Coordinates of a common destination

"...by virtue of free and sincere promises." - Hannah Arendt

In America I encountered sorts of associations of which, I confess, I had no idea, and I often admired the infinite art with which the inhabitants of the United States managed to fix a common goal to the efforts of many men and to get them to advance to it freely.

- Alexis de Tocqueville, "On the Use That the Americans

Make of Association in Civil Life," Democracy in America

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Previously on Viva City:

Instead, in addition to the promise of jobs, we require a vision for Rochester that encompasses the connections between social and economic progress. A path for development that understands that markets are defined by human needs other than, and in addition to, economic ones.

Consider this vision: the world's destination medical center residing in the world's healthiest city. It conceives an achievement well within the reach of this city.....

 

This vision: a rationale in brief

• The "vision" will be "compelling" to the entire community to the extent it is broad and inclusive.
• For "health and wellness" as a vision to be broad and inclusive it will require a view aligned with social determinants of health, health equity, etc.
• A vision compelling to the community would best arise from that community with priorities already reflective of its concerns.
• Though this vision is seen as integral to the DMCC strategic planning, the DMCC should position itself not as its source or author, but as one among other community partners committed to its actualization.
• There are already state and local assets in place and in process that align with this vision and a nascent, loose collaboration that can expand and coalesce around it.

 

How might we begin? A compact.

We should compose a compact among willing partners that takes the form of a memorandum of understanding committing signatories to a short set of broad goals and participation in a collaborative process. An open invitation for signatories that includes state and local partners, private, public, and non-profit groups. Among the early signatories it is hoped would be DMCC.

 

On this basis would a "compelling vision" be brought into view and focus; and, in this way would the energy and creativity of the entire community be harnessed.

 

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In democratic countries the science of association is the mother science; the progress of all the others depends on the progress of that one.

Among the laws that rule human societies there is one that seems more precise and clearer than all the others. In order that men remain civilized or become so, the art of associating must be developed and perfected among them in the same ratio as equality of conditions increases.

- Tocqueville, ibid