Measuring Up: A 2020 Vision for Inclusive Cities
Inspiring Action > 2010 Vision for Citizens With Disabilities > Measuring Up: A 2020 Vision for Inclusive Cities

By Avril Orloff
Reprinted with permission from Abilities Magazine, Fall 2005

These days, it seems that everyone is talking about cities. In 2004, the Government of Canada established an External Advisory Committee on Cities and Communities as part of its New Deal for Canada's Cities. Vancouver is abuzz with plans for the 2006 World Urban Forum, a worldwide gathering on sustainable urbanization. And the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games have promised to create sustainable legacies not only for sport, but also for B.C. cities and communities.

Why the big focus on cities? Well, for one thing, cities are where most of us live. In 2001, four out of five Canadians lived in cities, and more than half of all Canadians are concentrated in Canada's four largest urban regions. Cities are also the primary drivers of our economy, generators of knowledge, engines of innovation and incubators of culture. As the Hon. John Godfrey, parliamentary secretary to the prime minister, put it, cities "create Canada's prosperity and deliver our social programs" and they are "where the national interest is made real for our citizens."

In other words, for our country to work, our cities have to work. Or, to use a word that is currently in vogue, they have to be sustainable. Like many commonly-used terms, "sustainability" means different things to different people. Many people think of it in terms of environmental or economic sustainability, both of which are critical planks in the sustainability platform. Equally important, however, is social sustainability. Cities achieve social sustainability when citizens' basic needs are met, when they have equal access to opportunities, when people live together in harmony, and when everyone is able and welcome to participate fully in the economic, social, cultural and political life of the community.

Another way of putting it is simply to say that a sustainable city is a city that is fully inclusive - it embraces and values the diverse contributions of all its inhabitants. Indeed, social inclusion is increasingly being recognized as a cornerstone of urban sustainability, because inclusion benefits everyone. It benefits those on the "margins" by bringing them belonging and acceptance, and it benefits the rest of the community by bringing them a wealth of previously untapped knowledge, energy, talent and skills.

The concept of social inclusion and inclusive cities is gaining currency in policy circles. Population health researchers point to the role social inclusion plays in the health and resilience of individuals and communities. The Laidlaw Foundation, working with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), has adopted a social inclusion framework for building inclusive communities. More recently, the FCM teamed up with five social planning councils across Canada on Inclusive Cities Canada, a project aimed at strengthening civic capacity to create and sustain inclusive communities. And in B.C., a group of disability leaders, led by former Premier Mike Harcourt, Vancouver City Councillors Tim Louis and Sam Sullivan, and Philia/PLAN Executive Director Al Etmanski, is using the momentum generated by the World Urban Forum and the 2010 Olympics to advance the cause of fully accessible and inclusive cities.

The Accessible/Inclusive Cities and Communities Project (AICCP) grew out of a Vancouver City Council resolution that aspired to create greater opportunities for people with disabilities in British Columbia. Building on the 2010 Games' promise to provide long-term legacies that would benefit all British Columbians, the resolution advanced a vision for "a province that welcomes and includes the participation and presence of all people with disabilities, in all aspects of the community," so that by 2010 "the world [would] appreciate British Columbia as a jurisdiction where the contributions of all citizens are enabled and welcomed."
 
Although the project is unconnected to the Olympics, the Games shine a spotlight on B.C., creating a unique opportunity to showcase the province as an exceptional place for people with disabilities to live, work and play, and to galvanize support for the initiative. And gather support it has. The resolution was unanimously passed by Vancouver City Council and enthusiastically endorsed by municipalities across B.C. The Vancouver Agreement (an urban development partnership between the federal and provincial governments and the City of Vancouver) provided funding for the first phase of the project, and a coordinator was hired to produce a strategic plan and develop a rating tool that would help municipalities evaluate their accessibility and inclusiveness.

Research for the strategic plan involved consultations with over one hundred individuals and organizations. It quickly became clear that the AICCP could play a useful coordinating role in B.C.'s disability landscape. B.C. has a broad spectrum of disability organizations that do an admirable job of representing their constituents, but there is no unifying force to aid communication, and no standard means of gauging how well municipalities are doing in achieving their goals of accessibility and inclusiveness. The AICCP decided it could best fulfill the intent of the original resolution by working directly with municipalities to create a "system of consistency" for their goals of accessibility and inclusion, help them access resources, establish timelines and targets, and work with communities to meet and exceed them.

The first step toward creating consistency was the development of a municipal rating tool. Entitled "Measuring Up: Communities of Inclusion and Accessibility," its purpose is "to stimulate communities to evaluate, through engagement with community members, how inclusive and accessible the community is now and to set goals for improvement." The important words here are engagement with community members. "Measuring Up" is as much about process as it is about product. In fact, the process is indispensable to the outcome, because only through dialogue can municipalities learn what issues are important to citizens with disabilities and what steps would advance genuine accessibility and inclusion. Including people with disabilities in the decisions that affect them is the critical first step on the road to accessibility and inclusiveness. And the insights gained will, in turn, make communities more livable for all residents.

Developing the tool was itself an exercise in dialogue: the framework emerged out of two days of intense discussion among representatives of a wide range of disability organizations, municipal and business leaders, political representatives and other community members in January 2005. As is usually the case with dialogue, it did not result in a perfectly-formed "product" - and how could it, when each community has different needs, priorities and assets? Besides, as we've said, a key function of "Measuring Up" is to foster dialogue. So the framework exists to provide a starting point for community engagement and assessment, to be refined over time as communities test it, share their learning and report their experience.

So how do we measure a community's accessibility and inclusivity? And why do we keep talking about accessibility and inclusion? We make the distinction because accessibility and inclusion represent two dimensions of active participation. Accessibility is about removing physical or structural barriers to participation - it's what gets you in the room. Inclusion goes further - it's knowing that once you are in the room, your presence, participation and contributions are recognized, welcomed and valued. In other words, inclusion is about full citizenship.

As for how we measure them, the January dialogue identified four main areas for evaluation - support services, access to information, economic participation, and community contribution - each comprising a variety of aspects. For example, support services encompasses such aspects as transportation, housing and education; economic participation includes employment and skills development; and so on.

"Measuring Up" outlines criteria for assessing the degree of accessibility and inclusion in each area and ascribes gold, silver and bronze standards for each. A community that has made reasonable progress in accessible transport might award itself a "bronze" in that area; if its schools are fully inclusive of children with disabilities, it would get a "gold" on the education scorecard. At all times, what is crucial is that the process involves dialogue between the municipality, citizens with disabilities and other community members. Together they evaluate the community's progress in each area, set goals for improvement, determine strategies for achieving them, and share their learning with other communities.

The great thing about this "contest" is that there's room for everyone at the top. Indeed, unlike the Olympics, the ultimate goal is for every city and community in Canada to reach gold in all areas! If "Measuring Up" encourages competition, it's one in which communities strive to achieve and continually exceed their own "personal best" in accessibility and inclusion for all citizens. It is a unique kind of competition where everyone gets to participate, and everyone wins.

Achieving the goal of fully accessible and inclusive cities will go a long way toward making our cities sustainable. And 2010 is a good target date, because it's a year in which the eyes of the world will be focused intensely on Vancouver, B.C., and Canada for a few weeks. But the real test comes after the spotlight is turned off. For our cities and communities to be truly sustainable, inclusion must become firmly embedded in the policies of our governments and institutions, the mindset of every citizen and the worldview of our society, so that Canadian cities will continue to be accessible and inclusive in 2011 and beyond.

Plans are currently underway to implement "Measuring Up" in cities and communities across B.C. The project is now seeking partners and funds to make it a truly pan-Canadian initiative, so that our whole country will become a place where the contributions of all citizens are enabled and welcomed.

2020, anyone?

Avril Orloff is Philia's project manager and helped coordinate the January dialogue.

Date / Author	Subject Add Your Comment
Sep 25, 2005 12:59 PM	Measuring Up
Pamela Johnson	Hello, I really enjoyed Avril's article in the fall issue of abilities magazine. I think it speaks volumes about the varied initiatives happening throughout the country. I am interested in obtaining a copy of the document if it is available. Many thanks, Pamela