How we fit in

New Mobility Agenda?
How we fit in

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Our contribution - and how we fit in

The fox knows many things; the hedgehog knows one big thing.

Our activities and competences here at the New Mobility Agenda are very different from those of our more established working partners, who in all cases have much broader ranges of competences, challenges and interests, with in all cases continuing, long term involvements with the issues. Many of them have structured programs that attempt to look out for decades into the future and then against that backdrop to fashion their interventions and contributions. What we bring to the table is by contrast a very specific short term program with a single focus: very sharp CO2 and traffic reductions within a target period of two to three years or less. And that's it!

As you will see if you click to Partner Resources link you will see more than one hundred groups and programs thus far identified as working in this or at least related areas world wide: each in their own way, in their chosen own target area, with their own time focus, with their own tools and goals. And, if they are lucky, with resources to do the job. In which case it's a fair question to ask: why should we as an informal world citizen consortium with no assigned institutional mandate dare to think about adding with our own efforts to all that? Might it not be preferable for us just to get out of the way let all these other people simply get on with the business at hand? Hmm.

Certainly no one thing is unique about the present program, other perhaps than the fact that like the Greek poet Archilochus's hedgehog we know only one thing: the need for dramatic, effective, short-term, no-excuses action in our chosen target area of transport and sustainability in cities. Against this backdrop here are the defining factors that in our view combine to make Kyoto Cities a potential winner, certainly different from the rest, and quite possibly a good partner for you and your colleagues.

Single focus: a) Traffic in cities, (b) CO2, (c) very sharp targeted decreases (20%?), (d) in a very short period of time (20 months?). That's it!
But is it only CO2 and Kyoto? Not by a long shot. We chose CO2 reductions as an initial target since they are a strong surrogate for the overall challenge of transport dysfunctionality. Cut CO2 and you cut traffic, pollution, accidents, costs, time abuse and the list goes on. Most of the world's cities lie in countries that have no legal Kyoto thresholds. But their needs in this respect are even greater.
Geographic coverage: Program coverage is world wide (but can only work if it takes on one city at a time). This is above all a city project, a city decision, a city action. It does not depend on international treaties, other levels of government to foot the bill; it works within the city, its existing asset base, quality of leadership and degree of public support. In that city!
Open targeting: You take up the challenge, do your homework and then set the targets that are going to do the job in your city. And then you either succeed or you fail. And all that firmly in the public eye. (No place to hide.)
Big House/Open Doors: Invites enormous diversity of disciplines, backgrounds, geographies and competences, reaching way beyond the 'normal' transport or even environment groups, enriches the perspectives. Both for the Kyoto program overall and at the level of each city.
Strong female leadership and participation. In large part motivated by dissatisfaction with traditional male dominance and the values that appear to go with it.
Car-like mobility: This may surprise, but quite frankly we do not see democratic pluralistic societies agreeing to accept large downgrading of their mobility arrangements. Which gives us our target: as good or better conditions of transit than they are getting our of their cars under present arrangements.
International peer support network: The personal engagements, combined with the very high quality and great variety of backgrounds of the distinguished individuals who have agreed to support the International Advisory Council. Members have both an international support role, and also are helping to create "clusters" to support discussions and initiatives in their own city.
Working partnerships: Organized from outset as an open international partnership project, working links are being set up (a) with international and national groups with broader sustainability agendas, and (b) at level of individual cities informal working groups are being created to lay the base for their local 20/20 programs.
Comfort Zones (and lack thereof): Many programs and almost all committees seek to achieve "Comfort Zones" in which all interests present of lurking in the background come to a general agreement as to priorities, what needs to be done, how to do it, etc. Kyoto Cities seeks quite the reverse: a large number of competing ideas and points of view, plenty of room for internal contradictions and conflicts, and a good and continuing dose of cognitive dissonance as a means for accommodating all this necessary variety.
Supporting context of intensive technology-based IP networking: The state of the art, practical, user friendly The Bridge holds the underlying key to brining the pieces of the puzzle together and thereby making the whole thing work.
Culture change: This project is above all about governance, democracy and citizenry in the 21st century. In its own way it proposes and tests a new model. Once a 20/20 project has been carried out and the results assessed, your city will never look again in quite the same way at their transport, environment or other problems of governance and quality of life. Bringing up the interesting question: what next?

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The Briefs is one program that cities can, if they wish, start to engage immediately. It is certainly not the only thing that they or the rest of the world should be doing to confront the challenges of environment and the costly dysfunctional transport arrangements that hinder almost all of them in their life quality and economic viability. It may not even be the best one. But to us it looks like one fine place to start. Today! (Or should we keep on waiting and hope for the best?)