The Conditions of the Learning City

If communities are to become learning cities they need to be creative. This introduces the third strand of development .

3) Performance

Learning to think of new ways of learning:

• developing variety and flexibility in the kinds of involvement people can have in the learning process
• recognising and valuing all kinds of learning within and for the advancement of the community.

Learning here is not only engagement in formal educational processes. It is the connecting of the many kinds of learning: in the workplace, the voluntary organisation and the family. It has the purpose of making the community a better place to live.

Learning how to learn, reflecting on:

• how the community has been learning about the changes it faces
• how much it has learned
• how much value has been added to the community.

This requires the learning city to place evaluation of performance at the centre of its work.