My son and I often build things with his Magna-tiles , and I love to watch as he catches on to what parts are essential to ensure our creation stays standing after we let it go.
Recently, I was thinking about some downtown redesign conversations we had when I was the City Manager in Commerce, Texas. Many lessons came from that process, but a new one hit me while talking to my son about the foundation of his tower.
In Downtown Commerce, as in many historic downtowns, most sidewalks reached five or six feet above the road. This can create many problems for an active and walkable downtown. We even had to install parking bumpers to keep the college students from crashing into these monstrous sidewalks when they parked their cars.
If we went back in time and backed our horse and buggy up to one of the local shops, the height of these sidewalks made perfect sense. Merchants and customers could walk right out of the shops and load the carts like distribution centers load trucks from loading docks today. In some places, the old horse rings are still attached to the concrete.
The fact is, not a thing can be done about the height of these sidewalks without first figuring out what to do about the buildings that sit on the back side of them. Downtown became what it was on top of these building blocks placed out of necessity during the time they were built.
You and I are a lot like a historic downtown in that way. When we were children, we were taught many of our guiding principles and values that shaped the adults we became. As we mature, some of the things we learned along the way aren’t as practical as they were when we were kids – things like showing your work when you do a math problem or writing in cursive or calling everyone by their last name (Mr. So-and-so or Ms. Such-and-Such).
That doesn’t mean these items aren’t useful or foundational as adults. Anytime we face a challenge at work, it’s helpful to break it down to where the problem began and work our way back to a solution. When we write an email, it’s beneficial to slow down and get the words right like you did when trying to remember what a cursive G looks like. We don’t even need to mention the value of your signature. Greeting new people by their last name is no longer required, but we do it to show respect and professionalism, even to people younger than we are. Like those sidewalks, there are several tall and seemingly impractical foundations on which the structures of our adulthood rest. Sometimes we have to look deep down to find them.