In October 2021, we invited people from all walks of life to share their visions for a kinder city of the future. Visiting kindcity.com from six continents, people completed this sentence:
“The Kind City of the future will…”
Our goal was to create a set of crowd-sourced principles—the foundation for a more inclusive, empathetic, and empowering city. Ten big ideas, rooted in kindness, to propel us towards a better future.
We assembled a Kind Council of visionaries and built an interactive podcast featuring more than 60 voices from around the world to help inspire submissions. And people answered the call. A stunning portrait emerged of the hopes, dreams, and ideas from citizens worldwide. The wide range of thoughts and wishes included everything from legal graffiti zones to simple needs like shorter commutes.
To identify 10 principles in this very human, very colorful data set was no small task—especially to do so without bias. So we turned to artificial intelligence (AI). AI has an amazing ability to look at something huge and to spot patterns– be it predicting the weather, understanding traffic, or finding common ideas in a sea of voices. We fed our AI all the completed sentences from kindcity.com (minus a few cheeky quips, thank you, internet!), and we asked what it could see.
Patterns began to emerge; little snippets of language that distilled the essential ideas put forward by our Kind City’s citizens. We took that AI-generated data and transformed it into a set of unifying themes, meant to best represent global participants.
The following set of 10 principles grew from this collaboration between the global public, our AI, and the Kind City team. These 10 big ideas are the beginning of a conversation and ongoing collaboration—including direct support of NGOs who already embody these values. We hope they give a voice to people in cities worldwide. They are intended for individuals, decision makers, or anyone invested in a kind future for our cities.
Expand and enhance access to public green spaces
Create a deep sense of belonging for all
Support businesses to prioritize community and sustainability
Restore and build multigenerational connection
Build structures and systems that treat diversity as an asset and create opportunities for all
Harness courageous, empathetic, and transparent communication to build trust between communities
Build fully accessible infrastructure and services
Transform and accelerate travel within and around cities
Create affordable housing
Embrace and empower bold, innovative visions for the future
Explore this crowd-sourced celebration of kindness and community and learn more about the Kind City here.
