Boat people

A rising tide and all that

A rising tide lifts all boats....

-John F. Kennedy, October 3, 1963.

The provenance of this phrase has been traced to the slogan of the New England Council, a regional business organization. It is a phrase we hear from our own chamber and its satellite organizations, even more so recently. These days the phrase usually poses as an easy answer to difficult questions regarding who benefits from the economic development promised by the promised development of Rochester as a destination medical center. It goes something like this: "A rising tide lifts all boats," someone declaims. Those who own the boats nod approvingly.

"A rising tide lifts all boats" brings with it certain assumptions like, one has a boat. Some do not have boats. Some boats are not in good-repair. Some boats are very crowded. Rising tides swamp some boats. Other boats sink. Folks without boats drown (or, as we also hear to approving nods, they "sink or swim" and that seems to be all that needs saying about that).

President Kennedy also said that day, "I would like to see us in this decade preparing as we must for all of the people who will come after us." The conversation we must have in this decade cannot be just about the rising tide, it must also be about boats.

50 ideas for a new city: #3 | "Epistemic community"

"In some ways, it's almost like building a new city."

...[C]onscious efforts to develop a shared understanding of the region amongst diverse constituencies seems to make a difference for blending the imperatives of equity and growth.....[E]pistemic refers to what you know (what facts, figures, and perspectives) and community refers to who you know it with (whether alone or in collaboration with others). When such collective knowledge includes not just the “usual suspects” of urban growth coalitions, but a broader constellation of community interests and perspectives, it seems to make a difference.....

- Just Growth, Benner and Pastor

I think whenever one gets an opportunity to use the word, "epistemic," one should but, it's "community" that gets our attention here. How often do we think of what we know in light of with whom we know it?

"Usual suspects" are words of caution, not condemnation. And we are gathering - as usual.

What remains to be seen is whether or not "a broader constellation of community interests and perspectives" is embraced. Embraced in a manner that does not simply relegate those who hold these interests to subjects of focus and survey or reduce their perspectives to data points and cameos in promotional videos.

These other lives should not be overlooked, but neither can they just be visioned. They must appear in the places where coalitions form and be seen at the tables where knowledge is collected.

The way ahead requires more of us than a broad knowledge of the community, it also requires a broad community of knowledge.