When I first heard of the Committees for Cities concept, the thing that struck me was the unique approach these organisations took to the challenges that face and shape the future of a community.
Rather than taking a single-focus approach, they look at the bigger picture. And rather than aiming to provide solutions, they bring people together to share knowledge and spark conversations.
This approach is one of the reasons I’m very proud to be the inaugural Chair of the Committee for Greater Hobart. Often debate is about a specific issue without broader considerations.
We’re not about developing plans and solutions, or a complete vision for the future of Greater Hobart. We are about raising issues and questions, gathering information and research, and facilitating informed, robust discussions that aim to build a culture of seeking to understand the issues and how we can work through them for the benefit of the entire community.
Our focus will be on investigating what the future may hold for the next 5-10 years in our region. Then we need to help analyse what this might mean and identify with our community how we can respond to opportunities and challenges posed by change.
As an example, significant demographic change is occurring for the region. The number of residents is increasing and is already having an impact on all of us in terms of economic activity, housing, transport and services. What options do we have to ensure we can take advantage of this change and mitigate any negative impacts?
I have had a few people ask me why we chose to focus on the entire Greater Hobart region, rather than just the capital city or main city, as other Committees have done. We always saw ourselves as a Greater Hobart view. We recognise what happens in Sorell, Tasman, Brighton, the Huon and Derwent Valleys is all connected into the region.
I think it’s fantastic that Brighton is our first member council and we have been engaging with the others, as well as the larger councils of the region, to come on board and help inform our understanding of the challenges and opportunities these communities face.
For us, it’s not just about large-scale projects and initiatives. There’s a lot that can be done to build up from the small-scale. If you can improve the liveability of local areas, for example, you can take these successful blueprints and build from there.
We believe that everyone in the community has a place in the discussion, and will be providing opportunities for all interested parties to take part.
We are also strongly of the view that we want diversity of thought and engagement, which is why – as part of our foundation research – we conducted a Youth Workshop, inviting participants from senior secondary students from a range of schools in our the region. It was very illuminating to see their feedback about the issues that are important to them.
We aim to build on this to draw out the experiences of young people and provide a platform where they can articulate what they think and see and be part of the discussion.
As a Board one of our next challenges is to use the research we have already undertaken, as well as upcoming studies such as the national cities liveability benchmarking index, to help identify the areas we will focus on in the next 12 months.
We will then seek in-depth engagement from our members to paint as broad a picture as possible of the issues and how as a community we can move forward for a positive future.We want to co-create and collaborate, not tell people what they should do or think. That way we are all part of the solution.
If you are interested in joining us to work out the solutions, enquire about membership today.
