connor pointed to INVEST South/West, a Chicago collaborative that seeks to pump more than $750 million into 10 of the city’s most disinvested neighborhoods.

INVEST South/West was created in 2019, with new funding announced as recently as this summer, part of which went to support construction of a 30,000-square-foot surgical center near Mt. Sinai Hospital in the North Lawndale neighborhood. The project is crucial, “set against the background of both COVID-19 and the issues of racial disparities brought to the forefront in the wake of the death of George Floyd,” Karen Teitelbaum, president and CEO of Sinai Health System, said in a statement.

"We’re at a pivotal moment,” she said. “This sort of financial commitment means much more than bricks and mortar; it’s about ensuring vitality, employment, safety and good health in a part of Chicago plagued with disparities,” she said.

Of course, bringing together so many stakeholders isn’t easy. But one story from Chicago’s Department of Public Health offers hope – and perhaps a lesson.

Raed Mansour, director of the public health department’s Office of Innovation, was besieged with calls and emails in March, during the pandemic’s earliest and (so far) scariest days. But as difficult as it was to get to the bottom of his inbox, Mansour was happy. The overload came from key stakeholders – businesses, community leaders, academics, representatives from other government agencies – offering ideas for how to help.

“That was great – but it posed other challenges,” he said. “It’s very noisy, you’ve got a host of experts and ideologies. But we have to find out what is the signal we should listen to within that noise so we can protect the most vulnerable.”

The collaboration that continues to this day helped Chicago tamp down the coronavirus curve, Mansour said. And it’s the kind of collective effort that is crucial, given the challenges that will endure beyond this pandemic.

Almost to a person, experts emphasized that the threat of animal-borne viruses is now a fact of life. That means it would be unthinkable for leaders from cities and other governments, from businesses and all other stakeholders not to collectively take a hard look at the past six months and seek ways to protect our collective health going forward.

Sulit is among those experts, and there’s another part of his own experience that reflects the tricky nature of our current terrain: Sulit doesn’t yet know if he actually had COVID-19. He initially tested negative, but swab tests are only about 60 percent accurate – and based on how sick he got, Sulit and his doctor think COVID was the culprit.

Sulit will soon find out for sure. But with his own experience emblematic of the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic and perhaps the future more broadly, Sulit is already sure of something else – not learning from the past several months would be a mistake.

“Everyone involved will need to come together and look at the data once the dust settles on this pandemic,” Sulit said, “because we need to prepare for the next one.”

As is our practice with Work, Wellness & Space, we identify social conflicts surrounding each chapter’s theme. Regarding the future of cities, conflicts include:

• Can Stakeholders Adapt to Work Better Together? Experts say businesses must reevaluate their strategies for philanthropy, especially given cash-strapped local governments. But at least one expert said city governments should simultaneously relax their controlling tendencies. Given the enormity of the problems we face, what needs to happen first to compel city leaders to loosen the reins and inspire corporate executives to step up or at least change their approach to corporate philanthropy?

• Tapping the Benefits of Smart Cities: Advocates say better data collection can improve traffic, transportation, utilities, water, waste, health and even crime. But there are many privacy concerns and worries about the technology benefitting only the well-heeled. Can cities make smart, strategic and equitable decisions that benefit all, not some, with insight from business and community leaders? And will they make these decisions fast enough to retain or bring back industry, enterprise and commerce, safely and smartly, to urban hubs – thus bringing our cities back from the brink?

• From Noise to Signal: Sometimes during times of crisis, too many stakeholders can come forward with well-intentioned suggestions. What will incentivize government leaders – gatekeepers and go-betweens who often follow the money in the interests of self-preservation – to identify the strongest, most creative ideas while ensuring that those with quieter or weaker voices – and unfamiliar voices from nontraditional actors – aren’t forgotten or ignored?