Measuring the IQ of Cities
Forbes Magazine recently tagged college towns, including Boulder, CO as some of the smartest cities in the U.S. because of the brainiacs - the brain power - of the people who live there. Individual IQ is one way to measure smart cities, and yet, I think there is also another way, based on the WISDOM of the collective community.
Do communities have an IQ, or intelligence? Can some communities be thought of as smart, vibrant and engaging, like a child who excels at everything, while others are seen as slow to change, perhaps backward, or fearful? Can communities be measured and ranked according to their IQ that doesn’t simply total the sum total of smart people living in town?
If so, which communities would rank as the top 100 smartest in the world? Which would be #1?
Researchers, of course, can rank the top 100 cities in the U.S. in terms of their population, median age, price of housing, number of college educated residents, the fastest growing, or those with the highest median household income. But can they tell us which has the highest community IQ? Which city or town has the highest collective wisdom?
Measuring the collective intelligence or IQ of any community is not the work of pollsters. It can’t be assessed by surveys or statistics. Rather, it must be discovered by studying the quality of civic engagement in any community. This community IQ is based on five key elements:
Openness: How open is the community to new ideas and creativity?
Flexibility: How many ways can residents engage in civic life?
Access: How close to NOW can citizens engage?
Leadership: Does everyone have a chance to both lead and follow? Speak and be heard?
Action: How quickly are best ideas integrated into community life?
In reality, a community’s IQ is measured by the active civic engagement of its citizens and their openness to new ideas. It is also measured by their ability to both lead and follow, speak and be heard, and by their willingness to integrate best ideas community wide, to the benefit of all.
More than centers of commerce and industry, today’s smartest cities are those that reach out to empower the best and brightest and most creative aspects of each citizen. When cities learn how to tap into the collective wisdom of local residents, the community itself becomes a whole lot smarter.
Next week, I’ll illustrate how this collective wisdom is raising the IQ of a small town in Northern California called Willits.