Harnessing the city’s energies

An urban community is rich in energy if it sets itself shared goals, tackles problems jointly and makes cooperative arrangements. Such a community is capable of mastering challenges by its own efforts. Without an active urban community, a city lacks this energy. It can only compensate for its own lack of energy by “importing” energy from outside – at considerable cost. This impairs the sustainability of its development.

To harness its energy, an urban community must:

- activate and tap every individual’s potential – for example, through education and training.

- Utilize the diversity of its individual members’ resources. These reflect the urban population’s heterogeneity, its variety of cultural backgrounds and wide range of experience and personal potential.

- Do away with unproductive “top-down” hierarchies. An urban community’s productivity increases the more its members are taken seriously and activated.

- Foster solidarity. Solidarity is a basic requirement if an urban community is to activate its individual members. Whenever their own resources are limited, individuals can rely on the solidarity of other members and the community as a whole.

Berlin is well equipped to build such an “energy-rich” urban community:

- The city is still “unfinished”. This attracts energy and the ambition to help shape its future.

- The city is an interesting destination for young newcomers from all over the world.

- The city is inexpensive, which means you don’t have to be wealthy to live here and make your way.

- The city’s limited economic resources means that all the members of its community must show imagination and inventiveness in looking for new, not yet established ways of working and doing business.