Municipal election season has started in my city. While the election is eight months away, the mayoral and council candidates are making themselves known. The game is afoot. I wonder, should I cast my vote based on who my city government needs to be, or who I want them to be?

With each election, the candidates and their platforms emerge over the months preceding the big day. They voice a range of interests and priorities in the city. The people we choose to sit on city council shuffle around a bit, or a lot, depending on the desired degree of change we are looking for as voters.

On election day, our votes reveal what is important to us as citizens. Each municipal election is an opportunity for a city to recalibrate its political leadership and respond to the community's needs. There's usually something in the outside world that shapes our elections. It could be economic prosperity or an economic downturn. There could be an event at home or somewhere else in the world that shapes how we cast our votes that day. This year, when we go to the polls in October, our election will have been shaped by a pandemic.

Four perspectives in the city

The pandemic requires us to change how we live our lives, and as a result, city life is recalibrating. A practical way to explore how our cities are experiencing change is through the Integral City voices, identified by Marilyn Hamilton: civic managers, civic builders, civic organizations and citizens.

Marilyn Hamilton’s Integral City Voices. Illustration: Amanda Schutz.

I witnessed a moment of brilliance a couple of weeks ago in the class I am teaching with Marilyn Hamilton about how to cultivate a city culture that is "beyond" resilient. The students, living in Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Mexico, Netherlands, Scotland, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States, summarized these four perspectives in these ways:

Civic managers allocate public resources in the city. They want to improve wellness in the city while they grapple with competing demands and finite resources.
Civic builders/innovators ask how things can be better in the city. They identify problems and look for creative ways to solve problems. They like to challenge the status quo.
Civic organizations, our non-profits and NGOs, voice fairness. They voice a diversity of needs in the city and hold a vision of equity. They work to bridge the gap between the present and the potential.
Citizens focus on meeting personal and immediate personal needs for themselves and family. They care about belonging, feeling safe, and exercising self-autonomy.

These four perspectives pay attention to different things and look after distinct aspects of city life. Each makes unique contributions to enable cities that serve citizens well. These contributions allow us to adjust and respond to our changing life conditions in our pandemic era. City hall, business, community organizations and citizens are all called to change how we contribute to our city's well-being.

With an election coming, who does our city government need to be to serve us well?

The challenges our cities face

As citizens, when we ask ourselves who is best able to lead our city government, the answer often comes from our values and priorities, usually without differentiating the role we want the government to play in city life. As the students worked away to learn more about these four perspectives, I noticed four intersecting city challenges embedded in their discussion about cities in this pandemic era: representation, adaptation, equity, and belonging and safety. Useful information, because to understand the role we want the government to play, we need to understand the challenges our cities face.

Representation

Civic managers are struggling with authentic representation. While they hold the intention to improve wellness in the city, the inequities made more explicit by the pandemic cannot be "unseen." Who are the people making decisions on our behalf, and do they represent us? Are white men (and women) making decisions for everyone else? What is the cultural representation on city council and in city hall, and does it reflect the citizens they serve?

Adaptation

The pandemic has had a significant impact on many businesses in the city. At the very least, how we work and shop has changed, to keep citizens (employees and customers) safe and healthy. Some businesses closed, while others operate with reduced cash flow. Others have made creative efforts to shift their business online or start new delivery options. Curbside pickup for food or other goods—unheard of a year ago—is now common. (And a boon for people with physical disabilities who are not easily able to go into stores.) New businesses have started to serve new needs in my city. My favourite is a website where I can shop from my favourite local food makers and arrange for pickup or delivery.

In addition, we ask our civic managers (city governments, school boards and health authorities) to change their work radically and how they do it. We ask political leaders to be agile and innovative with little tolerance for mistakes.

Equity

Our community organizations play a vital role in identifying the unmet needs in our cities—and working to meet those needs. My city has grappled with inequities in access to adequate housing throughout the pandemic. Not everyone in our city has housing. Not everyone can physically distance themselves from others or self-isolate as needed. Our city government and our community organizations rallied to find creative solutions. Some businesses offered hotels. And as winter approached, we did it again: a massive effort to provide safe housing for citizens.

And all the while, the voice of community organizations told us: see, we can choose to house everyone. And cultural organizations pointed out how Indigenous people are a disproportionate majority of the homeless population and how conventional housing for the homeless does not meet their physical and cultural needs. A significant inequity was revealed.

Belonging and safety

The stark question of 2020 lingers in our cities: Is the purpose of our police service, and our city government, to serve, protect and privilege White people? Without resolution, many citizens—Indigenous, Black and people of colour—continue to feel unsafe and unwelcome in our cities.

Community organizations do a lot of work to connect citizens. Last summer, my neighbourhood association organized an outdoor film screening in a grass field, with each household unit physically distanced. We connected with our neighbours and checked in with each other to see if anyone needed assistance. While insufficient, it also felt really good (I cried).

When we can not gather with friends or family, or at work for many of us, we feel untethered. To make sure we are all safe, we've had to feel our way through new ways of crafting and maintaining relationships without being physically present with each other. Most of us believe that we put ourselves and others at risk if we do not take this seriously. Many of us do not believe this is serious.

It is reasonable to assume that citizens feel isolated and unsafe for varied reasons: racial, economic, social connectivity, cultural events, etc.

Elections reveal our values

This quick exploration reveals a diversity of values and interests in the city and the collective work of the four voices. Each perspective has a role to play to resolve the challenges above. Together, they aim, to different degrees, to:

Meet basic needs of citizens
Nurture a shared sense of belonging for the collective survival of citizens
Cultivate pride and identity, protect the city from danger
Provide necessary structure to meet citizens' physical, economic and social needs
Create the conditions prosperity, development and growth
Create the conditions for expanding, receiving and sharing knowledge
Learn to fix and flow with uncertainty and conflicting truths
Harmonize humanity with planetary well-being

Values of the city, developed from Clare Graves, Don Beck and Christopher Cowan’s Spiral Dynamics work.

These eight statements reflect values, or priorities. These values show up in different combinations for us, in different circumstances and situations. They may also appear in different intensities in city hall, the business community, community organizations and citizens.

At election time, as voters, we need to ask what combination of these values need to be embedded in our city government leaders to respond to our circumstances. A government that does not have a strong presence of the fourth value, to provide the necessary structure to meet citizens' physical, economic and social needs, will fall flat. Structure is needed for any group of humans organizing themselves, but too much structure stifles the fifth: create the conditions for prosperity.

What structure is needed and why? How much structure is needed, and is it the right structure? What does our city need now?

What does this mean for election season?

Here are a few thoughts:

Candidates for city council: Be clear about what you stand for and why. Tell us what the role of government is now. If we need to release our grip on some rules, tell us why. If we need more rules in other areas, tell us why. City government is not solely responsible for the well-being of the city, so what are your expectations of citizens, civic organizations and business? Please be clear about who will look after what.
Civic builders/innovators: Be clear about what you stand for and why. Tell us what the role of city government is—or is not—now. Tell us your role is in the city and what is different because of our circumstances. Please be clear about what city government can do to enable you to do what you do best as you serve the city.
Civic organizations: Be clear about what you stand for and why. Tell us what the role of city government is—or is not—now. Tell us your role is in the city and what is different because of our circumstances. Please be clear about what city government can do to enable you to do what you do best as you serve the city.
Citizens: Be clear about what you stand for and why. Investigate what the role of government needs to be now to serve citizens well. What does city government do that works well? What needs to be done differently, and how? Please make clear requests of candidates so they can, in return, help city government help us have the best possible life in the city.

If you lean toward more rules, or fewer rules, set aside your preference and ask: who does our government need to be now? What is most responsible and responsive? Pick your topic: What action makes sense for city government now?

Here's a game I play with myself every election: do I voting for who I would like us to be, or do I vote for the right skills to handle our circumstances. Sometimes the answer is the same person. Other times, the answer is not the same. But the investigation always allows me to be more conscious of how I exercise my vote.

Reflection

How is city government working well in your city?
Where is there room to improve your city government to respond to today's needs?
What requests do you have of city government?
Which candidates will implement your requests?

City Life is Recalibrating