Mega-Cities Networking Sends a Message to a Changing World

At the eighth annual Mega-Cities Project meeting in Cairo two weeks ago, trend watcher John Naisbitt suggested that a paradox helps explain much of the global change occurring today. “The bigger the world economy,� he said, “the more powerful its smallest players.�

In Naisbitt’s scheme, large companies will gradually cease to be major players in the global economy. They will be replaced by networks of small entrepreneurs that, over time, would become highly influential. The dynamic, according to Naisbitt: To be more competitive, very large businesses will continue to shrink, while smaller companies in strategic alliances will emerge to dominate the world economy. Thus, he said, networking between businesses will become one of the critical elements enabling small companies to play major roles within world markets.

Development of the information superhighway is crucial for his vision to become reality.

The reaction from representatives of 18 of the world’s largest cities--including Los Angeles and New York--was not very positive. From their perspective, Naisbitt had framed a perfect scenario for widening the gap between the haves and have-nots in most of the world’s urban centers.

Naisbitt failed to realize that he was not speaking to captains of industry or emerging entrepreneurs. His audience of Mega-Cities coordinators consisted of individuals who have dedicated themselves to looking for solutions to problems faced by large cities throughout the world.

One premise of the Mega-Cities Project--a 10-year-old program backed by the United Nations, the World Bank and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, among others--is that the world’s largest cities have more in common with each other than they do with smaller cities in their own countries. In part, that’s because the populations of these cities--10 million or more each--suggests that they share similar problems such as traffic congestion, pollution, housing shortages, crime and high unemployment rates.

A second premise of the Mega-Cities Project is that the governments of these cities are ill equipped to cope with the problems they face.

Finally, the project presupposes that the private sector sees no major role for itself in addressing these problems. What is left is a cadre of community-based organizations, struggling to the best of their abilities to address day-to-day problems with limited resources and little political clout.

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The key objective of the Mega-Cities Project is identifying and documenting the best practices being carried out by community groups around the world--the assumption being that what works in one big city quite likely will work in most of the others. A key activity of the project coordinators is to introduce these workable “innovations� to as many other cities as possible, with the belief that meaningful solutions can be transferred in a timely fashion.

Attending the Cairo meeting was Charlotte Bullock, co-founder of Concerned Citizens, a community-based organization in South-Central Los Angeles. Through the Mega-Cities Project, Concerned Citizens learned about the activities of the Zabbaleen, an innovative economic development enterprise in Cairo. Started by “rag pickers�--essentially, junkyard combers--the project has become a thriving set of micro enterprises, including businesses that manufacture paper, quilts and plastic products made from recycled materials.

Bullock traveled to Egypt to see what aspects of the project might be replicated by low-skilled residents in South-Central. As a result of his visit, which was underwritten by Mega-Cities, Concerned Citizens is likely to create an enterprise that will produce paper from recycled materials, and the paper in turn will be used by the group’s newly created printing business. In addition, Concerned Citizens is negotiating for exclusive rights to import quilts, place mats and other products produced by one of the Zabbaleen enterprises.

While Naisbitt may have underestimated his audience, the participants in the Cairo meeting failed to hear his broader message: that networking among units with similar purposes is a powerful way to influence policy formulation and implementation at both the local and international levels.

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An important test of the real potential of the Mega-Cities network will take place here in Los Angeles at the Convention Center on Jan. 13 and 14, when 60 of the city’s most innovative community-based organizations will meet with corporate representatives, federal and locally elected officials, representatives of the Prince of Wales Business Leaders Forum and other Mega-Cities coordinators.

The exposition, which is open to the public, will feature the innovative solutions to urban problems that are being implemented by L.A.’s most creative community-based organizations. The leaders will introduce their innovations to policy-makers and discuss ways of expanding them.

The results could prove the truth of Naisbitt’s notion that small units have the power to make a significant impact on local and global problem solving.