Depending on the situation, this can either be the end of the process or the beginning of a new round of consolidation, development and refinement. In this stage, ideas are shared, critiqued, questions are raised and initial feedback is provided. The last step in the process is presenting the ideas to the group. Regardless of the method, the goal is to make the relationships more evident and use this information to synthesize meaningful insights and opportunities for change. ”Īs in Ersilia, these abstract representations are a form of the city itself, a clearly defined network of relationships laid bare. From a mountainside, camping with their household goods, Ersilia’s refugees look at the labyrinth of taut strings and poles that rise in the plain. In this model, participants create visual representations of their city and use strings to connect all of the related qualities, institutions and organizations. Another method is illustrated in the portrait of South Philadelphia shown at the left. This transcribes personal accounts and experiences into building blocks which can be combined into meaningful insights about the city. Although this phase is still exploratory and reliant upon trial-and-error to find the best tools, this type of analysis is methodical and rigorous. A typical method we use is Storytelling and Note-taking with Post-it notes. Like the inhabitants of Ersilia, participants seek to order the information of the city. Thus, when traveling in the territory of Ersilia, you come upon the ruins of the abandoned cities, without the walls which do not last, without the bones of the dead which the wind rolls away: spiderwebs of intricate relationships seeking a form. Then they abandon it and take themselves and their houses still farther away. They weave a similar pattern of strings which they would like to be more complex and at the same time more regular than the other. That is the city of Ersilia still, and they are nothing. From a mountainside, camping with their household goods, Ersiia’s refugees look at the labyrinth of taut strings and poles that rise in the plain. When the strings become so numerous that you can no longer pass among them, the inhabitants leave: the houses are dismantled only the strings and their supports remain. Trading Cities In Ersilia, to establish the relationships that sustain the city’s life, the inhabitants stretch strings from the corners of the houses, white or black or gray or black-and-white according to whether they mark a relationship of blood, of trade, authority, agency.
ERSILIA ITALO CALVINO HOW TO
So, let's analyze the story of Ersilia and discover how to reinvent our own invisible cities. Dissecting the text reveals both the Challenge methodology and reasoning behind it. In Calvino's story about the trading city Ersilia, he unknowingly outlines the basic format of our civic innovation process. Each has some fantastic quality that makes it special - waiting to be discovered by an adventurous explorer. Oneonta, Utica, and numerous other small, regional cities are our invisible cities. Each city has something amazing about it, yet it is unknown to the outside world. Calvino's "Invisible Cities" are mythical stories recounted by a fictionalized Marco Polo to Kublai Khan about fantastical cities within his empire. My experience in these cities reminds me of Italo Calvino’s stories in his book “Invisible Cities”. They ask themselves the basic question: “How might we use our existing infrastructure, industry, knowledge networks, and history to find new opportunities for economic growth and improved quality of life?" However, these 2 cities are seeking to reinvent themselves by tapping into the fierce loyalty, pride and boot-strapping potential of those who remain. They are part of a pattern of regional cities in decline. Like Oneonta, Utica faces similar challenges on a bigger scale. Oneonta today is a shell of its more prosperous past.Ī year earlier, we conducted the first Innovation Challenge NY in Utica, Oneonta’s larger northern neighbor. They are challenged with declining population, underutilized infrastructure, and a lack of job opportunities and economic growth. Oneonta is like many post-industrial cities in the Northeast. (Below is a video of the Fox 2015 Challenge) Based on the model we developed in Philadelphia at the Fox School of Business’ Center for Design+Innovation, this civic innovation challenge asked students to envision a new future for this small city. In November, I joined a group of colleagues in Oneonta, New York, to facilitate the Innovation Challenge New York (ICNY). How do we innovate small, regional, post-industrial cities?