Video: Infrastructure Innovation Summit

Steve Goldsmith:

Hi, this is Steve Goldsmith, professor of the practices of urban policy here at Harvard's Kennedy School. We're involved in a significant meeting today with over 100 city officials sponsored by Knight and other foundations. The subject is how to think about digital infrastructure in its role in physical infrastructure. Cities today have more opportunity to spend more money than ever before on fixing their infrastructure. But let's not just repair old infrastructure. Let's think about ways that the building and design of this infrastructure will provide even better communities and cities and neighborhoods. What's the role of digital infrastructure? How does the digital side of it allow more community engagement? How does it allow us to build more equitable and sustainable and resilient communities? How does it allow us to reduce the maintenance costs going forward, extend the longevity? There are so many ways that we can use digital infrastructure and data to improve the operation of our cities. We should embed that thinking now in the physical spend that we're going to do to prepare for a better future.

Kelly Jin:

It was incredibly important to the Knight Foundation to pull together the Infrastructure Innovation Summit here at Harvard because of the trillions of federal dollars that are currently flowing to communities across the country, of which 26 are Knight communities. Those are the communities where the Knight Brothers used to run local newspapers. And for us, the future success of those cities is really based off of their infrastructure. So if you think about whether that's the streets and the roads and the sidewalks, even public spaces, that's really important. And so for us, as we think about the future of those spaces, it's also not just about the physical infrastructure, but also the digital infrastructure.

Tony Geara:

So essentially, what are we taking back with us from here? There's a ton of things. There's a lot of excitement and energy definitely that we're already packed in our backpacks. I've taken a lot of notes for sure, but I'm also kind of putting together some more actionable focused goals and strategies that we'd like to implement.

Matt Horton:

The question here today is how does the public sector make better use or leverage public financing schemes and strategies towards digital and other types of infrastructure class development? Fundamentally that upstream investments in talent, in infrastructure lead to long-term and more sustained economic development. How do we get the public sector more shovel ready? And how do we activate or catalyze a project pipeline towards more resilient infrastructure development that can make use or harness some of those capital markets? We're really working at project readiness, technical assistance, and the types of strategies that can galvanize communities and state leaders around project prioritization.

Ben Levine:

We're incredibly excited to be participating in this conversation about infrastructure innovation because it's key to what we're doing as a department as we deliver the 1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law that will offer a historic opportunity to address key priorities in the transportation sector related to climate, related to safety, related to equity, and related to economic strength and global competitiveness. And ultimately, it is going to be innovation in both physical infrastructure and in digital infrastructure that allows us to get to a place where we are delivering on those priorities and creating a transportation system in our country that will move people and goods in a way that aligns to the key priorities that we have in the department

Ellen Hwang:

In Philadelphia, we invest in engaging and equitable development of public spaces. And one of the things that we've been doing over the last several years is integrating technology with public space. That can look like supporting the organizational capacities of those who are actually stewarding these public spaces. It can also look like technology that you might use to better engage people in the planning and decision making and governance around public spaces. And we've also seen the actual direct integration of utilizing different types of technologies and solutions within a physical public space. Today during the summit, I really appreciated a lot of what people were sharing around the future of our infrastructure in cities. What will it take? It's going to take big ideas, and I think the opportunity to be able to leverage big dollars and to unlock and unleash the ideas of our communities is my biggest takeaway from today.

Lester Miller:

Hi, I'm Lester Miller. I'm the mayor of Macon-Bibb County, and today I'm at Harvard Kennedy Schools and we're very excited here to be talking about the Infrastructure Innovation Summit. To me, it means we need to attract new workforce to our community, a new quality of life to our community. And I think we tend to not cater to those folks who are just getting out in the community that want to build a home somewhere or find a job somewhere. And this allows us to be at the cutting edge of all the new things that are going to attract quality workforce to our community.

Santiago Garces:

In the city of Boston, Mayor Wu has [inaudible 00:05:07] of bringing the same focus to our work and connecting the digital infrastructure that supports the physical infrastructure investments to understand how is it that the infrastructure supports the needs of our communities and prepares them for the challenges that come ahead. Being able to have conversations with community members across the entire country allows us to be smarter and more cohesive, learn from one another, and try to tackle these challenges together.

Josh Rogers:

So one of the things, thinking about the session that we've had today that's really stood out in me that I think is important to bring back is just how much of the work that we do in cities is about leadership fundamentally. And how any of these tools are only as relevant as they are able for us to solve the fundamental problems that plague our communities, such as inequity, a lack of economic growth. So it's great to hear about new solutions such as these grant programs at the federal level, and also some examples of communities that have taken projects that have been really transformational in the various neighborhoods where they've implemented them. But the most important piece is you've got to be able to project a future that is more hopeful, that has opportunity, and where things can be different and better than they are today. I mean, that's really what's inspiring me is to think about systems level change.

Kelly Jin:

For me, it's not just about physical infrastructure, so the roads and streets and public parks. But also about digital infrastructure. What is the data that we have? What are the technologies that we have that will help to drive and make better decisions for cities across the country? And so we were thrilled to be able to blend both the physical as well as digital infrastructure pieces together in this summit, and host plenty of local as well as state and federal leaders. So we hope that everyone has enjoyed their time here and can't wait to hear more about the outputs and outcomes from the summit.