Shared Ideas in City Networks

Book excerpt: For cities today, the necessity of meeting the current needs of residents, as well as planning for the future, helps shape local decision making and governance structures. These decisions are rooted in the historical paths of the city, as well as in their relationships with other cities across the globe. City networks have emerged as a forum to facilitate the transfer of ideas and knowledge, and to help cities move beyond the current path they may be in, to one where a more positive future can emerge. City networks provide a place for specific projects to be transferred, and examining positive and negative examples will help with future transfers. Bogota is an example both of a city that successfully transferred a project from another city and improved it, as well as a city that is seeking to share its success through formal structures as city networks and informal means such as hosting leaders from other cities across the globe. This may currently be the exception, but the sharing of ideas between cities through city networks has the potential to become the norm.