Mike Stevenson

A quiet Sunday breakfast a few days ago turned into an extended brunch as friends old and new joined my ever-expanding table. Among my guests was Claudia, a very impressive Portuguese lady whose Edinburgh Guide book I bought about nine months ago. The book was something new and exciting – different because it was written with passion and verve and through the eyes of people who live in the city. It was so beautifully written and designed that I was moved to buy more copies and distribute them to my friends. What impressed me more that anything was that it helped reignite my interest in my home city and to rediscover its uniqueness.

This was a guide not just for visitors but people who live here and that is the essence of its beauty. It also proved that a city is not just a built environment – its real strength is in its people and their lives, their talents, their relationships and their stories. That’s what made this read so special for me. It was about the distinctive character that people have brought to the city – well documented throughout history by writers, poets and visitors from far afield.

Alan Bold, a poet wrote:

“Edinburgh is an experience
a city of enormous gifts
Whose streets sing of history
Whose cobbles tell tales.”

More recently the Black Eyed Peas described Edinburgh as “Probably the most beautiful city in the world.”

Yet, it never ceases to amaze me how many people lucky enough to live in Edinburgh, are blinded to its uniqueness. Each year there are those who moan about the Festival and Fringe and vent their spleen at the capture of our streets by strangely dressed invaders. Add the perpetual whinge about the tram, the most visionary infrastructural investment in the city for many years, and dissenting voices are never far from earshot. This propensity to find cause for complaint even in the midst the fun and glitter of the World’s greatest Festival, is a strange condition and one which I am afraid to say is all to common to our culture.

Yet the reasons are clear to see. How many people who live in the city, feel that they have a real stake in its success or a sense of belonging to its future? Where is the vision to captivate the imagination of its citizens? How valued do people doing those jobs that keep the city clean and cared for feel?

Where is the kind of leadership, big thinking and shared ambition that New York demonstrated when it turned itself from the most dangerous city in the USA to the safest?

Too many people simply live outside the decision making process.

Is it any wonder? Our obsession with structures and processes is stultifying. Decisions take an age to make and are usually based on minimising risk. What great development has come about using a risk averse model? Where would we be without those risks taken by our forefathers when they invented all those things we now take for granted. The telephone, the television, the motor car, penicillin or even spray paint. That they did so in the face of ridicule or downright opposition from their contemporaries makes their achievements all the more remarkable. What Edinburgh needs is a giant dose of courage and leadership to drive it forward. That means drawing on those talents and ideas that exist in abundance among its people – many are never seen or heard. I would start with our young people – let’s make them part of the solution. They are up for it – believe me. They are endlessly creative, possess fewer prejudices and no hold no stock with the “that’s the way we’ve always done it’ mantra.

We know that 80% of the jobs that children currently at Primary School will go into when they leave school don’t currently exist. The only certainty about the future is that it will be shaped by innovation – creative people who see opportunities not problems, are willing to find new ways to do things and possess the courage to face up to dissenters and make things happen.

No group has a greater stake in Edinburgh’s future than its young people. Yet their destiny is being shaped by people who find it hard to keep pace with the speed of technological change – that doesn’t make sense to me. I have visited many schools over the past few years and I am consistently amazed by how differently our young people see the world and how they love to be asked for their views and ideas – once that is, the disbelief that someone might listen has dissipated. Creativity exists in spades in our schools.

Here we have a wealth of fresh thinking that is rarely tapped. What a scandalous waste of resources. Oh, and by the way young people don’t want to sit in endless meetings, join committees or community councils. Nor do they want to hear the same dominant voices drown out the ideas of others. Why do we insist on imposing our tired old structures on them? They occupy a world of fast moving global communication where a 12 year-old can communicate instantly with friends in Venezuela, Tanzania, Japan, Australia and India. It only takes a few clicks on their computer to open up a whole new world of opportunity. They can share ideas across the world, but in their own city who listens to their voices and where is the opportunity for expression?

Why not ignite our democracy by embracing new ways of involving people in creating Edinburgh’s destiny – not simply asking them to wait for events to unfold. This city can lead the world with ideas as it did in the 18th Century. But we need to bring exciting new approaches to galvanise its people. A new chapter can be written in this great city’s history – one which describes how Edinburgh reinvented the notion of democracy and in doing so found within its boundaries enough talent, verve, ideas and energy to power it towards a new generation of success.

My inspirational new friend Claudia can then produce another addition of her fantastic guidebook showing Edinburgh as a city that has discovered human capital as its richest resource and showed the courage to involve its young people in shaping its future.