Kelvin Campbell: Why Smart Urbanism Starts With Making Massive Small Change

DNA Of Purpose

Welcome to another episode of the DNA Of Purpose podcast.

As you all know by now this podcast is brought to you by Future Crunch. The team was excited last week to be announced as one of the Time out Melbourne Future Shapers and as were also featured in an article (https://www.timeout.com/melbourne/things-to-do/future-shapers-future-crunch-want-us-to-be-optimistic-about-the-future). In that article, our co-founder Angus was asked a question around whether we had any advice for anyone looking to affect change.

Angus said this: regardless of how we feel about some of the world’s largest question marks right now – global pandemics, artificial intelligence, climate change, social change – reactions that come from fear are rarely ever the solution. Something that’s really worked for us is to look for what we call “mini-utopias” – small bubbles of progress, examples of individuals, organisations or communities really getting it right.

I share this today a) because the idea of mini-utopias is one that I love, but also because this is an idea that I believe encapsulates the essence of what today's guest is all about.

His name is Kelvin Campbell and he is a collaborative urbanist and writer. He is also the author of ‘Making Massive Small Change’. He is the chair of Smart Urbanism and the Massive Small Collective, an international network of collaborators facilitated by his son Andrew Campbell, a sustainability expert.

Kelvin believes that the key to fixing our broken patterns of urban development does not lie in grand plans or giant projects; rather, it lies in the collective wisdom and energy of people harnessing the power of many small ideas and actions to make a big difference.

In an increasingly complex and changing world where global problems are felt locally, the systems we use to plan, design, and build our urban neighbourhoods are failing. It's not that the system is broken - but that it was built this way. The good news is that there is another way, and that is what we will be diving into today.

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