11th PASCAL Conference - Closing thoughts...

Comments on the co-rapporteur's overview report

Hans G. Schuetze, University of British Columbia. and PASCAL

The conference was one of the liveliest conferences I have been to in many years - mainly because of the mix of participants, the chosen format and in particular the decision to substitute keynotes and power point presentations by dialogue and discussion, as well as the meticulous preparation (the proceedings and the tight scripting of the proceedings).

Because of the vast ground the conference covered and the ambitious format of combining theoretical discussions with practical perspectives and site visits, any summary that capture the main processes and results was a real challenge. As a consequence, the draft overview report tried to cover a lot of issues. The result is a highly abstract summary that does not - and maybe cannot - fully reflect the breadth and the depth the discussions.

Apart from the high degree of abstraction which makes difficult reading even for participants, three points in particular seem to be inappropriate and should be changed or modified:

1. The term ”stakeholder” uses Milton Friedman's terminology and suggests closeness to his ideological mantra. It does not describe the participants properly. None of them were 'stakeholders' - unless the ‘stake’ is defined as a democratic, equitable, civil society. Nor were they representative of vested interests. Rather they were both engaged citizens as well as experts in particular fields [teaching and learning; city planning and governance; learning cities, and consultancies to government and business].
2. The term "evidence-based" is used several times in the summary, which suggests that there are a list of neatly defined performance indicators which qualify particular forms of experience or learning as relevant (thus disregarding other forms and processes of individual and collective learning). The attempt of establishing such a list of indicators and judge the performance of cities in relation to such list was turned down at the October UNESCO conference in Beijing, simply because there is not a single number of "best practices" against which the experience of different cities from different countries can be assessed, classified or judged.
3. The title of the conference "Cities learning together” was ambiguous, therefore the summary should make clear that only one of the possible meanings was covered, namely different sectors within a city must communicate with each other and share their particular expertise and objectives with each other.

The 2nd possible meaning, that different cities exchange experience, and learn about the other cities' experience about common problems with respect to city planning and governance, citizen participation, and the definition of the goals of development, was not addressed, except by Peter Kearns who, however, noted that the PIE project that he is particularly engaged in had not (yet) achieved such an exchange of experience and ideas between learning cities. I believe that is something PASCAL could do well and probably better than many other not-for-profit NGOs. But, of course, that would require some funding which however, I believe, could be found if this activity would be seen by cities and towns as valuable tools of collective learning as an integral part of thorough city planning.

For example, the economic strand (the group I was participating in) would have provided an opportunity to demonstrate the value of such an approach. PASCAL’s PURE activity over the last few years had looked in detail into some similar projects and situations (even not all of the same scale), and some of the participants of the group were quite knowledgeable about major conversion and development projects in other big cities (e.g. East London, Hamburg, Rotterdam). Yet the group was basically lectured by the (very competent) head of this particular city development without making an attempt of engaging him and his team in a real dialogue and mutual learning experience. And with no attempt of a follow-up offering for example to engage in an evaluation of the project once the planning had been realized. Of course, Hong Kong is a very unique place and not all the lessons learned elsewhere can be applied here one to one. But that reservation applies to all international analyses and comparisons.

Anyway, the conference provided a most enjoyable networking and learning experience - and an opportunity to think hard about PASCAL, its ‘mission’ and its potential role in the future. Especially this latter is a challenge that the Pascal principals and associates must engage in before organizing another major conference.