The Spirit of Cities

Professor Daniel Bell

4 October 2011
Transcript

Supported by Allens Arthur Robinson

Cities define us. They shape the outlooks, opportunities and lives of billions. Yet most
contemporary political thought neglects their role. The Ancient Greeks, by contrast, thought that
every city had its own ethos and values that helped to determine its institutions, political
systems and the lives of its citizens. Daniel Bell thinks it is time to revive the thinking of the
Greeks and rediscover the spirit of cities.
Professor Bell explored the findings of his book, The Spirit of Cities: Why the Identity of a City
Matters in a Global Age (co-written with Professor Avner de-Shalit). The book looks at nine
cities Jerusalem, Montreal, Singapore, Hong Kong, Beijing, Oxford, Berlin, Paris and New
York and shows how the ethos of each is expressed in its political, cultural and economic life,
and how the character of each city works against the excesses of nationalism on the one hand,
and the sameness of globalisation on the other.

Speakers:

Professor Daniel Bell

Jane-France Kelly, Program Director Cities

AUDIO: This is a podcast from Grattan Institute, www.grattan.edu.au.

JANE-FRANCES: Alright, I think well start. Weve noticed as we were doing small talk up here
that the microphones were switched on so we made sure that we were only saying
complimentary things about the city of Melbourne and all the people in it. Explained to Daniel
about us being the most liveable city in the world, obviously. Id like to start by showing my
respect and acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which this meeting is taking
place, and I enjoyed explaining to Daniel what that means and why we do that. And hes kind of
interested in going back to Beijing and thinking about what that might look like there.
Im Jane-Frances Kelly, Director of the Grattan Cities Program. Welcome to this seminar cohosted by Grattan and Allens Arthur Robinson who were initially going to be putting us up in one
of their facilities, but Daniel proved a great draw and we sold out I think within two hours and
moved to a larger venue.
Its a pleasure to welcome Professor Daniel Bell. Daniel is a professor of ethics and political
philosophy at Tsinghua University in Beijing. He was born in Montreal, educated at McGill and
Oxford Universities, has taught in Singapore and Hong Kong and has held research fellowships
at Princeton and Stanford. Hes the author of Chinas New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday
Life in a Changing Society, which was published in 2008. And that was actually how I first came
across Daniel and his work. It was a podcast on Canadian Broadcasting, a podcast, its called
Big Ideas, and different you may remember the lecture and I found it a really fascinating topic
compellingly presented. And so when we were offered a chance to talk about Daniel when he
had written something in kind of my kind of bailiwick, as it were, and talk about his latest book,
we jumped at it.
So that book is The Spirit of Cities, and this is it. There are order forms for it at the back if
people are interested. Its got a lovely vector map on the front and later on Im going to ask him
what that vector map is, cause I should know that kind of thing I should think probably with my
job title. And Ive got those kind of like Post-it notes that you use if you want to show like youve
read a book, but I actually have read almost all of this. Theyre a great invention. So as is a
Grattan want, were going to do the seminar in a kind of a high end chat show format, sort of in
conversation, no PowerPoint allowed and so on in which I will gently grill Daniel for half an hour
or so, leaving 25 minutes or so for your questions and finishing on time, the most important
thing, at 7:00pm.
I also mention at this point that were recording the event. Hi mum. She landed in Melbourne
this morning so I reckon shes still asleep. Were recording the event and you will be able to link
to that from the Grattan website and what that means is that this is a good time to remember to
switch your phones off. Hello, switch your phone off.
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Okay. This year the Grattan Cities Program has been focusing on issues around city structure
and housing, looking at some very important questions involving lots of hard core evidence
bases, reams of data, actual econometrics and actual econometricians. So talking about a topic
like the spirit of cities is enormously refreshing this year in particular. And its also a very
important question. It seems like many of the debates about cities seem to be struggles for a
particular ethos, as you call it, of a city and which indeed is for a particular account of what life
should be. As Socrates said, you remember this is no chance matter we are discussing, but you
know, how to live, as it were.
We should start with the question, I mean your book is called The Spirit of Cities: Why the
Identity of a City Matters in a Global Age. What do you mean by the spirit of a city?
DANIEL: Well, I guess its a pretty vague idea on the face of it, but the basic idea is that certain
cities have dominant values or outlooks that are shared by the large proportion of people living
in those cities. And if you think of it in the past, its kind of obvious that Athens, for example,
represented democracy, and Sparta represented a kind of more militaristic form of government,
and people theorised on the basis of the dominant ethos of those cities. Now does it make
sense to think of that in a modern era? Well I co-wrote it with a friend, Avner de-Shalit, and he is
a professor in Jerusalem. Of course I live in Beijing, and it occurred to us that those cities are,
you know, have a strikingly different ethos. Of course Jerusalem is mainly about religion, and
Beijing is mainly about political power, and the way that the cities are structured, you know, the
centre of Jerusalem is the old city which represent religious or spiritual values in its concentric
circles emanating from that. Whereas Beijing, the centre, is a centre of political power, also with
concentric circles emanating. So, and then we started thinking of the cities that we know quite
well from our own personal experience, and it struck us, Im from Montreal where its kind of
obvious that peoples everyday life is very much determined by the value of language, both
economic value and a psychological sense of feeling at home in the world, that the different
cities that we know quite well seem to have strikingly different dominant values that inform
peoples ways of life there. And I had been working, you know, comparing East Asia and the
West and people were criticising me, thats too essentialist. Okay, fine, so lets talk about
countries, so compare China and the US and maybe we can talk about different dominant
values. And thats what I did last night to an extent. And you know, but still people criticise you,
oh there are some doubts, okay, so lets talk about cities, and how cities express different
dominant outlooks. And thats the basic idea that informs the book. So we looked at nine cities
that we think have strikingly different outlooks or ethos.
JANE-FRANCES: And so as you look at those nine cities, what are the kind of characteristics of
a city that provide clues to what its ethos is?
DANIEL: Well theres different ways of one is the kind of more social scientific way, You
could do surveys and you ask people what are the values that you adhere to. And different
cities are doing that, including in China. China, people believe that theres 30 years of kind of
capitalist monetisation has led to the cities becoming more and more homogenous. And others
are a counter-reaction to that where many cities including Beijing and [unclear - Chiangxia ?
7:05] are carrying out surveys to determine what is a dominant set of values that are adhered to
by the people there. Thats one way. So, or you could look at the urban planners and find out
what sorts of values determined their plans. Or you look at the history and just try and look at
the literature associated with the cities.
We also, you know, cities that we lived in for extended periods, I think it helps to draw on your
own personal experience in that case. And for cities that we dont know that well, we also use
perhaps a more qualitative or choose something less kind of subjective method which we call
strolling where we just we come up with some tentative hypotheses based on our reading
about the city and we do interviews with different peoples from different walks of life, sometimes
pretty random interviews, sometimes structured as well as observations and we question our
hypotheses and we that allows us in some cases to come up with certain ethos.
JANE-FRANCES: No, it sounds like a fantastically fun book to write and I am definitely going to
get myself a research grant to go and stroll around cities. John, where are you? The can you
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talk a little bit more about the methodology that you used for each city and how people have
reacted to that methodology? What people have kind of found, sort of said to you about the
approach, if you like?
DANIEL: Well, the book is officially out on October 5th, so but having said that, we did send it
out to many people. We did weve been working on it for many years and we sent drafts to
people living in those cities and we revised on the basis of the reactions. And some cities, its
pretty uncontroversial. I mean if you want to talk about Jerusalem, it has to be about religion, or
Montreal and language. But other cities it was a bit more controversial because for example,
Paris, we had this tentative hypothesis that its a city that expresses the ethos of romance. But
then the more interviews we did, the more we found out that that ethos was rejected by the
people within Paris. So we had to change our hypothesis. And we realised that actually the term
romance is used very differently by people from outside Paris who tend to have this Hollywood
idea, you know, of kissing and living happily ever after. But for Parisians its more the romantic
spirit in the sense of how you go, you know, and for them it means like an anti-bourgeois ethos,
that we so which and in fact they didnt even know what was meant by the you know, I
have a very good professor friend who speaks many languages and so on, and he was he
went to a restaurant in Paris with a visiting American academic and she saw roses on the table
and then she said how romantic. And he didnt understand what she was talking about. So they
have very different ideas of romance.
JANE-FRANCES: That date didnt go that well.
DANIEL: It didnt, so he had to you know.
JANE-FRANCES: So, and you say that people can identify with more than one city and you
have yourself, and I mean I certainly feel that cities Ive lived in that I feel a strong affiliation
with. I lived in Prague for a few years and it really got under my skin. I fell in love with
Melbourne and married it. But I lived in London for five years and didnt ever feel like that about
London. And youve sort of talked about kind of sort of similar senses yourself. And in fact, you
think theres a you know, its great that we can feel more at home in different places. You go
further, you think theres a moral case for diversity between cities. Can you talk about what you
mean by that?
DANIEL: Right. Well, globalisation has a good side, that it leads to openness and more and a
culture of tolerance. But it also has a dark side which is that it leads to the homogenisation of
cultures and generates this culture of consumerism which is very uniform. And again you see
that in China, but more generally speaking. So how do you resist that? Well if states try to resist
that by affirming a national essence, then its people are way above that. I mean for one thing,
the states have a very bad history when they tried to express their national essence and usually
its defended against another state or else against an unpopular minority within the state. And of
course states are armed militarily so could and does often lead to a military conflict. So we
worry about states strongly affirming their essence to resist the homogenisation of globalisation.
But when cities do it, we think theres a much better case for that. For one thing its less
dangerous because cities dont have armies, and cities are still smaller than states and it makes
more sense for and even for cities to have a competitive relationship, whether its Melbourne
or Sydney or Montreal and Toronto, or Jerusalem and Tel Aviv or Shanghai and Beijing, it could
be kind of charming and humorous and its not as ugly as when states have a strong, you know,
China versus Japan, a strong kind of sense of the other. So thats one reason that cities can
better resist the homogenisation of globalisation. But also we think that most people have this
need to have some sort of communal identity. And what are you going to attach it to? And again
if people strongly attach it to the nation, it leads to often very ugly forms of nationalism. So were
not against nationalism per se, but we think that its better, other things being equal, for people
to attach their need for some sort of communal identity to a city than to a country. So another is
partly to resist the extremes of nationalism, thats another reason.
But another very important reason is that states often find there are hard to do things that need
to be done. For example, think of dealing with climate change, I mean were going to wait a long
time for China and the US to have a strong national policy to deal with those problems. But
meanwhile cities that have, for example, cities that have a strong environmental ethos can do
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things, and they are doing things. In China you have states you have countries even I am
slipping into this mode, you have cities, you know, like Hungjo or [unclear Bowting ? 13:30]
that are doing very strong measures to and probably because they can draw on this
environmentalist ethic. And in the US too you have cities like Portland and San Francisco, they
are doing much than could be done at the level of the State to promote I think desirable causes
like dealing with environmental issues.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: And it was fascinating to see in Copenhagen, the C40, the sort of
the Mayors from 40 cities across US actually kind of going and talking and being represented at
what you would think would be a kind of a sovereign level sort of summit like that as cities.
DANIEL: Right.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: The C40. Just wonder if Andrews
AUDIENCE: Eighty-nine actually, not
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: Arup. Eighty-nine?
AUDIENCE: Eighty-nine of the top cities, yeah.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: Eight-nine of the top 40 cities? Sorry. How does that work? Well
come back to that, Im sorry. So, I mean obviously I love something naturally which has the city
as the unit of analysis, but it is also the case that there are many divisions within cities and I
didnt grow up in a city but the closest city I did grow up, the city closest to where I grew up was
Glasgow where theres kind of a lot of there are really strong cultural divides within the city
which can be really problematic. And you get lots of other divides within cities, even kind of
inner city versus suburbs and so on. How can divides like that sit alongside a common ethos?
DANIEL: Well, I mean they dont. Not all cities have a common ethos, and if cities have people
who live completely different ways of life, you know, whether its rich or poor or different racial
groups, you know, like think of Cape Town, theres no its hard to describe those cities as
having a common ethos. And so if we agree that having a common ethos is desirable for the
reasons that we just discussed, then the question is how do we move towards the cities that
dont? And one of the ways in which to do it is to minimise the gap between, for example, rich
and poor, different racial groups.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: Yeah, that was my next question which is, you know, can you
manufacture the spirit of a city? Ive always been fascinated, when I land at Adelaide airport
theres kind of big posters sort of proclaiming Adelaide to be the city of ideas and Im just like I
thought Id just left the city of ideas in Melbourne and so on, and it seemed like there are
attempts to kind of manufacture are they genuinely successful?
DANIEL: I think it depends on the context. I mean, you know, Paris wasnt known as a beautiful
th
city that expresses romantic ideas until Baron Haussmann in the 19 Century, you know,
basically razed much of the city and built these beautiful buildings that we see today. So
sometimes its not very successful. Like Robert Moses was this very important urban planner in
New York who thought that we should make it a city of cars and he much of his attempts at
urban planning were unsuccessful. Or where Im from, Montreal, there was a Jean Drapeau, he
was very important Mayor in the 60s and 70s who thought that Montreal could become a global
city, and he promoted the Olympic games and Expo 67 and with the idea that Montreal could
become like New York, you know, but that was but that didnt resonate with the thing that
people really cared about which was really the value of language, and therefore that sort of
effort was not very successful. So it can work in some cases but I think its more likely to work if
it comes from the top, if it resonates to a certain extent with peoples actual needs and desires.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: And you mentioned about Paris, Im often curious as to whether a city
can be perceived by outsiders to have a particular spirit or ethos, but that residents of the city
feel really quite different about that. Did you come across other cases of that?

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DANIEL: Well, I guess Paris was the obvious case. I mean Berlin, you know, we thought was
again my friend is the one who wrote the chapter on that, but we went in with a hypothesis that
was somewhat, you know, questioned once we spoke to people there. And we thought it really
was a city about coming to terms with the past. But the more we spoke to people there and the
more we read about it, the more we think that the really thoughts that expressed Berlin is these
extremes of swinging between on the one hand the most tolerant city in the world which is
where its at now, but on the other hand also is its history of extreme tolerance and it seems to
swing between one extreme to another. And that seemed to make more sense as a way of
thinking about the ethos of Berlin in our initial hypothesis which came from our external
perspective.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: And theres another kind of fascinating thing I found about this, is
taking a look at the physical layout and the physical aspects of a city. I should actually kind out
read out the nine cities you take a look at. So theres Jerusalem, Montreal, Singapore, Hong
Kong, Beijing, Oxford, Berlin, Paris and New York. And weve both lived in Oxford. In fact we
just discovered we lived in Oxford at the same time. I knew I recognised you. And you sort of
noticed really specific things about just the sort of physical layout of Oxford and kind of the
signals that that sends about what the citys for and can you talk about that a little bit?
DANIEL: Well, in the case, you know, I mean I guess perhaps an obvious example would be
Montreal where the signs are you have to look at the language of the signs and what that
says about the city. And the way in which French speakers were made to feel at home in the
city was to have a very public face of French as a dominant language. Initially it meant that
public signs would allow English at all, but once Francophones became relatively successful in
feeling at home in their language, then English was allowed as but it has to be in smaller
script than French. So thats one way in which
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: I loved your story about all of the stop signs had to say arrt for years
and then you realise that in France they actually say Stop.
DANIEL: Right.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: But yeah.
DANIEL: Thats true, and there are many words that are used in Quebec which actually are not
used in France. You know, like in France they say weekend but in Quebec we say fin de
semaine.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: Yeah. And you talk about how the architecture in Oxford, for example,
is one that kind of, in the colleges, really kind of turns inward
DANIEL: Right.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: and sort of gets who knows about kind of the life of the mind and
so on. But thats got consequences for people who are outside the walls as well, and yeah.
DANIEL: Right, right. So if we think that education, that one very important purpose of education
is to train those who have I guess the most talent, so to speak, but that they also have an
obligation to serve the community, then that sort of architecture undermines the second aim.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: So, I mean if you were to kind of land in a completely new city now,
for example Melbourne, what kind of things do you immediately start kind of just noticing that
you didnt notice before you did this work and ..?
DANIEL: I should be very careful about what I say, other than the fact that I do have a slight
preference for Melbourne compared to Sydney, but but one thing about ethos is, I mean
about discovering
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: Any seminars in Sydney?

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AUDIENCE: Yes.
DANIEL: But not about sorry the is that sometimes its pretty obvious, you know. In
Jerusalem of course its about religion, in Montreal about language. But sometimes its not so
obvious and weve been told the past couple of days in Melbourne that, whats it really about?
And then people say we have a culture of understatement, and were committed to quality life
but not in a kind of flashy way. So if thats true, then its not something thats immediately
obvious, right, it would just that you cant discover an ethos of understatement. I mean you
cant so thats true then, it takes a certain amount of research before one could affirm that
view with any conviction. But Im still new to this city, so Im
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: Yeah, as sort of someone who kind of, you know, immigrated here
and fell in love with the place it sort of is it in the way of someone who searches for any
mention of the beloved I looked for anything the books had to say about Australia and you
know, the first place you go is the index and so on. But I found a mention of Melbourne in the
Singapore chapter and described as a low pressure city where people can live in fancy
suburban homes with gardens. And I wondered if Neighbours had something to do with
Neighbours, the soap opera, had something to do with how were perceived kind of outside,
cause you know that description is kind of radically different from say my experience of
Melbourne and
DANIEL: Right. But its
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: But now youve been here two days, you
DANIEL: Its the person who said that was a very successful Singaporean academic who had
given up a post in Canada to return to Singapore who himself was Singaporean. And of course
in Singapore the ethos is nation building, right, cause its both a city and a state and this and
it was created into a state very reluctantly and they had to develop this sense of being a nation.
So we asked them, you know, why are you and hes a leading critic of the government too,
so we asked him why are you here? And he says, well look, Im committed to my nation as a
social critic, its my home, I want to improve it. And its not because of, you know, for material
reasons. I mean if I I could be and then thats where he said, I could be in a place like
Melbourne which is, you know, much more I guess what he means by low pressure part is
that you wouldnt be subject to political pressure in a way that you would in Singapore if youre a
social critic. And I guess its easier to live well in a relatively large home compared to Singapore
where the space is much more limited. So I think thats what he meant. So Im not sure if it was
inspired by Neighbours. I
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: No, no, no, I mean actually the thing about Neighbours was that there
was someone who came over from the UK a couple of years after I arrived and he spoke at a
very large gathering and it was his first time in Australia. And he kind of stood up and said to
this audience of about four or five hundred Australians, you know, this is my first time here and
its marvellous and Im realising theres a little bit more to Australia than Neighbours. And I was
like and this just went down like a lead balloon, as you can imagine. And I was just like oh, I
must make a mental note to tell him that thats like going to Britain saying my goodness, its not
all like Benny Hill. Amazing. And I just sort of forgot to mention it and I thought well hell have
noticed it went down like a lead balloon and, but no, he did it again that same evening with
another 100 people and, yeah. So, yeah, that was the kind of memory that that triggered. Im
sure theres lots of questions that have come up in peoples minds now. Weve got microphone
people, as it were. There we go. And so Ill ask Daniel a last question, but and sort of put us
kind of notice. The thing Id sort of say about kind of asking questions is two things: one, wait for
the microphone, because were recording and so that way well be able to have you in the
transcript; and in the nicest possible way, please ask a question, as it were. And the other thing
that we kind of notice is that people kind of tend to sort of wait and then at two minutes to 7:00
theres a forest of hands and it all becomes incredibly stressful for me because we have to let
people down and so on. So do please put your hand up earlier rather than later, that would be
fantastic. So, my last sort of sense of this is, or my last question around this is, do you have a
sense of what proportion of cities in the world have a really distinctive ethos or spirit? And how
many of them kind of dont, as it were?
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DANIEL: Yeah, well thats a good question, and you didnt send me that question in advance.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: Im sorry.
DANIEL: But if I
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: You know what you could ask me back, is how many cities are there
in the world? And at that point Id go
DANIEL: Okay. About China, its where theres the most rapid urbanisation in the world now.
And perhaps and also theres very strong worry about the cultural homogenisation. And to be
honest, its hard but I dont know enough about so many different cities in China, but I would
think on the face of that, not many have a some of them do, like Qufu is basically the place
where Confucianism developed and they strongly promote Confucianism and its quite clear
thats a dominant ethos and there are many descendants of the Confucius family that live there
and theyre very proud of that ethos, you know, or some cities like Hangzhou would have a
strong environmental ethos, and of course Beijing and political power. Not just political power in
the sense thats where the government people live, its also where the social critics tend to live,
and thats where people argue about politics. But, so I would say that not many cities in China
have done either. But having said that, but many want and have and develop one you know,
and maybe thats where perhaps at the end of the introduction we have some policy
recommendations for if you want to develop an ethos where this was the things to look out for,
and thats where there might be some relevance.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: Can you go through quickly what those are?
DANIEL: Well as mentioned, one of them is no big gap between rich and poor or between
different cultural groups. Another one is but again its not all cities have the luck to have an
urban planner whose ideas resonate with the sorts of dominant needs and desires of their
community.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: Some cities, the bad luck was to have a particular urban planner
DANIEL: Also whos who was at odds with
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: I dont have any cities in mind at all. [Unclear 28:09].
DANIEL: Yeah, so those are some of the issues. Theres many, I mean even it comes you
know, some cities hire companies to do branding campaigns and that could be successful to a
certain extent, but of course it has to resonate with many other issues as well, yeah.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: It has to align with something substantive thats already there, the
way that doesnt work.
DANIEL: Right, exactly. Yeah. Like you couldnt I dont mean to say bad things about certain
cities, but like Cleveland couldnt have, you know, were the city of romance, it just wouldnt
work, right.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: First one down here, and the second one oh the front rows ahead,
well done. Excellent. So these two and then well go up there.
AUDIENCE: Interesting [unclear 28:57]. Im interested in your selection of nine cities and why
you chose those nine? Was it because it was easiest to support your thesis, or was it were
you trying to make some other kind of point?
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: Would you like to take a couple of questions at a time by the way?
DANIEL: Either way.

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JANE-FRANCES KELLY: Yeah, lets do that, lets do a couple at a time and then well get more.
AUDIENCE: You describe yourself as a communitarian in the book. Could you explain that
briefly for me, thanks?
DANIEL: Okay. Well I guess the first question, why we selected those nine cities. Partly its
because my friend and co-author, Avner and I were more familiar with those cities, so its easier
for us to discuss those cities in a certain degree of depth. But in a way its kind of lucky that
those like hes from Jerusalem, Im from Montreal, obviously those cities have a relatively
strong ethos. And that maybe its partly luck too that we spent substantial periods of time in
other cities that have a strong ethos. And maybe also were in some unconscious way we only
realised that after we finished the book and maybe we were attracted to those cities because
they had a relatively strong ethos. But its not meant to suggest that those cities are
representative, which goes to that question that I didnt prepare for, maybe those cities are not
representative. But we do think that having an ethos is a good thing for the reasons that I say,
you know, resist homogenisation, resist extremes of nationalism and allow for cities to do
certain things that cant be done to another state. I mean I think those are three important
reasons. Also given our were both of us are political theorists and we think its very
interesting that cities with a strong ethos also have a history of generating the great ideas in
political theory, you know, think of I think the fact that Athens and Sparta had very
contrasting political systems certainly stimulated [unclear 31:03] so come up with their theories.
And in the Chinese history, the warring states, period. You had the great thinkers like Confucius
and Mencius who roamed from basically cities to cities, that sometimes had a different ethos,
that also led to perhaps the most creative period in Chinese philosophical thinking. Of course
Jerusalem has stimulated much religious thought, and today many of the great theories about
multiculturalism and language have emerged from Montreal, like Charles Taylor is perhaps the
most famous thinker. So thats another reason perhaps why we were attracted to those cities.
And Paris with the kind of anti-bourgeois kind of theories, of course I think has theyre
stimulated by the cities as well.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: Youre a communitarian.
DANIEL: Yeah. So about that question, I guess my I guess what we mean by that is that, and
its not just me, its my co-author as well, that we think that most people have this need for a
communal identity and that its both a descriptive fact and also it can have positive things. At
one level its purely descriptive, like what kind of animals are we? Are we like tigers who are
purely individualistic and spend their lives more or less alone? Or are we like lions who live in a
community? So we think were more the second type of people. And on that basis we think
since we live in communities and we have certain need for a communal identity, and lets think
of what that would mean in a city context.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: Now theres one here and there was one there was somebody in
there whos changed their mind, thats fine. And Mary, at the wall was a lady in the red jacket,
the woman who is sitting inside, as it were. Its not my most articulate moment. Yes. Oh, have
we got one microphone?
AUDIENCE: One here.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: Right, okay. Yeah, so one here, then one there, and then over there.
Sorry. Im usually better.
AUDIENCE: This is a tourism advert posing as a question. Talk first, the question second.
Theres a place just out of Melbourne, a regional centre called Ballarat. Now Ballarat was built
by very successful gold miners and sheep breeders, mostly Scots. And the clear message that
they had, the founding fathers had was we want to build something that we can be incredibly
proud of, thats every bit as good or better than what we left behind in Scotland. We want to
show the world and Scotland what can be done when you transplant Scots. And they built a
beautiful city and it is still a beautiful city, and it has a very, very powerful ethos of community
spirit, high quality cultural pursuits and the young people that you meet in the street today are all

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part of that. So the question is, are you going to go to Ballarat to LEspresso Coffee Shop and
see for yourself exactly what youre talking about in this microcosm of a regional city?
DANIEL: I hadnt considered that, but if my fellow travellers allow that, we would certainly be
happy to do it. But let me just say one thing, though, that what I mean by communitarianism is
not that cities need to have a very strong communal ethic because some cities, if we look at
New York, and New York has this very strong ethos of ambition, so in some sense its
individualistic ethos. Or Hong Kong, we call ethos materialism without hedonism. But we think
where community comes in at those parts is precisely at the moments, the darkest moments in
those in the case of New York the darkest moments in the history, thats where the
communal spirit kind of almost rescues the cities from those moments. But were not saying that
cities need to have a very strong communal anti-individualistic ethos. Some cities can take pride
in the ethos, you know, for example New York can take pride in its ethos of ambition, so long as
its not an individualism thats completely unrestrained.
AUDIENCE: Tony Dalton from RMIT University. Im just wondering, to what extent do you pick
up issues about ethos that is differentiated across now what are some very large cities. So if we
look at Melbourne and but many of the ones that youve studied in the book are huge, so
they go from central city area where youve got very well established political and cultural
institutional sort of presence, to the suburbs, the suburbs of Paris, I guess. Can you say that the
ethos is different in different parts of the city or to what extent does it change as you move
across these now very large cities from the centre to the suburbs?
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: And as you answer that, can I get that microphone to make its way
across there. That would be great, thank you.
DANIEL: Okay. Yeah, I mean again, if the suburbs have a kind of way of life which is completely
separate and different than the life of people in the inner city, then obviously we cant say that
they have a common ethos. But again, let me just come back to the more clear cases like
Montreal and Jerusalem. I think the like in Montreal you cant escape, you have to navigate
the linguistic politics of the city, whether you live in the suburbs or in the inner city, so clearly
that binds people to a certain extent. And in New York, not sorry, in Jerusalem, not
everybody is a card-carrying religious person, but you cant escape dealing with religious issues
on an everyday basis. So to a certain extent people are bound by the ethos, no matter where
they live. In the case of Paris, we do agree that the biggest and this is maybe one more
controversial part of the book, we think that sometimes if theres a kind of dominant ethos, we
think that we have an obligation to respect it, even if we dont partake of it, or even if we dont
agree with it. Theres an expression in English everybody knows, when in Rome do as the
Romans do, which expresses the idea. And at the level of countries were about that, you know,
like we dont say when in Italy well, I mean some people might say that, when in Italy, do as
the Italians do cause that sounds like a kind of code for bashing immigrants or something. But
when cities express, you know, lets just Im not religious, I mean I worked in Jerusalem with
my friend on the book, and the university closed on many religious holidays and it was
inconvenient, but of course Im not going to complain, Im just going to live and to a certain
extent even try to learn from it. And there is a sense where I became a bit more religious when I
was in Jerusalem so, you know, so its yeah, so in other words, I do think that if its true that
the people in the suburbs of just purely hypothetical in if there was a suburb in Melbourne
where people were so flashy, loved to drive gold coloured cars and so on and it just might be a
bit distasteful and if people express the distaste, I dont have a problem with that, yeah.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: So over here and then there was somebody very yeah. So can we
take you two together? Thatd be great.
AUDIENCE: Hi. With regards to the different units of analysis you talked about, so East-West,
then country and then cities, have you got any insights on how people deal with potential
conflicts between those identities? So for example you talked about Portland being very
environmentally conscious, but then potentially looking at America, maybe theres some conflict
there, and whether that leads to people prioritising their identities differently.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: And the other one, right.
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DANIEL: Okay, Well, you know again, our review is that if cities have an ethos, and the ethos
are only morally defensible, it should be said, if they dont involve the violation of basic human
rights, and we have a pretty thin idea of human rights, you know, it doesnt include democracy,
but cities of course need to protect basic human rights. In fact if cities are so poor that they dont
provide for basic material welfare, then we dont think that resources should be spent on
developing an ethos unless thats a way of improving the material welfare of the people. So the
first obligation is to alleviate poverty. But once that is done, and sometimes, especially in China,
one way of dealing with that is to promote a certain ethos of a city. But once thats done then we
think that we do have that theres a good case again for the reasons that we said earlier
about why, and having ethos is a good thing, its a good thing for peoples identity to be
attached to cities even more than countries in cases in conflict. So and its I mean New
York is a good example where people have a very strong in fact theres no word in English to
describe the love of city, to say I love my country we have words nationalism or patriotism, but
there is this feeling that many have, I love my city. New York, the famous slogan, I love New
York. But then theres no word to express that, so we had to invent a new word, civicism, to
express this feeling that many people have of urban pride. And we do think that having this
urban pride or this civicism in cases of conflict with love of ones country should have priority.
And to be honest, its also, and perhaps one of if I have a certain ethic or view which is more
universal, its commitment to Confucian ethics. And in Confucianism theres this idea of graded
love, meaning that the more intimate the community, the greater the love and commitment and
responsibility to that community. So in Confucianism the strongest attachment should be to the
family, and then you spread that attachment to others. But the further you move from the family,
the less intense that commitment, and the fewer responsibilities you have. So if thats true, then
we should have this greatest commitment to the family, and then to the city and then to the
nation and then to people outside the nation, so kind of fits within this kind of Confucian idea of
graded love which I think is a good way of thinking about our ethical obligations.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: Just on
AUDIENCE: Sorry. Matthew Ford, University of Melbourne. I just was interested in your
comment about the spirit of cities somewhat being generated or helped to be generated when
people within a city had a certain degree of homogeneity, or similarity or like thinking. And Im
just wondering how you worked with that, say compared to the notion that diversity and
interaction and innovation and energy comes from groups of different people. And I was also
thinking about say Montreal where youve got the language but theres two languages and
Jerusalem, you got the religion but theres two religions, and you mentioned New York which I
dont think was one of the in the book. But they share that ambition. But obviously its a very,
very diverse city as well. I was hoping you could comment on that.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: Id love to take another question and get you to answer both at the
same time. So, well come downwards and then come back up. I dont know who put their
AUDIENCE: Oh well, Ill go first then.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: arm up first.
AUDIENCE: So can you how viable is it to impose an ethos, spirit or culture on a city as
opposed to it being organic? So for example, you have a Lord Mayor who travels and sees a
great idea which generates a community spirit within a particular city and comes back and has a
plan to transplant that. How viable is that?
DANIEL: Yeah, well again I think it depends on the context, and its viable if, as I mentioned, I
mean if it resonates to a certain extent with peoples way of life, and if theres a conflict, you
know. I mean Montreal is a clear case, as mentioned, you know, where people the key issue
that really motivated people in Montreal was worry about feeling at home in your own language,
so this idea of making Montreal into a global city was just a non-starter. I guess its easier to say
in retrospect, but it wasnt successful. But if you have urban planners who have good ideas, that
resonate to a certain extent with what different social groups want, then perhaps its more
viable. Which maybe I can use that as an entry point for the last for the first question, that
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homogeneity doesnt mean that people all have to think the same thing, right. I mean having
ethos doesnt mean that people all have to think the same thing. And it depends on the content
of the ethos. If the ethos is one of ambition, then obviously, almost by definition, youre going to
have people doing different things to the best of their ability. So in New York they say were the
capital of culture as well as the capital of apital, you know, meaning financial capital. So people
do different things to maximise their abilities and talents in those respects, and it attracts
immigrants who have huge ambition to different things and different ways of life. So depends on
the content of the ethos. But if the ethos is one or Oxford where the ethos is maybe related to
learning, then people will pursue that in different ways. So its not saying that people have to
adhere to a common set of values in that way. But where heterogeneity is at odds with having a
common ethos is where theres, as mentioned, different racial groups where who have
strikingly different ways of life and dont interact or different classes, you know, where the rich
and poor live in different neighbourhoods and they dont interact in any way, and they dont feel
that they have a common way of life at all, then we think theres a problem with the idea of
developing an ethos.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: Glasgow, in 1990, Glasgow was a European city of culture and many
people in the UK found this laughable. And it was really see I worked in the tourist board in
Glasgow in that summer when I was an undergraduate, as a sort of summer job and I
remember this there was a series of campaigns which did actually kind of change a lot of the
confidence of residents of Glasgow, but it was also, the reason I want to tell the story is there
was this great cartoon where Glasgow had less been known for as being a centre of culture
as being a centre of essentially kind of muggings and violence. And there was a cartoon where
European city of culture and the guy was being kind of mugged on the street and sort of holding
out, at knife point and the little speech balloon said, is this a dagger I see before me? But you
know, its sort of interesting, I mean there was a renaissance in Glasgow which did kind of
continue. Ive got the two questions, yes, one there and then the gentleman in front of you. And
then were going to go right up the back with the chap whos really holding his arm up, and then
fourth row from the back, so.
AUDIENCE: Ros Hanson, Urban Planning consultant. Arent we really talking about the
branding of cities, which is a concept thats been around for quite some time and is actually
been accentuated as a result of the globalisation push? That to me seems to be whats
happening here in terms of the ethos, that its then translated into a brand mark.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: And the gentleman in front of you, sorry.
AUDIENCE: And my question was just do you see that theres any potential or have you
experienced any potential of teams of cities with similar ethos internationally kind of pooling
resources, as such, in the furtherance of that ethos?
DANIEL: Yeah, thats I mean I think that question, thats you know, cities that have a
strong environmental ethos are doing things together and in a way that couldnt be done at the
level of state. So I think thats a very promising thing. But again it depends on the ethos. Or
Montreal has links with other Francophone cities to promote the French language and culture
which again would be hard to do at the level of state. So sometimes yes, I mean thats a good
way of promoting things that are generally desirable. It couldnt be done at other at the level
of other political units. About branding, I know that Im not an expert and at some level branding
might be important as a way of helping to communicate the idea of an ethos, but at some level
its the not necessarily the kind of the essence of whats really going on. As mentioned,
branding wont work if it doesnt correspond to something thats already there. And it might help
to max and sometimes branding, you know, theres an example that we have where it might
not be done in kind of appropriate ways, like the city of Eilat in Israel, which is a kind of beautiful
beach city right next to Jordan. It was branded as a beautiful beach resort in Europe, hoping to
attract tourists but they didnt mention, they deliberately didnt mention that it was in Israel
because people would think its too dangerous to go if they mention that its from Israel. So
sometimes branding could be a bit deceptive as well.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: Well go right up the back.

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AUDIENCE: Yeah, I just wonder if just the idea of ethos is just too vague and wishy-washy
really to mean anything except the sort of self-conceit of people in various cities. I once went to
a city in the Ukraine, Chernivtsi I think it was called, and everybody told me, oh its a city of
books and cafes. Books and cafes, books and cafes. Everybody in the Ukraine told me this.
And when I finally got there, there wasnt any. I mean, did you not take an ethos that had
absolutely no obviously no connection to what was going on in peoples lives or it just
were self-delusions on objectives. I mean because thats the way many ethos are actually
presented, just sort of fairly delusional really.
DANIEL: Sure, yeah.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: And then theres an additional question about something like the
fourth row from the back. There you go.
AUDIENCE: John Daley from Grattan Institute. My question was about the link between this
ethos of cities and the power structures and political structures of cities. Do you think that
theres a link, so say take Oxford, it has a very unusual political structure in the sense that a lot
of the power is exercised by the colleges in a very devolved way, and that potentially is reflected
in the kind of ethos of the city, and Im sure you could find other examples in other cities. So do
you think theres a link between the political structures, the power structures and the ethos?
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: So wishy-washy self-delusion and power.
DANIEL: Okay. Of course its possible for some cities, and maybe Glasgow was mentioned, I
mean there might be some cities where people say theres an ethos that doesnt correspond to
the social reality. And of course thats possible. But the cities that we look at, you know, were
pretty confident that they have an ethos and as mentioned, we try to use to a certain extent
social scientific methods, you know, value surveys, values that urban planners have, as well as
these more qualitative interviews with people in those cities of different social groups and so on.
And its a kind of, you know, and as mentioned, in some cities like Jerusalem and Montreal, its
you have to navigate the dominant ethos of those cities. And, but again some cities might
not have an ethos and other cities, certain people claim that theres an ethos which doesnt
correspond to the social reality. Of course thats possible. But we looked at nine cities that we
think do have a pretty marked ethos, you know, and but were not claiming that every city
does or were not claiming that some cities claim they have an ethos that in fact doesnt
correspond to the social reality. And whether the ethos are linked to the power structures, I
mean again, yeah, I mean in its quite clear that in the case of whether its promoting and
this is one way in which you could tell an ethos too, for example is where a proportion of the city
budget is devoted to a certain cause. Montreal, relatively large proportion is devoted to the
protection of language. And Jerusalem to the protection of religion. In Beijing, to certain
expressions of political power. And of course in Singapore, would be to the ethos of nation
building. So thats another way of looking or determining whether and to what extent there is an
ethos is is looking at what the whats done with the resources of the city by the people
who have power, yeah.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: Chap in the middle. Chap down here.
AUDIENCE: Mark Solonsch from Urbis. I was interested in your comment earlier about the
relationship between the ethos and the actual urban design of the city and whether you found
that in many cases. And also whether or not theres a which one comes first, the ethos first
and then the design, or the design first and then the ethos picking that up?
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: Chicken or egg. Can we pass that down and take your question
quickly because Ive having promised to finish on time, Im just noticed the
AUDIENCE: Whos question? Where?
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: Andrew, down here, sorry. Right, there you go. Thanks.

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AUDIENCE: Yeah, Chris Duffield from Super [unclear 21:58]. Just your research has informed
us that cities have this ability to have an ethos and generate a force for good. Have you looked
at ways that you can actually mobilise that force? So, in a city that has the potential ingredients
to have an ethos, a framework to actually accelerate the motion of that being a force for good.
DANIEL: Well, again it depends on the particular cases. But for example, just off the top of my
head, and its not one that we deal with in the book, is I mentioned this city in China called Qufu
which is really where the Confucianism developed. And many of us think that Confucianism has
a very important role to play in Chinas political future. And if its true that this city could
strengthen its identity as a centre of Confucianism, it could also help in this broader commitment
of promoting Confucianism in China as a whole. But other cities would have different needs
obviously. Yeah, so thats and about urban design. I mean its, to a certain extent, you know,
of course the ethos are shaped by the geographies or by the design, and sometimes there
could be conscious efforts to shape the cities, the urban design so as to promote the ethos and
so again it could work both ways. Im not saying that one necessarily comes first. How much
time do we have. cause I want to ask cause you said something very striking about you
married Melbourne and thats one thing that I mean
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: Thirty seconds, luckily.
DANIEL: Because what really grabs is that many of do have this strong attachment to cities, but
theres no way of articulating that, not even a word. We had to invent a new word and I never
heard anybody say that they married a city before, so
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: Ive never said it before either. That was a more of a, you know
DANIEL: I just wonder what you meant by that.
JANE-FRANCES KELLY: Yeah. Sorry. No, no, actually I came to Melbourne for nine months
seven years ago. It was completely unexpected the extent to which I fell in love with Melbourne
and Australia and kind of changed my plans about the rest of my life in order to stay here and
immigrate and I mean citizenship was really the marriage I guess, permanent residency was the
engagement and, but I mean, and its now been seven years so, you know, yes. Time to write a
book like this. The and really I kind of sort of meant that, and youre right, its actually quite
lots of people, lots of Australians kind of say to me, lots of my fellow Australians say to me, you
know, what was it about Australia and Melbourne that you kind of, you know, made you want to
stay? And I find the only metaphor that really kind of makes sense is kind of falling in love. And
then I just enjoyed myself with the metaphor after that. And it is a little bit like it doesnt work to
someone, you know, can you give a logical of a kind of why you fell in love with your wife, as it
were, and so I suppose it was a kind of a it was something that was quite hard to express.
And all the things like, you know, I just know I want to grow old here. But enough about me. And
we should close, and just before thanking you, I want to do some gratuitous advertising around
the whats happening in the Grattan Cities Program next. Were the Housing We Choose
that we published in June that we are working at great pace on policy recommendations coming
out of that, so you know, what we found was that the kinds of housing choices that we would
like to make are not actually kind of as verbal in our cities as we would like and what were
building isnt kind of, you know, making that gap any smaller and what should we do about that.
Look out for that in November on our website near you, www.grattan.edu.au. And after that
were going to work on Cities and Social Connections which basically kind of recognises, you
were saying earlier, were social animals and what role do our cities play and how well a job do
our cities do in either hindering or helping our kind of needs for social connection, and that will
come thereafter. Let me thank Daniel Bell for your time and for your book, Ive been hugely
enjoying reading it. And also to Allens Arthur Robinson, and to the Grattan staff who helped us
do this this evening. But lastly and most importantly to for coming. Thank you. Thank you.
AUDIO: This has been a podcast from Grattan Institute. Want to hear more? Check out our
website, www.grattan.edu.au.
End of recording

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