DC

I've been in wintry DC (it's bitterly cold with a North Easterly wind off the Chesapeake) for a day and half now and I'm still behaving like a child in Disneyland - there's so much that I want to see and do it's hard to prioritise.  I have however had to dig deep into the depths of my battered and dirty rucsac to find some warm clothes - having been spoiled by t-shirt weather in Houston and Bentonville I suppose I should just see this as a useful acclimatisation process for getting back to Nottingham. 

I'm staying just over the Key Bridge from Georgetown so I've been making the most of the bars, restaurants and shops (some good Christmas gift opportunities) just over the river while spending most of the daytime in downtown DC seeing all the monuments, museums and sights.  I'd like to pretend that this is an extension of my Company Towns research topic (DC being the ultimate company town for government), but in reality it's a totally self-indulgent time for me to wallow in all the political and cultural things going on.  And I'm loving it! 

I started off the day with a Segway Tour of the major sights.  I was a bit sceptical of this - wasn't sure if it would be a bit corny or if I'd injure myself on the machine but I can't recommend it enough - huge fun and a great way to see the city.  We covered about eight miles in around three hours and it was much more fun than walking and enabled you to see more of the city.  It was freezing cold as you whizz along at up to 10mph (don't forget your gloves like I did!) but the sights make up for it.  

Roughly speaking the tour covers: OEOB, The White House, The National Archives, The Naval Memorial, The Capitol, The National Mall and all the museums, The Lincoln, Washington and MLK Jr Memorials, The Vietnam and Korean War Memorial and lots else besides.  Plus you get to do some "off-roading" on the Segway and enjoy some good banter with your fellow tourists.  

The Capitol Building - can't wait for my tour tomorrow

The Washington Monument looms over everything you see in DC

Vietnam War Memorial still incredibly moving even on a repeat visit

After that and a warming lunch I decided to check out the view across the whole city available from the top of the tower of the Old Post Office.  Apparently this building has been sold to Donalt Trump to redevelop as a hotel.  This'll probably be better than its current slightly sad incarnation as sort of shopping centre and dusty tourist attraction but my opinion of the bewigged one has gone down significantly following his unhinged election night outburst on twitter.  

I then went on to the National Archives where you can see the original Constitution, Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights; along with a huge amount of other stuff.  I loved the exhibition about the Cuban Missile Crisis: it really illuminated something I'd only previously read about in books with contemporary documents, recordings and photographs.  The usual over-abundance of school-children only slightly dampened my enthusiasm for the place with its powerful sense of history.  

Finally (I was dragging my feet like a recalcitrant tweenager at this point) I popped into the Smithsonian Institute Castle to make sure that I'd identified all the places within the huge SI network that I wanted to see.  There's a great ten minute video (only slightly spoilt by being hosted by Ben Stiller) that outlines all the options so I've now got a clear plan for tomorrow.  

Need to get to bed now as I've got an early start for my tour of the Capitol tomorrow - can't wait!

Coke

Coke was invented by a pharmacist dontchaknow

Thanks to a contact through work I was able to meet with some colleagues from the Coca-Cola company today.  We met at 'The World of Coca-Cola' which meant that I was able to get into that exhibit for free which was a bonus.  

I met with one of the company historians and also a representative from the CSR team who were able to give me some interesting perspective on the role that Coca-Cola has played in the development of Atlanta.  Some thoughts and perspective from other cities;

- Coke made the funding for 'Pemberton Place' available which is where the 'World' is located alongside the city's aquarium and also the future site of a museum on the history of civil rights.  This was part of a commitment to the downtown area as part of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.  The kind of commitment to the city is similar to that of P&G and Cincinnati. 
- However, Atlanta didn't suffer from race or other riots in the 1970s as many other cities did (again, see Cincinnati and also Detroit) because, "the city was too busy making money to riot" - it's always been a very business focused place that didn't suffer so many of the issues that other places did.  
- The City was apparently one of the first to integrate their businesses, schools and eating establishments - again because there was a good business reason to do so.  
- The company has consistently acted as a "thought leader" and catalyst for philanthropy - not always covering 100% of the cost of projects but providing a kick start for matching fundraising.  (A different model than Alice Walton in Bentonville of course).  
- The company has been involved in the funding or founding of various institutions including Emory University, the Centre for Disease Control and helped saved the baseball team for the city back in the 1930s.  

A useful morning and some confirmation of the sort of themes that I've been seeing in other places.  It's a shame I didn't manage to see some more of downtown Atlanta - it looks like an interesting city.  But I've loved being in the rural part of Georgia.  Tomorrow (Tuesday) is election day and I'm going with my hosts to vote first thing which should be interesting!

The vending machines from around the world were one of my favourite exhibits

North-West Arkansas Preconceptions

Something of a packed day today including some serious pre-conceptions squashed, a mini-road-trip and me being presented the Freedom of the City of Bentonville...

As per yesterday's brief update I've had most of my original ideas about this part of the country challenged if not totally blown away today.  One of my work colleagues told me before I left the UK that for a while he was planning to move here for work and was really looking forward to it.  I looked at him a bit strangely and was somewhat sceptical.  Well, I'd probably join him on the plane if given the chance now - seriously.  Well, maybe I'd hold out a little longer for the Chicago option but this is a strong second!

I met with three people from Bentonville City Council - Troy Galloway, the Director of Community Development, Mike Churchwell who heads up Transport and finally Mayor Bob McCaslin.

A few thoughts and things learnt;

- Bentonville downtown is brilliant - could almost be a facsimile of a 1930s small-town America used for a film set but it's a living and breathing city centre mixed-use location - shops (including what looks like a great bike shop. I've not allowed myself to go in - there's only so far I can stretch my baggage allowance on flights...), restaurants, bars and offices.  I note the irony that this is exactly what opponents of WalMart say their presence destroys but here it is, in their own home-town.  A few pics inc one of the original WalMart (a five-and-dime store that's now a museum);

- I knew that WalMart either explicitly or otherwise encourage their suppliers (CocaCola, P&G, Unilever, Kraft, Nestle etc etc) to have an office here but I didn't know how big they were (up to 400 people) nor now many companies have in fact co-located in the Bentonville/Rogers/Fayetteville/Springdale are: around 1400 in total!  There are some interesting parallels here with Boeing's supplier base in Seattle and how venture capital and legal firms have strong presences in Silicon Valley. 
-The City's daytime population pretty much doubles with the commuter influx into the City from surrounding locations but the focus at the moment has been to manage that traffic through more road building rather than any attempt to move people out of their cars.  The team know that this is next but haven't yet been able to find a way to ease people out of their cars and into public transit in quite the way we've been able to do it in Nottingham and Europe more generally.  
- The City's relationship with WalMart is generally very strong but hasn't always been so - back in 2005 the company was working with central government to secure improvements to a particular road and had secured 80% of the funding - the remaining 20% to come from the City.  Unfortunately no-one had thought to engage with the team at the Council which led to some red faces and hasty rejigging of budgets...
- The Mayor spoke very passionately and from a position of knowledge (he headed up a Bentonville team for Kraft for many years) of the good things that WalMart do and how they operate in an ethical way.  I directly asked if WalMart put people out of business and he said that wasn't the case.  Like many people I've read books like 'The WalMart Effect' and been sceptical about the value that big-box retailers bring to the consumer landscape so it was great to be challenged in a knowledgeable way on those views.  
- The Mayor presented me with the Key to Bentonville - as per the photo at the top of this post to celebrate my visit.  This was obviously a huge surprise and a great honour.  

There's loads more info and detail that I captured but that'll do for now - safe to say that I'm hugely looking forward to my next few days here in NWA!  

PS - managed to find some beer at the brilliantly named County Line Liquor today so I'm back in the game on that front.  I'm in Benton County as indicated on this map so there are a number of options around but none that are hugely close!  I learnt today that there's a ballot inititive (referendum) to make the county 'wet' at next week's vote.  

PPS - longtime readers will be excited to hear that I got a haircut today - a snip (haha!) at $13. 

Quick Hit on Bentonville

Tired after a long day of travel (in no way do I regret saving £30 by booking a flight rather with two changes rather than a direct one to get me from Houston to Bentonville - oh no) but thought I'd just jot down a few thoughts on Bentonville / Arkansas so far.  Walmart brings me here - and along with Detroit is probably one of the highlights of the trip for me in terms of my research project for the Roosevelt Scholarship. 

In no particular order;

- when flying into Northwest Arkansas airport I was struck by how green the countryside was.  I'd developed this mental image of Bentonville as a sprawling industrial city but it's a pretty small place (about 35,000 people) and set in some great countryside - not for nothing is Arkansas called 'The Natural State'.  I think I'll fit in a visit to the Ozark National Forest whilst I'm here. 

- in the airport the majority of adverts on the walls are for companies focusing on retail and Walmart - offering to help with your supply chain, merchandising, sales etc etc - first sign of a true company town.  

- the map you get with your hire-car shows all the Walmart head office locations alongside hotels and restaurants - nothing else is worth a mention...

- Benton County is dry - something I discuss here but had totally forgotten about.  Had I remembered I might have saved myself 20 minutes wandering around a Walmart wondering where they'd put the beer...

Meetings with Bentonville City Council tomorrow - more to follow. 

Palo Alto: In a city of the future / It is difficult to concentrate

The subtitle of this post is from the 'Palo Alto' by Radiohead - one of my all-time favourite songs from my favourite band - you can see the lyrics here.  (There's more on my musical taste here).  There's a great line in that song about how "everyone is made for life" - I've just been at the house of the person who wrote the original code for what became Yahoo! Mail - it certainly was an impressive space.  

I always intended to spend some time in Silicon Valley and I had some good meetings set up but it was primarily intended as bit of a staging-post for my trip to Yosemite National Park.  So I only planned to be here for two nights.  I'm now regretting that a bit as I've really loved the brief time that I've been here and I could make it a longer stay.  Oh well, put it on the list for a return visit...  I particularly love the sense of confidence and progress that was what made me like Chicago but the amount of green space and community minded activities is also very attractive.  Now if they just could get some public transport going...

It's been really interesting to spend some time with my Servas hosts Joyce and Chris and their two children - my last Servas hosts of the trip actually so I'll be sad to lose that part of the experience.  Their home is lovely and I was made to feel very welcome including being invited to a local author's book reading (hence the visit to the Yahoo! Mail home).  

The meetings I had set up were not until around lunchtime so in the morning I took the opportunity to walk 'The Dish' a local park (named for the large radio telescope at the top of the hill) and joggers' paradise that's actually part of the Stanford University campus (and sits just over the Stanford Linear Accelerator - the predecessor of the Large Hadron Collider).  We set off about 9am and it was already very hot - a couple of shots below but they don't really capture the attractiveness of the location very well. 

I then had a lunch meeting with a couple of people from Cupertino City Council.  Cupertino is famously the home of Apple (hence the shot at the top of the page) and it was a very interesting chat.  Headlines;

1. California's Proposition 13 is crushing investment into schools and other desirable activities for cities by limiting increases in property taxes (much like our own Council Taxes) unless the house changes ownership.  A crazy piece of legislation that the state is still paying the price for more than 30 years later.  This drives a lot of the decisions and context that the city has to operate in.
2. Apple run a highly comprehensive commuter bus service for their employees as far San Francisco.  This is essentially of course a privatisation of what should be a public service.  (Healthcare, anyone?)
3. Cupertino doesn't really have a 'downtown' so the Council and the Chamber of Commerce are jointly working on a 'Main Street' project to create a focal point and broaden the tax base of the city.   

Swiftly following this I was back to Palo Alto and a meeting with their Economic Development Manager.  Thomas was a great guy, highly engaging and knowledgeable and I was desperately scribbling down as a much as I could during our couple of hours together.  Loads to take in and digest still but a couple of key points;

1. Palo Alto has a working 'dark fibre' network with nodes all over the city - this is exactly what Nottingham wanted to do with its (sadly unsuccessful) Super Connected Cities bid.  I got some details and the contact name which will be really useful for the team back home to enable us to press on with this project.  
2. The City is using its high level of tech and IT people and businesses to run 'Hackathons' to bring together people to collaboratively solve local problems using the City's data and policy objectives. 

So for a couple of days that I squeezed in in between Seattle and Yosemite I think there's a lot there to digest and think about.  I am however hugely excited about the trip to Yosemite - hoping that the good weather holds and I get some good walks in - can't wait to fill my lungs with some fresh mountain air. 

Seattle: Coffee and Planes?

It's curious, but despite the fact that I had probably the fullest itinerary of meetings and visits in Seattle than for any of the cities that I've visited so far, I think I ended up with the least complete picture of what it's like to live and work in this city. 

I kicked off with some time with the City Council's Economic Development team.  A really useful overview and lots of stats and info on the city's economy and also the challenges and opportunities it faces.  A few thoughts;

1. The city is very young - an average age of just over 37 and with just a Bachelor's degree in Seattle you can earn the same as someone with a Master's elsewhere.  
2. Washington has no state income tax so the fiscal levers that the City or the State has to stimulate job creation are limited to what's know as the local B&O (business and occupation) tax.  There are some lessons for Cities in the UK here with the coming "localisation" of business rates.  
3. The City's own electricity company (Seattle City Light) is doing some really interesting stuff around energy efficiency and the capital cost of efficiency improvements.
4. The City is particularly focused on Bio Sciences and promoting the area as a location for film and TV production - both areas that Nottingham is also making great progress on. 
5. The Economic Development team are deliberately separately branded from the City Council under the Start / Grow / Green banner in order to move away from a perceptions that the city is "anti-business".  

Some useful food for thoughts and I was still processing it when I was collected by a colleague from UFCW Local 21 here in Seattle and taken to meet with representatives from the Boeing Machinists Union - the IAM.  The Machinists are a great bunch - pugnacious, passionate and perceptive.  I didn't have that long but got a good sense of what it was like and is like now to work for Boeing.  There are essentially two key moments - the merger with McDonnell Douglas and the move of the corporate HQ to Chicago.  Again, just a few thoughts;

1. The Boeing Company made public statements to the effect that they moved some production away from Seattle because of the labour disputes in Seattle - South Carolina was the beneficiary of this move away from the historic home and is a 'right to work' state - ie one with very poor union rights.  
2. There is a deeply entrenched feeling of ownership and pride in Boeing that is slowly being eroded as the company evolves.  There are many multi-generational families working at the plants.  One member is quoted as saying that he voted 'No' on a strike ballot because "they took away my Christmas in 1995" because the plant was on strike.  
3. The IAM are highly politically organised, offering a very strong steer to their members on how to vote in the coming elections and running a massive phone-bank out of their union hall.  

Tuesday morning saw me up bright and early to get to the Starbucks HQ in the 'SODO' district of town.  The office (that's it at the top of this post) is two blocks from the Light Rail system so I was excited to use that.  I braved the 5 minute walk and shunned the kind offer of a lift from my contact at Starbucks - they commented that they didn't know anyone who'd ever used the tram system in the 10 years they'd worked there...

I met with the President of New Channel Development and never quite got a full sense of what his job exactly was but had an interesting chat about the company in general.  It was the morning after the revelations in the UK about the tax position of the company - despite much encouragement from people on Twitter I resisted the temptation to ask about this and focused on the company's position in the Seattle business-scape. 

The Starbucks mission statement is, "To inspire and nurture the human spirit, one person, one cup and one neighbourhood at a time".  We talked quite a bit about the ways that they are delivering on this, including expanding out of straight coffee shops into juice bars and also selling more food and alcohol in the evening.  Interesting stuff.  The company does offer a good benefits package including a good pension to their teams but I kept thinking about the chapters in 'No Logo' that really lay into the working practices - obviously I got a very glossy sheen but I wonder how much the company has really changed from those days.  Hard to tell in such a short space of time and I was certainly impressed with their commitment to local community activities and the fact they deliberately had their national conference in New Orleans shortly after Katrina in order to contribute to the regeneration of the City.  

Finally I spent some time in the afternoon with SPEEA who are the technical, engineering Union at Boeing.  They're currently in the middle of a quite messy contract renegotiation so it was good to get the download on that.   They're similarly proud as the IAM team to work for Boeing and take real pride in being the intellectual heart of the company - the 'No Nerds, No Birds' poster is a great example of this.  Again some thoughts;

1. The SPEEA team make a very clear set of distinctions between pre-merger and pre-move to Chicago Boeing.  The physical location of the management team now means that they are also culturally distant from the teams on the ground which might mean that they are over-reaching in this current negotiation.  An interesting example of when a company moves away from its 'Company Town' roots.  
2. The union do a fair amount of lobbying locally and nationally, including some joint work with the company but have made a conscious decision not to engage with the political process - they do not endorse candidates or campaign in elections.  I'm not sure if this doesn't weaken their hand.
3. There is a cultural difference in the political process between what is known as the 'Seattle Way' - very consensual (and often slow!) decision making and the Chicago rough-and-tumble - this has affected relations between management and the workers,  

Phew.  Lots to take in and I haven't yet formed it into a coherent whole - will need to come back to this at a later date.  

Walgreens and Wright

Slightly behind in blogging as no WiFi at the place I'm staying at. 

I'm now in Minneapolis and whilst there isn't any Purple Rain it's certainly very cold so I've taken refuge in a coffee shop to catch up on emails etc.  

The final couple of days in Chicago were as good as the first two - I spent a great day with the team at the Walgreens Deerfield 'Community Support Centre' (Head Office) and also saw some excellent architecture from Frank Lloyd Wright. 

I won't go on too much about the Walgreens visit as it'll be pretty irrelevant to most people outside of D90 but it was a really useful and insightful day.  I met with John Gremmer who heads up their CSR programme and he was able to introduce me to lots of people around the office including a brief chat with a couple of the Board members which was unexpected and very interesting.  

A few random notes, mainly on cultural differences / similarities between Walgreens and Boots (for those who don't know the two companies are merging at the moment - see some info here).  

- The company used to be head-quartered in Chicago city-centre but moved to their current suburban location in the 1970s.  This move caused some bad blood with the Daley family (who have run the city on-and-off for the last 30 or so years) which still lingers even now.  An interesting angle for my Company Towns research.  
- The company has an internal motto of "doing well by doing good" which fits really well with the Boots company ethos.  
- This includes a 'Four Way Test' which I saw displayed is everyone's office and in most of the corridors too.  
- The company is doing some really interesting things to combat Food Deserts (which I walk about here in Detroit) - certainly the range and selection of fresh food in some of the stores we visited was very comprehensive.  
- Oh, there's an own-brand range of beer: Big Flats - something the team at Boots should definitely consider...

A fascinating day that I've only just skimmed some of the nuggets from.  

Only last (half) day in Chicago (sob) I went over to Oak Park west of the city.  It was here that Frank Lloyd Wright lived for a time and designed a number of very impressive family homes.  You can tour his home and studio (which I didn't do for lack of time) or do a walking tour around the houses (which are all still in private ownership).  Despite it being a proper MidWest autumn day (ie freezing cold) I opted for the latter.   

I really impressive collection of homes, some photos below, and what looks like a great community of people.  

I then had to get back downtown, pick up my bag and navigate O'Hare Airport to get to my flight on time.  I like to blame the cold weather for slowing me down as I nearly missed my flight...  Got to Minneapolis to find that it was even colder - starting to be glad for the huge amount of clothes I've dragged with me here! 

Final Thoughts on Detroit

I'm writing this in Chicago airport: I was freakishly bumped to an earlier flight (vs my rubbish experience leaving Cincinnati) so I've got a couple of hours to kill.  I thought I'd jot down my final thoughts on Detroit - it's a place of contradictions and variety and I'm sure that I barely scratched the surface.  But hopefully I'm seen a bit more than just the 'usual' downtown areas.  (I don't know when I'll get a chance to post this so some of the timings might be off!). 

 

I went downtown for the morning the other day - mainly to post some stuff home (both from where I massively overpacked but also from things I've been given or bought along the way.  Top tip to scholars doing this trip in future years is to take less stuff that you think you'll need).  I took the opportuninty to wander around the city centre area.  As per my previouspost the overwhelming impression is one of emptiness - it's clean and feels safe and has all the infrastructure (roads, buildings etc) of a much larger and busier city than it is now but there's simply no-one around!

I stumbled across one of Detroit's 'Urban Gardens' - this one was sponsored by Compuware, one of the local employers and I spoke with the people seconded from the company to staff the garden.  One of them was a long term resident and told me that 15-20 years ago it was even quieter than now - he could have laid down in the road beside us for 15 minutes and nothing would have happened - no-one would be there to either tell him to get up or in his words, "no-one would even be around to try to take my wallet". 

They also filled me in about a couple of names that have consistently come up in coversation - Matty Moroun and Phil Cooley.  The former is a local landowner (he owns Michigan Central Station and also the bridge and tunnel over to Canada - more on him later) and the latter a local businessman and self-promoter.  Both divide opinions, shall we say...  I ate dinner that night at one of Cooley's restaurants - Slows BBQ.  The food was ok, not as great as I'd been led to believe but the place was totally packed to he's obviously doing something right. 

Talking of food, and being a huge Man vs Food fan I couldn't go to Detroit without sampling the delights of a Coney Hot Dog - some info on the backstory here.  I plumped for what's supposed to be the more 'authentic' of the two rival restaurants and can confirm that it was qutie an experience - the mixture of mince, chilli, hotdog and raw onions will stay with me for quite some time...  I shied away from one of Adam's volume challenges on this ocassion - another chance will present itself I'm sure. 

I was due that afternoon back at the offices of the UFCW where their Secretary-Treasurer had promised me that he would show me the political offices of the local Democratic Party.  For a political nerd like me this was obviously very exciting, not least because I'd be able to look at lots of maps of different Congressional Districts...  The office was very much like all the Labour Party committee rooms I've been in: slightly messy, lots of junk-food, assorted literature and posters along with a hardcore of activists phone-banking and stuffing envelopes.  Probably the best part of the visit, apart from the collecting of much literature and bumper stickers (yes, I've got one for you Rory!) was when my host, Rick, took me on a short drive to some of the local neighbourhoods. 

I'd already learned that Detroit's not all decay and disorder and there are some pretty acceptable places but where Rick took me was totally unexpected.  Firstly for Nottingham readers the district of the City rejoices in the name of 'Sherwood Forest' and especially for Jane and Brian if they're reading this it is usually just know as 'Sherwood' and is one of the more desirable places to live in the City.  Some things are the same the world over, eh...

As you can see from the photo below the properties in this neighbourhood are pretty desirable - 5+ bedrooms and lots of big gardens.  Rick told me that places here would typically sell for $150,000 - and an equivalent place outside the stigma of the city's boundaries (but less than a mile away geographically) would be around $400,000!  (This compares with the place I was staying where a three bedroom Victorian semi-detached would set you back about $30,000...). 

I picked up in the campaign office an attack leaflet critisising 'Mad Moron' (sic).  Although it wasn't explained, I assume this was directed at Matt Moroun (as above).  As well as consistently delaying redevelopment proposals for the Michigan Central Station Mr Moran is also the monopoly owner of the bridge and tunnel to and from Canada and also of all the Duty Free Shopping concessions.  When I was given a sample ballot (it's 4 pages) for the upcoming November election I was surprised to see a Referendum (called a 'Proposal' here) essentially designed to make it much more difficult for an additional international crossing to be created.  When I was in the UFCW offices I got the team to explain this.  Essentially it looks like Mr Moran has used his considerable personal wealth to get onto the ballot (and hopes to pass) a proposal to protect his monopoly on the international crossing business.  The fact that the Canadian government would have paid the costs of a proposed new bridge and it would bring additional revenue and business through Detroit doesn't seem to be a factor in his thinking.  An interesting local political dynamic. 

On my last day in Detroit I planned a quick visit to the Henry Ford complex out in Dearborn.  This comprises of several museums and exhibitions but the main focus for me was the Rouge Factory Tour - a chance to go round the actual Ford factory that's currently making the F150 Truck.  The Dearborn complex is vast - a whole town dedicated to Ford and all things car related.  It used to be much bigger and was on a significant decline until the mid-naughties when the current leader of the company, Bill Ford made a bold investment to tranform the plant into a green oriented and future facing operation - investing around $2bn in the site and its future.  The actual tour of the factory was incredible - you walk along a kind of gantry where you can see the trucks being made, production line station by production line station.  Some of the workers acknowledged our presence and gave us a little wave - some others just carried on doing the same repetitive work (as part of a 4 day, 10 hours a day work-week).  There was a real pride in the quality of the work and the combination of sophisticated robots and real people was interesting to see.  I also liked the fact that at various stations the sophisticated manufacturing process was reduced to a bloke picking up a lump of plastic and banging it into place with his fist - percussive maintenance is always a winner!

My final thoughts on Detroit: what I originally read about on my pre-trip research as a concept of 'Planned Shrinkage' came up time and time again here in even the most casual of conversations with people - "the city's too big we need to downside"; "the city needs to grow its tax base we're too big"; "we can't keep the city this size".  All of the people I met were passionate and committed advocates for the City and they all knew that it made sense to shrink and try to grow back.  This wasn't at all what I expect to find so glad to have had my assumptions challenged. 

Queen of the Mid(West)lands

The Nottinghamians amongst people reading this will know that Nottingham is sometimes called 'The Queen of the Midlands'.  I learnt today that Cincinnati (finally cracked how to spell it!) is known as 'The Queen City'.  Tenuous nomenclature links aside, the cities are similar in population size (c. 300,000) but not a lot else - it's been a really interesting day or so exploring the city and drawing comparisons. 

I arrived late afternoon yesterday and popped out to the Oktoberfest.  I was intrigued to see what the American version of the German beerfest would look like.  It was a great show - a reasonable variety of beers, lots of food and a real family atmosphere.  The ratio of food and entertainment to beer was skewed to food rather than beer - and I'm not sure that Nottingham CAMRA would approve of Bud Light and Miller being included in a beer festival. I sampled a number of the local brews - including some from Samuel Adams, Great Lakes and Magic Hat.  As per my post here on beers, it was good to see some of the craft brewers in America getting out there and encouraging people to try their products - but the number of people still sticking to their traditional low-taste volume brews was a bit disappointing. 

Monday morning brought a slight hangover and also a meeting at Proctor & Gamble.  The buildings the company occupies really dominate the city centre as you can see in the below photo. 

I had arranged to meet FD Wilder, P&G's Vice President for Global Market Strategy and Planning.  I was a little nervous going in to visit someone so senior in such a huge organisation but FD was highly engaging and very generous with his time.  A really interesting discussion about how P&G's 'promote from within' culture both supports and can hinder their push for innovation and creative thinking plus some great details on how P&G engage with their host city.  

On the latter point FD was able to talk to me about how the company deliberately invested in downtown Cincinnati as an act of enlightened self-interest: back in the early 2000s the city was not in a great place, including some horrendous sounding riots and a significant level of white-flight to the suburbs.  This was causing recruitment problems for P&G as ambitious young graduates were not willing to move to the city.  I can confirm that just over 10 years later the city centre feels a million miles away from the events described above - I felt very safe and saw a variety of races and backgrounds mingling together. 

FD also gave me some really interesting perspective on both the Boots/Walgreens merger and also the global retail market (P&G see that there are 24m stores worldwide that sell products in categories they participate in; 6m of them they have a presence in but only c. 200,000 are part of a chain - the rest are 'mon-and-pop' independents, often in the developing world). Oh, and that Google have a model of a dinosaur at their Silicon Valley HQ - to remind everyone that works there that even the most innovative company can become obsolete if you don't guard against it. 

I came out of the offices to some welcome Midwestern sun (it had been very cold first thing) and decided to walk up from the city-centre to Mount Adams - the suburb of the city that overlooks the main city and hosts a number of artists and other creative types in some very desirable housing.  The climb was certainly a stiff one but the view was absolutely worth it, as were the couple of pints of Hop Bomber beer from Rivertown Brewery I had at the City View Tavern in Mt Adams. 

Just to be clear that I've not spent the whole time drinking, I also went over to the Cincinnati Reds stadium - the Great American Ballpark to pick up my ticket for the baseball game I'm going to see tomorrow evening.  Might have one or two pints at the game of course...

Rumours of My Death are Greatly Exaggerated

(Yes, I know it's a misquotation: see here for the original wording)

This is today's jumping-off point: Company towns gone -- or are they?

I dislike on-spec posts that answer their own question in the title but I like the style of this article so I'm giving it an airing.

Some good detail and thoughts, esp the news of a company selling off a town they owned lock-stock-and-barrel.

But in reality the idea of a Company Town will never die.  It might not exist in the strict sense of a place actually owned de-jure by a commercial business but there will always be places de-facto controlled (or strongly influenced) by large local employers.  And that's ok - the very best employers will want to have a strong link to their locality, not just because of some modern version of Enlightened Self Interest but because it's the right thing to do full stop. 

Big employers have a duty to their employees beyond merely providing employment - and I like the idea of Google providing an "extensive list of services that ... employees can access without leaving the premises -- onsite doctors, meals and snacks, massages, laundry and dry cleaning, all sorts of recreational outlets, car washes and oil changes -- almost everything, in short, except housing".

But let's be clear, employers shouldn't be in a 'North and South' style position of total control - that would be intolerable.  But I'm up for a strongly symbiotic relationship between business, local government and the people - there's a creative tension there that can be hugely productive. 

Don't Believe the Hype

(Don't worry, not another lengthy paean to my obscure musical tastes).  

I'm intrigued by what people say or think when I tell them about my trip.  Most people really get my research topic and offer up their own thoughts and ideas.  I've had a couple of interesting links sent to the me in the last few days - one about Washington, DC and one about Houston.  

The DC article is a interesting piece of writing.  There's a challenge inherent in that sort of analysis where the 'travel to work area' is smaller than the official boundaries of a City (see my own City Slang for a view on the impact of this for Nottingham).  Two points of note: a good proportion of the other major employers are support industries (eg hospitals) that wouldn't be there if it wasn't for the major employer and that of the remaining employers there will be lots of small similar organisations (again, mainly there because of the major employer - think lawyers and lobbyists) that when amalgamated will be a significant sectoral presence. 

Outtake: DC is a company town (unless you squint really hard and want it not to be true) but there's loads of other stuff going on too.  

Houston's a place that I've want to go to for a while.  I've got the typical British view that Texas is the deepest of the deep south and that my lefty views probably won't be that welcome but that Houston is an oasis of urban liberalness in the desert.  I know that both views aren't really true so welcome other evidence.  The article feels a bit like a rehashed press release but there's some interesting facts hidden in there.  I love the fact that "the median age of a Houston resident is a youthful 33" - (i) because it's great to have a young and vibrant city and (ii) 33 is still "youthful" - that gives me another 3 years of clinging on to my youth...  And I like the idea of a city that can be called a, "zoning-free mashup of a streetscape".  I spent a fascinating morning at WorkTwo¹ the other month discussing Manual For Streets - I'm passionate about creating communities through planning policies so intrigued by what sort of City can be created through not applying planning ('zoning') policies.

Outtake: Probe below the surface opinion and you might find out something interesting.  

Outtake outtake: Trying to characterise any city in a homogeneous way will undoubtedly mean that you miss a lot of the richness and variety of a location.  I can't wait to visit both cities and make up my own mind! 

^{1. WorkOne = My four-days-a-week 'day-job' at Boots, WorkTwo = my one-day-a-week role as an elected Councillor for Nottingham City Council↩}

Possible Itinerary

Apols for the hiatus in this blog - my sister got married at the weekend so a lot of time was spent getting ready for that.  All went well so back to planning this America trip.  

In a statement-of-the-blindingly-obvious, I remarked to a friend at the weekend that America is a "big old place".  The photo below shows my dining room table at the moment - an enormous 1:4,000,000 map of America with my little sticky tabs showing where I might want to visit.  Vast isn't it...

Based on a two month trip, this is my latest thinking of places that I want to visit and what I'd do there.

- Woonsocket, Massachusetts.  Not just because of the amazing name, but because the retailer CVS are based there.
- Hershey, Pennsylvania.  Unsurprisingly, the Hershey chocolate company is based here.
- Cincinnati, Ohio.  Hoping to get to visit some contacts at P&G and also visit Kroger.

- Detroit, Michigan.  To visit what's left of the American car industry but also see some of the urban decay as outlined here and here. 
- Chicago, Illinois.  To visit the Roosevelt University and also the home of Pullman railroad cars. 
- Minneapolis, Minnesota.  The home of Target. 
- Seattle, Washington.  Hoping to visit Microsoft and also Amazon. 
(Hoping to get between Chicago - Minneapolis-Seattle on the Amtrak)
- Cupertino, California.  Home of Apple.
- Boulder City, Nevada.  A true Company Town for when the Hoover Dam was built.
- Bentonville, Arkansas.  Where WalMart call home.    
- Atlanta, Georgia.  Hoping to get to visit the guys at Home Depot. 
- Washington, DC.  Planning to time it to be there for the American Presidential election on 6th November.
- New York, New York.  To visit the Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum . 
- And then, home. 

Phew.

If anyone has got any tips or offers of accommodation then please let me know either on a comment or via my twitter feed. 

Reading Material

When I moved house last year I cursed the fact that I am a compulsive book buyer.  I love reading and keep buying books even when I have a pile of "next to be read" that is half-a-dozen or more tall.  I even went so far as to buy myself a Kindle to try to stop the accumulation of more dead trees but it doesn't seem to have worked.  Next on my list to buy is Triumph of the City by Edward Glaeser which seems to chime with a lot of the things that I feel about cities and why so many people chose to live in them.  

From the blurb (via Amazon): "Travelling from city to city, speaking to planners and politicians across the world, he uncovers questions large and small whose answers are both counterintuitive and deeply significant. Should New Orleans be rebuilt? Why can’t my nephew afford an apartment in New York? Is London the new financial capital of the world? Is my job headed to Bangalore? In Triumph of the City, Glaeser takes us around the world and into the mind of the modern city – from Mumbai to Paris to Rio to Detroit to Shanghai, and to any number of points in between – to reveal how cities think, why they behave in the manners that they do, and what wisdom they share with the people who inhabit them".  I love the way that he anthropomorphises the city - there's a great literary tradition right there. 

I have also been recommended to check out The Fires by Joe Flood which takes a look at the impact on deprived areas of New York in the 1970s (and also wins a prize for the longest sub-title to a book ever): "In 1968, New York City struck a deal with the RAND Corporation to use their computer models to establish more efficient public services and save millions of dollars, beginning their first civilian effort with the FDNY. Over the next decade a series of fires swept through New York, displacing more than 600,000 people, all thanks to the intentional withdrawal of fire protection from the city's poorest neighborhoods-based on RAND's computer modeling systems.  In The Fires, journalist Joe Flood provides an X-ray of the inner workings of modern cities, using the dramatic story of a pair of mayors, an ambitious Fire Commissioner, and an even more ambitious think tank to illuminate the patterns and formulas that are now inextricably woven into the very fabric of the modern urban experience."

Going to America?

When I was growing up my Dad used to play lots of the same music in the car when we were driving anywhere.  The smell of Polos and certain tracks have an amazing ability to transport me back in an instant to 1989 and a trip to the Purley Way retail park.  One of those songs is 'America' by Neil Diamond.

I'd like to pretend that this youthful exposure to those lyrics is what's prompting me to consider the trip to America that this blog is going to be about.  But in reality it's more about the fact that I'm turning 30 this year and I'm becoming increasingly concerned about that milestone.

Early mid-life crisis apart, I am planning a trip to America to see some of the cities of that great country that I've never been to.  In order to support this I'm in the process of applying to the Nottinghamshire Roosevelt Travelling Scholarship for their 2012 awards.

This scheme offers a cash award to support a piece of field based research in the States to celebrate the links between America and Nottingham and to further promote Nottingham and Nottinghamshire over there.  You have to submit a research proposal which you'll use the time overseas to study and develop. 

The (probably over-long) title of my project is: "The Modern Company Town: How America's Cities and Large Employers are Engaging with Recession – And What Nottingham Can Learn From Them".  When I first moved to Nottingham to start work at Boots Head Office I had a lot of friends in West Bridgford and soon came to understand why they call it West Boots-ford: seeing colleagues from work on the high-street on Saturday morning after a hard Friday night wasn't always the most pleasant of experiences and it set me off thinking about working and living in a place where there is just one major employer in an area.

Now Nottingham isn't even a particularly extreme example of this sort of 'Company Town' - there is quite a high diversity of employers as shown here (PDF) but there are times where it feels like it's impossible to escape the company's impact on the City: from the founding of the University to the sensory garden at Wollaton Park to the possibility of the new Enterprise Zone the city's fortunes are closely intertwined with those of the company.

I'm really intrigued by true Company Towns that are quite common in America: places like Hershey in Pennsylvania, Cupertino in California (home of Apple) and Bentonville in Arkansas (the place WalMart calls home).

How have these cities been shaped and created (often literally from nothing in the case of places like Boulder City in Nevada) by their major employers and how has the city impacted back on the company?  What challenges has the current recession caused?  How have big cities coped with the sudden loss of an employer (like in Detroit)?  What techniques have large employers and the cities that they are based in used to cope with the recession - how have they differed across America and compared with Nottingham?

So, the application form went in the other week and I've just had notification that I'm through to the next round which is an informal 20 minute interview.  That is in a couple of weeks.  After that it's a more formal interview to select the final recipient(s) of the award.

If I'm successful I'll probably be going either some time in the Summer or Autumn, depending on when it best fits into when work will be able to release me on unpaid leave.

I'll be using this blog to update on the research and application stage and, if I'm successful, updates on the road during my trip.