James Fallows recently wrote a fascinating article in The Atlantic based on research conducted by he and his wife. The article lays out 11 key factors that seem to point to the success of a city.
Read the entire article here.
This set of posts offers musings on each of the 11 signs.
#4..."People know the civic story"...
Story is at the core of both the human spirit and human condition. (if you are not convinced of this fact, check out some of Donald Miller's great work) Therefore it is only fitting that a civilization of these very humans would also have a story.
The great irony is that while we are a people rooted in story, we are also incredibly adept at losing sight of our stories. We, like it or not, need to keep telling our stories or being told them, otherwise we will simply forget.
Maybe the cities that don't succeed simply don't have stories. Maybe they are just lame and boring. I tend to think this is not the case. My guess is that just like people, cities are prone to forget their stories.
Seems to me there must be people, or groups of people, who actively commit themselves to the act of knowing, remembering and telling story.
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