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City "A"live

by Hakim Bellamy

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about

Written for the Albuquerque Living Cities Integration Initiative Planning Year Celebration and delivered live on Monday, June 15th, 2015.

lyrics

There’s a City inside me where table linens and extra place settings constitute a meeting.
Where the open invitations have been sent, and the table extenders are always met with open arms and extra chairs. Where plain talk poetry is on the menu. Where the boardroom is in the kitchen. Where people, politics, profit and promise all sit at the same dining room table.Where everyone waits, for everyone else to get served before they eat.

There’s a City inside me where innovation is a survival skill that we used to call “making lemonade,” and long before that referred to as adobe, acequias, swamp coolers and cliff dwellings. Where people feel part of something. Where everyone is part owner of the success, and trial and error is just part of the rent. Where we face tough problems, but we’re tougher.

There’s a City inside me where tech has always been the “new” frontier,” and horsepower has always meant Corrales. Where we have a credit history of handshakes and “good” words. Where we have access to cowboy capital and call it courage. Where cyber security means logging off a lil’ more often. Where we know solitude is restorative, individualism is still rugged
but collaboration is required. Our impact, collective. Our coalitions, collateral.

There’s a City inside me where job means dream, instead of drudge, in any language. Where opportunity is a verb, not a noun. Where everyone is fluent in lingua franca. Where learning is a loop, not a line. Where unusual suspects mean unusual conversations, meaning innovations
from people who don’t make a living talking about innovations.Meaning people making a living “making a living.” Because we know the root word of business is “busy.” So we go to their place of business, to talk about better business. Where solutions aren’t found, they’re invented. Where people pitch-in and leaders listen. Where the right answer is always asking the right questions. Where the only thing we fix, is our ears.

There’s a City inside me as resourceful as Deep Dives in short water, that holds meet and greets at the intersection of private capital and public good. Where the root word of entrepreneur is “enter.” Where all doors lead to access. Where all doors lead to success. Where we unhide systems. Where the government’s job is more than government jobs. Where we lay hands on government so it can walk again. So it can run again. Where Listen. Learn. Adapt. Get Back. is not a slogan, it’s a program. Where awesome programs are no substitute for awesome government. Where everything is awesome and there’s still not enough of it.

In the City inside me we are disrupting this. We know there is enough to go around. For a city with heart THIS SIZE, economic mobility is going to need more than a driver…and a wheel. It’s going to need an entire steering table to get this planet off the ground. Where those who need help most, teach us how to help best. Where we don’t care who takes credit, but we care who gives it. Where we are all assuming the inherent risk…of our future.

There’s a City inside me that bleeds red and lives green. Where the blueness in our arteries speaks to the air and water quality. That city starts with a capital “A,” and that “A” stands for all of us.

There’s a City inside me where everything is a lab. Where we are incubating business as unusual. Where microbiology meets micro enterprise for the first time, and they realize they’re related. Where this potluck family reunion will have us up around these five tables all night. Where everybody is welcome, and there is no turndown service for linens, banks nor bright ideas. Where everyone at this table would give their right arm to be the City we believe we can be. And with all those arms we will piece, paste and parcel together the most beautiful creature the world has ever known.

There’s a City inside me…and it’s alive.

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released June 16, 2015
Hakim Bellamy

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Hakim Be Albuquerque, New Mexico

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