In a recent blog “Universities learning from cities” Dr Paul Greatrix acknowledges the article published by The Chronicle of Higher Education on what cities can teach Higher Education. The article itself makes comparisons between universities and cities in terms of their activities and the type of things you might expect to see in both, for example, sport clubs and ‘A clear focus on the essentials of civic life—safety, security, cleanliness, sanitation—made our cities strong and, where that has worked, allowed urban dwellers to flourish in the ways we associate with successful cities. 

As cities have developed around natural resources such as minerals, water, ports, fish stocks, fossil fuels, they have developed and grown their intellectual capacity so that new outputs and and outcomes are achieved within cities. By developing increasingly stronger intellectual capacity, resources and finance (of which universities are a part) the ‘product’ from cities now go…