Designcircuit invites you to join us in our second panel discussion, The Resilience Economy, Thursday, February 21, 2013 at the Old 1st Ward Community Center. Spend some time discussing the projects and actions directly impacting our city today. The focus of this panel discussion is the area immediately surrounding Ohio Street and the Buffalo River. The discussion will begin at 7pm, and will include time for open questions from you, so please come and participate in the conversation.
The Resilience Economy: Within the Ohio Street Buffalo River community we are bearing witness to an emergence of social entrepreneurs with ethics as powerful as their conviction to the greater good. In 1998, philanthropist George Soros noted in The Crisis of Global Capitalism that a global economic system was developing without a global society to provide the necessary framework for its development. Soros felt we needed a society to step forward and represent the unaccounted communities within the new system. This group would confront and reduce the complexities of the larger whole by working as a team and together building a new collaborative model. Right here and now in Buffalo there is an aggregate of citizen groups, social entrepreneurs, non-profits, and development agencies connected in their common motivation to restore and empower this community – a new society has emerged that is creating a cooperative framework for Buffalo’s future.
These are extraordinary times for the citizens of Buffalo. We are charting the terrain of a new upward cycle, moving against the grain of the last 20 years, and we have a wildly exciting view of the future. Among the waterfront improvements along the lake, river, and canal, the culture of Silo City, and the growth within our residential neighborhoods, we are defining the rules of the here and now as our new social society is shaping up. We should demand incredible success at a dramatically accelerated pace. So, Buffalo…Now that we can do anything, how will we do it?
Establishing a sustainable, equitable, creative economy to replace the trending loss requires an innovative approach. Knowing there is no simple or single right answer, no ‘silver bullet,’ we need a range of economic actions taken together to sustain progress. The key to it’s unpacking is to celebrate achievements that grow our intellectual capital at multiple scales. We should look at what is happening exactly at this moment and who is making things happen. If we connect them, helping to improve the conditions where people live and work, we all benefit by building upon the assets at the local level.
We need thinking that leads to motivation. We need discussions with key stakeholders, discussions that lead to action. We need execution that takes responsibility for the outcomes of the work. It is imperative that discussions go beyond the drawing table and reach out to the public, to the folks directly affected. The strength of this model is that anyone can participate. We all need to help generate community capital and local investment that links people to sustainable jobs.
Resilience Economy panel discussion seeks to continue the conversation and build upon the recent thread of Designcircuit’s panel discussion in October and the recent ECHDC town hall meeting. We have invited a wide range of panelists to explore the relevance and importance of economic sustainability for emerging city territories such as Canalside, Ohio Street, and the Outer Harbor Development, all from the point of view of people making a positive impact on the City of Buffalo. Each participant has a project in motion that aims to empower the city, all at very different scales and from very different programmatic points of view. Our goal is to facilitate a format that engages and examines the specific economic engines that enable urban action; to hold an event that is research-based and active in informing the community.
When we dare to think of the well being of the whole city as a practical objective, everyone benefits. Buffalo prides itself on its history of responding creatively to new challenges. The cycle of rise and decline is not inevitable, so the future is not determined by the past. Our city should choose and act wisely in the face of recurring hardships – either support the actions underway or participate in advancing the solutions that meet the demands of our changing times.
Panel Discussion – The Resilience Economy
Date: Thursday, February 21st 7-8:30 pm
Venue: First Ward Community Center
Moderator + Panelists
Chris Hawley – Moderator
William Haskas, HD Systems
Sam Hoyt, ECHDC
James Pitts, JWPitts Planning&DevelopmentLLC
Bernice Radle, Buffalove Development
Sam Savarino, Savarino Companies
Rick Smith, Silo City
The discussion will be structured in the following format:
Introduction by Moderator
30-45 minutes – Panel Presentation (5-minute presentation from each panelist)
30-40 minutes – Moderator-led questions to panelists
10-20 minutes – Questions from the Public
This event is sponsored by Buffalo Rising, the Old First Ward Community Center, and Designcircuit.
For more information about the panel please visit: www.designcircuit.org.