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Paul Wells's avatar

On the chaos in city centres, I think it's widespread enough that it's hard to say any one entity is to blame. Maybe a good first step would be to talk about it. I was discussing this in the spring with a friend from a big company -- that a national city summit would be interesting, attendance absolutely not mandatory, but say 15 mayors and a few premiers and the PM and two of his ministers and some national organizations, academics, whatever. Sit down and share observations and best practices. My friend's reaction was interesting. He said there's no way it would work because every organisation would arrive with message to emit, and not a one of them would be equipped to listen and integrate what they heard. Not one government, not the politician you dislike the most, but every organisation. This led pretty directly to my summer series on the pathology of strategic communications. This country has gigantic fucking problems and for some reason everyone thinks it's a public speaking contest.

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Paul Wells's avatar

In less than a day, this has become the longest comment board in the 17-month history of this newsletter, 159 comments including this one. And it's been perfectly civil, or close enough. Thanks to everyone for letting one another have assorted opinions.

This is also the 13th most-shared post on the newsletter (out of 156 posts since I launched), so thanks to everyone for spreading the word. As Art Blakey said, tell your square friends about this music; they're the ones with the money.

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