Clever, creative

THERE has been considerable discussion about the City Of Greater Geelong becoming a United Nations Educational Scientific Cultural Organisation designated City of Design.

More specifically this discussion seems to have focused on the fact that as the Mayor of the city I have made a conscious decision to travel to Krakow in Poland to attend our initiation into UNESCO and what the value of such an experience may bring to our city.

Typically such discussion is always about the cost, which is a very valid issue to raise and will be dealt with in the usual reporting and audit process.

But rarely does the discussion start with what the benefits might be.

This issue was raised at my very first meeting as new mayor with the Geelong Advertiser editor, who asked me directly if I intended to do any travel as a councillor. I replied that I would judge such opportunities on their merit.

I believe the debate should be about the pros and cons of the proposed travel. We should not just dismiss every opportunity that involves travel because of a preconceived idea towards the issue at hand.

Clearly considerable work and lobbying has been done in the background for our city by a number of people with experience in design and also through Deakin University.

Greater Geelong (incidentally, the ‘greater’ in ‘Greater Geelong’ took a bit of explaining to our new UNESCO colleagues) could not have attained our UNESCO status without this work.

What is absolutely clear to me is that many other Australian cities are now feeling they need to connect with select UNESCO global cities that have transformed themselves in so many ways. The value in that is significant.

My thinking here is that this type of international gathering is the modern take on “sister cities”.

The UNESCO experience has been far more tangible and very connected through open dialogue, genuine exchange of ideas and projects, information sharing and access to various conferences.

Now that we know who we are talking to and understand their issues much better, the ability to Skype becomes a genuine option where appropriate.

And just as important is the cities of UNESCO now know a whole lot more about Greater Geelong.

Our city has very much become a partner in the “UNESCO family” as they like to be referred to, and we will be talking with these like-minded cities to work on similar projects that will improve our city through design.

There are common themes be- tween the UNESCO cities, but there are also many differences due to community expectations, available finance, differing knowledge and capacity to achieve community-focused goals.

At times our discussions have gone deep into the social and political issues facing many countries, but the theme that kept rising was that there are countries and people willing to engage with one another and provide genuine support to transform, grow and solve challenges by sharing experiences.

I have been travelling with Tim Ellis, the City’s economic development manager. Tim was born in the UK. He is a bona fide world traveller, having lived and worked in the UK, USA, Melbourne, Bairnsdale and now Geelong, with great experience, and has become a fantastic advocate for Geelong.

Often the City’s staff are unknown and their work for the city is not recognised externally. Tim, like many others, is absolutely dedicated to his role.

His rapport with others from the eclectic mix of UNESCO countries and breadth of knowledge has helped position Geelong as a leader in the UNESCO Cities of Design collective.

This is not a gratuitous rap for Tim but simply acknowledges that the City has some very experienced staff that bring great kudos to our city.

There has been huge interest in Geelong’s clever and creative City Of Design transformation with our state of the art Regional Library and Heritage Centre, rejuvenation of the Federal Mills, Deakin University’s ManuFutures program among many other examples.

Interestingly, our environment and lifestyle also impressed delegates.

Our capacity to be a great travel destination with our unique blend of beaches, bay and the bush really captured the imagination. The “see a kangaroo and pat a koala” experience still resonates as strong as ever.

Geelong is the only UNESCO City of Design in Australia with this designation and only one of 31 in the world. It has been an amazing opportunity to showcase Geelong to the world of UNESCO and beyond. But it also has to be said there are many challenges and expectations ahead for Greater Geelong to reap the maximum benefit of this new global relationship. And some may be happy to know it won’t take extensive travel to meet some of these challenges head on.