Much more than one thinks to be successful in a proposition - as an individual, as an organization or as a community - depends not only on merit. It's amazing how success depends on being in the right place at the right time.

Luck, synchronicity, virtuous circle, these are some of the expressions used to designate that alchemy that happens sometimes in life when things start to go incredibly right. Then, if you join competence and creativity, then we have a golden age!

These thoughts have come to my mind as I analyze the dozens of initiatives that are already underway and those being planned to be started shortly in Rio de Janeiro, a city that I have chosen to live and I have adopted as my land of heart.

Until the early 60s Rio was known both nationally and internationally as the "Wonderful City" and has always been seen by all Brazilians as a kind of the heart of the country. However, since the early 60s Rio suffered successive blows that made the city fall into deep decay.  In 1960 Rio lost to Brasilia the status of capital of the Republic. Soon after, in 1964, there was a military coup that installed a dictatorship. The generals in power found in the Rio the largest and most mobilized nucleus of resistance to the authoritarian regime. The military knew how to avenge.

The city suffered from the loss of political influence, economic resources, human and social capital for more than two decades of military rule. It was in this context that Rio was submerged in urban and social disorder and became a city where slums have grown like mushrooms after the rain and drug trafficking occupied territories.

From the mid-90s something started to change in the city. The slums are no longer the address of misery. Drug dealers are quickly losing one by one the territory that they occupied in the last twenty years. But these facts seem to be only the beginning of a renaissance in Rio. Rio seems to be starting a process of fast reinvention.

The dynamics of this urban transformation seems to find a great similarity to the modernization process that took place in Barcelona from the demise of the Franco regime, which took place in Spain after 1974. Coincidence or not, like Barcelona, which hosted the Olympic Games in 1992, Rio prepares to host the Olympics in 2016.

Actually, Rio has an intense schedule of global events for the next years. For instance, the city will host next year the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio +20), which should bring to the city around 150 heads of state, 20 thousand official delegates, and some 30 000 delegates from NGOs, corporate executives and leaders of various sectors to parallel events, and in 2014 Rio will be one of the Brazilian cities that will host the World Cup Championship.

The international events have created strategic circumstances that catalyze hundreds of innovative initiatives. The constructive dialogue between public and private sectors and civil society has become astonishingly broad. Additionally, not just the locals are committed to the process of reinventing the Rio, even national and international investors and important players are being attracted to the challenge.

Transnational corporations, if not yet present, evaluate opportunities to participate in what may become an international experience to reinvent key concepts of urban development. This is the case of Siemens, IBM, Cisco and many others corporations that are already participating in projects and programs to make Rio more than a smart city, but a city prepared for the era of Knowledge Economy.

In terms of urbanism one of the most ambitious mega-projects is the revitalization of the old area of the port, the old centre where the city got started its history five centuries ago, and which now hibernates in a state of profound and bleak decay. This project is one of the reasons that I became an enthusiast of the great experiences that we are doing in Rio.

On watching the video above about the revitalization of the port area, I am sure, even if you're not a "carioca", you will be thrilled. If you love cities like me, who understands them as places for the celebration of life, you will clearly see that Rio is conducting a world-class experiment, collective and collaborative. You are welcome to join us in this challenge!

In the challenge to reinvent our cities to make them appropriate for the era of Global Digital Society - in particular aiming to make them smarter - is very common to assume that this is primarily a task for engineers and technologists, planners, economists, businessmen and government officials. This is indeed a grave and serious omission.

It should not be forgotten that the city is, above all, the human habitat par excellence. Humans, ultimately, differ from most other species by our capacity to produce symbols and meanings – i.e. Art - than by our capacity to produce economic wealth. So it is unwise to want our cities to be smarter just to fulfill the role of functional spaces for working and producing wealth.

If the grasshoppers are not strongly involved with the challenge of reinventing our human habitat, our cities could be smarter. However, they may look more like anthills than places for the Celebration of Life. This is the main function of the city, said Lewis Mumford, one of my favorite essayist, author of classics such as The City in History and Myth of the Machine.

There are thousands of artists throughout the world who make the city their subject of work. Like us, many of them are also interested in reinventing the city. This is for example the case of the group Urban Dialogues (see video below).

Be my guests, Grasshoppers!

Hi!

This is my first post as a blogger in this community. So I would like to introduce myself.

I am a strategy consultant, and also a writer passionately concerned with innovation and disruptive change. Why?

The ability to successfully innovate and manage complex changes mean the possibility of finding appropriate responses to the dramatic questions that are emerging for humanity. If we succeed, the future may be the age of the Knowledge Society.

It is true that the extraordinary development of Information Technology (IT) is the driving force of historical transformation that humanity is undertaking worldwide. That's why I'm so enthusiastic about the innovations that spring from the field of IT.  However, I am also passionate about cities.

Just as cyberspace, the city is an open and collective invention of humanity that enabled us to take a huge leap in terms of civilization. Hardly the agricultural and tribal civilizations would bring us all the accomplishments we have achieved in terms of science, arts, technology and material progress.

Throughout history cities represented the ongoing evolution of the ability of human beings to collectively construct an artificial environment. With the cities it became possible to assemble an enormous diversity of talents and skills and to allocate resources on a scale never conceived. That’s why the city became the true human habitat. However, if the development of cyberspace, with its opportunities and functionalities, has been staggering, the same can not be said about the reality of our cities. Actually, the progress of cities stagnated during the twentieth century.

The advances in the construction of cyberspace should not create the illusion that we can do without the cities.  Inspired by the rapid progress that we are accomplishing with the development of the cyberspace, we can dare to do similarly with our cities. This decade, which now begins, can be a launch of a major evolutionary leap: the reinvention of the city as the human habitat for the age of the knowledge society.  It is in tune with this challenge that this blog is intended to contribute. Modestly. But, passionately.

Bye!

RN

PS: I am based in Rio, Brazil and I blog also in Portuguese. You can find my stuff at www.ricardoneves.com.br/blog. I have launched five books since 2004, unfortunately all of them are available only in Portuguese. Anyway, if you are interested you can have a look at my Amazon's author page.