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Like the book, A Year in Provence, a Year in Providence and the Region, or a year in any city, is an opportunity to step back and experience – in conversation with other thinkers and doers – a city, through the lens of questions. Right questions yield better actions.
A Year in Providence and the Region is an outgrowth of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce symposium Transforming Urban Communities which was held in Providence in June 2005. The symposium compared the lessons of the renaissances in Providence and Liverpool. The symposium surfaced many questions to lead urban transformation.
Questions are born in context and conditions shape the questions. When conditions change, some of the questions change. Question and quest hold the same root, so with the right questions we are on the right quest. And thus we have a trajectory and momentum. Or we have a program of work driven by the question. A year in a city is not about coming up with the action plan. Yet, action will be accelerated by the conversation.
In a “new commons” network conversation, information is aggregated and there is more access. Our meetings online and offline aim to drive projects in one of three ways. Create new projects. Combine projects for more impact. Accelerate the development of existing projects. Thus, there is momentum resulting from our interactive conversations as individuals and the communities we represent.
All questions matter in shaping a city. We are not here to convince each other that our question is the question. Nor are we after agreement. We want alignment of questions. We have more power to make things happen when we better understand our collective questions. We know where we can be of use and support each other.
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