What holds a city together? During the first Women Emerging City Expedition in Brussels, Lara began noticing something less visible than its institutions or infrastructure: the conversations, introductions and relationships that connect one person to another.
When Julia asks Lara whether she wants to become the kind of person who weaves communities together, her answer is yes, but she wants to begin with individuals. Bring two people together around a shared interest, a skill, or sometimes no obvious common ground at all, and something may begin. As Lara says, people usually have something in common if they have the opportunity to discover it.
This was something she experienced throughout the Expedition. The sessions introduced Lara to women she might otherwise never have met, but she noticed that many of the connections developed in the informal spaces around them: over dinner, during a break, or while walking together for five or ten minutes. A conversation led to an introduction. Someone’s work connected with someone else’s idea. An invitation emerged. The formal sessions laid the foundation, but the spaces between them allowed relationships to grow.
Julia wonders whether “bridge building” is almost too grand an expression for this. Perhaps what women are doing is closer to weaving the fabric of a city together.
Lara recognises this work in her own family. She talks about the women who organise gatherings, remember schedules and make sure people continue to see one another. Much of this work has traditionally been expected of women rather than recognised. Yet when the women in Lara’s family step back from doing it, something changes. People meet less often. They begin to lose touch.
Perhaps the same is true of cities. They are held together not only through formal structures, but through people who introduce, invite, gather and create spaces for others to meet.
The Expedition also made Lara reconsider whether she saw herself as someone who leads. She had associated leading with titles, age or managing a team. Through conversations with the other women, she began to see it differently. One word that emerged for her was “anchoring”: being able to reconnect people, ideas and purpose when things become unclear, and helping others find direction again.
Connecting appears at different scales throughout Lara’s reflections. It can mean reconnecting the dots within a team or bringing together two individuals who might otherwise never meet. Over time, those individual connections can reach further.
Perhaps this is what weaving a city looks like. Not making everyone the same, but creating more opportunities for different threads to meet.
One person meets another. A conversation begins. A connection forms. And slowly, the fabric of a city becomes a little more connected.
Listen to Julia Middleton’s full conversation with Lara on the Women Emerging Podcast.
