#ShitToHit Tonight: GOOD Ideas For Cities Followup - #STLDW

Uh...so, why exactly does something like this deserve money and support when there are any other numerous problems affecting the city right now? Sure it looks cool but seriously? We have problems with schools, unemployment, race relations, corrupt politicians, the continued city-county divide and a bunch of privileged Wash U grads think glowing light sticks are where we need to put our energy? Good God. What exactly is so forward thinking about this?

Ryan,

Interestingly enough, there are ideas and initiatives in development to address each of the items you've listed out -- all of which are issues that will take a tons of time and energy to fix, so hopefully you're investigating how you can help take them to the next level.

I'm personally working on some stuff for groups called The Greater Gateway Alliance and Tomorrow STL, which has the aim of returning St. Louis City into St. Louis County.

Come to a PK night or two, find some likeminded people, and roll up your sleeves. That's what the Braindrain team has done. They're chipping away at some of these problems in the most exciting way they know how.

Call them privileged Wash U grads if you want, but the folks behind CityPulse have been busy, and they're plugging away on the real, hard work of taking this concept to market, starting in our city.

Regarding what's so forward thinking about this:

1) A demonstration of modern, smart-city thinking, implemented right here in the midwest - not New York or San Francisco, where it might be more expected.

2) Collecting real data that can inform future policy decisions that guide improvements to the entire city.

3) Using local technology experts and manufacturers, keeping work (and creating jobs) in our city, for our city.

It's easy to say "what's so great about this?" and list off problems our city faces. They're real, and they need addressing - but ask yourself "How can I change this? How can I help?" and go do that. Then, quit dissing other people's work until you have something to share.

Ryan, I think your concern is a valid one; it's been the center of a lot of our conversations and plans regarding CityPulse. St. Louis has a number of challenges to address, only a few of which are the racial divide and political overhead that impede the city's progress. Lots of people are working very hard to solve these problems, and deserve to have their ideas and passion seen and heard by the community.

That's what our glowing light sticks represent. We're building a physical and digital network that highlights the physical and digital activity of the city, a system that literally sheds light on the urban landscape. The online components of the network allows anyone — citizen or government — to visualize some of the issues that you mentioned. We're facilitating conversations that we're hoping will lead to progress.

Will CityPulse alone solve the city/county divide? Will it overcome years of racial division in St. Louis? Will it improve the school system, make kids healthier, and clear up traffic on the Poplar St. bridge? Certainly not; but in connecting the people in and around the city in rich ways, we're hoping to give everyone a set of tools and a common ground on which to seek solutions to all these challenges and more.

Please don't hesitate to read more on our website, or to get in touch with us.

Hi Ryan! (I’m a founding Brain Drain member, so I feel qualified to answer your question.)

As St. Louisans, we’re all very aware of our city’s problems—we hear about it from the national press, local press, and most often, from each other. I would like to make clear that we in Brain Drain are not naive to the deep, pervasive problems you mention, as well as others you didn’t. We’re all engaged with others in the community, well-read on current political and social issues, and have worked or are working on initiatives to help grocery co-ops in food deserts, benefit the arts and music scenes, promote trade education, and help independent, local manufacturers get their start—to mention a few.

While solving those problems is a necessity for a better St. Louis, if we continue to only think reactively, in terms of solving them, we’ll continue to end up with more problems. The St. Louis of now and of the future needs a drastic rethink, and if there aren’t enough radical ideas coming from the top-down, they need to come from the citizenry. We think CityPulse is one of those ideas.

This idea is about more than light beacons. The light aspect is there to help foster a sense of community and safety for those nearby, and also to provide a feeling of delight, as we believe of thinking about city life both analytically and holistically. But another, perhaps more important, aspect of the beacons is to serve as gathering points for information. We believe that the keys to a more sensible city rest upon a a city’s ability to better understand it’s residents—how they move through the city, where they live and work, or where they could live and work. As people’s lives no longer take place solely in the physical realm, we aim to combine our knowledge of the physical with information gathered from the digital sphere. Right now that means drawing data from social media, as that information is both readily available, and surprisingly democratic. In the near future, we’ll be collecting more anonymous and objective data, of which we’re already aware and are learning how to gather more effectively.

We believe that all this data will allow our government and citizenry make more informed decisions, so that we may have the foresight to head off other problems in the future. Additionally, by making this data available to the public, we’ll allow others to develop their own civic, artistic, and economic solutions, helping to address issues big and small across wide demographic and geographic areas.

Our hope is that others share our vision, or at least share our belief in more radical ideas, so that one day our city will be much better rather than much worse. So far this project has cost nothing but time, and should nothing else happen with it beyond this, we hope that at the very least, we’ll embolden the community to develop more radical civic solutions. In the meantime, Brain Drain will continue to work individually and in small groups on small-scale solutions, and as a whole, pushing CityPulse forward.

With have nothing to lose, and all we have to gain is a better place for all of us to live.

If you have any more questions, please email me at logan [at] brain drain.co.

Wethinks you left him speechless, guys.