A River Runs Through It

I've been thinking a lot lately about how cities are like people, with personalities and attitudes and characters all their own, unique to themselves. It's a helpful analogy. And I've been thinking about change in my own life, how I can get stuck, and how it's often a catalyst, from an illness or injury, an (unwanted) change in employment circumstance, or a family disturbance that forces me to change, reluctantly, and on later reflection I realize that the change was just what I needed, but that I also needed a whack upside the head to get me to change.

So what leads a city to change? Similarly, its often a crisis of some sort. What was working before no longer works. Often, actual physical change in a city is preceded by political change in response to some unsolved problem. I've been thinking about how a municipal wireless project can help a city to transform itself.

Many cities, the most attractive ones in particular, have a river running through them. It's no coincidence, because in the past when cities formed, a river was generally the preferred means of transportation and it also provided water and sustenance. Many cities with the most promise have purposefully highlighted this historical amenity and turned it into green space and a focal point. They're blessed with a certain beauty that cities lacking a river don't enjoy.

A river is a great metaphor for change as well. Like time, a river flows, and the river is never the same, from moment to moment. Our lives, and the lives of the cities we live in, flow like a river, and they're never the same, from moment to moment.

The question for all of us, especially poignant as this old year winds down and the new one revs up, is this: " Does change happen in my life TO ME, where I am passively watching the river flow, or does it happen BY ME, where I actively control the flow and determine its direction? Are you an agent of change in your own life? in the life of your city? That's the question we all should be asking, and especially that city leaders should be asking. And if they're not asking that question in your city, perhaps you should start asking it, and see what kind of response you get. That will tell you a lot about your city's leadership. It will also help you to determine what you can do personally to make things better.

I you'd like to talk more about how starting a metropolitan broadband project can be a means to force a dialogue on that question, drop me a line, because I've realized this past year that the principal benefit of a municipal wireless project just may be that it shakes things up and by asking questions about the future and challenging the status quo, it acts as a catalyst for change.

Even a burr under the saddle can be worthwhile, and these projects can be as disruptive as you want them to be. A well-managed project has a way of asking all sorts of questions that challenge the status quo in a healthy manner, not only making the comfortable uncomfortable, but also benefiting the entire city and all of its citizens. Uncomfortable change often accompanies growth. Just think of what a caterpillar goes through to become a butterfly. It may be time for your city to pick up the pace and start growing up, again, so it can find out what it will be when it grows up.