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I traveled to Barcelona this week to participate in the Barcelona 2022 REACT Congress. The title of my talk was “Mastering the New Disorder: City Economies In the Next Decade.”

When we write about supplier diversity models that should be scaled, adopted, and adapted, our first inclination is usually to focus on state and local governments, or innovative private sector solutions. However, over the last year, the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the Federal government have made some impressive progress in advancing equity in procurement, with a focus on Black-, Latino-, and other Minority-owned small businesses.

Following the passage of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan a year ago almost to the day, the Nowak Lab and New Localism Associates created an “Investment Playbook” tool to help cities maximize the fragmented flow of federal funds by strategically selecting geographies of opportunity and identifying and costing out concrete rescue and recovery projects within those geographies. This tool follows the simple maxim that “failing to plan is planning to fail”; federal investments may now be ample but only localities can design specific projects that are fit to place and geared for success.

Over the past two months, the five of us have been part of a community of practice selected by the Economic Development Administration to coach the winners of the $1 billion Build Back Better Regional Challenge (“BBBRC”). Along with partners at America Achieves, the Federation of American Scientists, the National League of Cities, and others, we have spent a great deal of time reflecting on what the BBBRC means for American competitiveness in this moment.

For the past several years, we have consistently recognized the immense value commercial corridors play in both urban and rural geographies. Commercial corridors are economic engines for communities — they provide jobs that keep money circulating in the local economy, offer goods and services for residents, and power entrepreneurship and wealth building for whole communities. They also serve as valuable gathering places and sources of civic pride. Commercial corridors hold economic and symbolic value, and impact public perceptions of surrounding neighborhoods and the communities.

As federal investments roll out at scale, it has become eminently clear that effective deployment is dependent upon networks of public, private and civic institutions coming together to design, finance and deliver concrete initiatives and projects. It is, in other words, a networked governance moment.

As the euphoria of enacting the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act fades, the challenges facing implementation of this complex and sprawling legislation have come into sharp relief. First among them is the lack of sufficient capacity among many cities and counties to design and deliver projects that have the transformative impact that has been promised by bipartisan Congressional sponsors.

In the mid-1930s, Charles de Gaulle, then a French Army colonel, went to visit Leon Blum, the French Prime Minister. The future leader of France reproached Blum about the state of the country’s defenses.

Blum was taken aback, declaring “But we are spending more for defense than the previous Government!” “It is what you are spending it on,’ de Gaulle said, “that I want to discuss.”
What they were spending it on was bigness. The French had the largest — and by most accounts, finest — army in the world. They underwrote huge military budgets. They constructed the most massive defense installation since the Great Wall of China — the Maginot Line.

Join us, Monday, Jan. 10, 1pm ET for a virtual launch event
A Roadmap to Inclusive Entrepreneurship: Presentation, Panel & Discussion
Register here

2022 marks what could be a new era for inclusive entrepreneurship and broad-based, dynamic growth.

My professional life has been indelibly shaped by a remarkable group of individuals over the past several decades. These people have played multiple roles in my career. Some have been true mentors, acting as objective sounding boards on decisions large and small and selflessly opening up their rolodexes, virtual and otherwise, to help widen my circle of innovative thinkers and doers. Some have acted as private tutors, passing on their wealth of substantive knowledge and sharing their disparate approaches to solving problems and driving impact. Some have served as close colleagues and collaborators, co-writing or co-editing books and articles and helping me move projects from concept to execution. All have given their time generously and offered their advice freely and in confidence.

As this difficult year comes to a difficult close, I wanted to pay homage to six exceptional people who are no longer with us. They shaped not only what I have done but who I am. In the order of when we met…