The yearning for a way out (no poem)

My view: In 2009 it were the banks, in 2010 it are the countries, in 2011/2012 it will be the municipalities. The global financial crisis eventually will fully hit our streets and neighbourhoods. We did not expect this. Did we?

Still we are not facing the facts, not really and are ignoring on large scale, the true necessity of integrated collective decision making. Stakes and interests seem to emerge from everywhere. More than ever.

One year after the Dutch municipal elections the bottom solution line in many cities is still not clear. With an average deficit of 26000 euro per inhabitant/citizen, we still linger, and invest most of our time in discussing and debating where to start.

There seem to be a collective ‘leaning back’ of responsible political leaders, members of the council, mayors and aldermen. How to connect indeed the interests of voters, political party ideology and collective decisions. How to consider the entity of society as a starting point in a world of power and influence (Machiavelli) and come to manifest and sustainable decisions and smart measures. Were to cut, were to innovate, were to give incentives.

As city manager I am in search for new methods and techniques to support such a ambivalent process, in a world were satisfiers and disatisfiers clash, were poverty is rapidly increasing and the fabric of society is heavily under pressure. No, this is no poem, this is truth.

I have to dig deep in myself and with my colleagues, almost on gene level, to create the path were my council, mayor and aldermen can find the way out. Sustainable and innovative, stronger than ever. And with new challenges, innovation, redesign, changes, hopes, new stories, arguments, answers, solutions.

These last beautiful words aren’t a poem in itself nor part of it, no, but express the sensed intense political and social yearning for a way out of this inconvenient truth.