Culture, Community, and Leadership: Interview with The DNA of Cities

At the heart of 21st-century urban transformations, understanding the unique essence of each city has become crucial. From technological innovation to sustainability, mobility and tourism, cities face unprecedented challenges that require adaptive and resilient strategies. It was in this context that the CityDNA Autumn Conference 2025 in the Faroe Islands brought together global experts to discuss innovative urbanism and sustainable development. The DNA of Cities is an outcome-led advisory practice helping cities and destinations to unite, evolve and prosper in rapid eveolving time. They work with local partners in cities to optimise that DNA internally and externally over multiple cycles.

Dr Caitlin Morrissey, Co-host of The DNA of Cities podcast, shared her vision on how a city's intrinsic traits – its “DNA” – shape urban policies, strengthen resilience and drive innovation. The podcast has almost 25,000 global downloads and features over 120 local and global city experts. In this exclusive HQ interview, she explores how community participation, local culture and leadership can transform cities into integrated ecosystems, prepared to thrive in an ever-changing world.

Understanding the intrinsic characteristics of a city is essential for designing sustainable policies and urban development strategies. The DNA of Cities provides frameworks that attempt to capture these unique traits, combining qualitative insights and quantitative data. How does DNA of Cities define and capture the unique “DNA” of a city, and how does this influence its development strategies? 

The DNA of Cities is what makes every city an individual. We think that if we can see, trace and understand how cities become unique, then we can find ways to optimise their traits as they evolve over multiple cycles. We can help cities to be more themselves. The same policies and projects will not work everywhere. Effective long-term development must start from a deep understanding of the city or destination itself.

We suggest that there are three types of traits that manifest and combine uniquely in every city to give its own unique ‘genetic code’:

• Endowed traits: These are the characteristics that are given to a city by the planet and help us to begin to explain the origin story of the city and the enviroment that conditions life in a city;
• Inherited traits: The characteristics that a city has accumulated over time. This is a broad category of traits that requires us to look at the historic specificities of the city and what its own unique heritage might be;
• Acquired traits: These are the social characteristics of a city. It includes the people who live in the city, how they live together, what their common mindsets are, what their unique social behaviours are and how they respond to shocks and triumphs. This can include exressions of indiviuality such as local cuisine or a music scene, and it includes the songs and stories that citizens share about the city.

We suggest that every city has its own DNA. This has three elements:

• Each city has a distinctive origin story. It has its own ecology, geology, climate, history, anthropology and cultural energy, or, a ‘genetic code’.
• People who live in the same city have common experiences, impulses, shocks and traumas. This shapes how they synchronise and respond to one another and events. This is their ‘epigenetics’.
• Each city reacts differently to interventions, ‘treatment’, and reforms. Using the genetic code and the epigenetics of the city, we can foster ‘customised or regenerative, medicine’

Global cities today face unprecedented challenges, including climate change, economic fluctuations, and social pressures. Identifying the traits that allow urban centres to adapt and remain resilient is critical for long-term sustainability. What are the key factors that make cities resilient in the face of social, environmental, and economic challenges, and how do you measure or benchmark these traits? 

All cities, not just the so-called global cities, share these risks. In many domains, we have become conditioned to understand cities, sectors, places and spaces through comparison but our work encourages a different set of conversations. Our approach emphasises the specificity and uniqueness of individual cities, including how a city experiences and responds to vulnerabilities. We ask questions like, what are the challenges that this city faces? Where have they emerged from? Who has been more or less affected, and why? How has the city been resilient in the past? How has its citizens reacted and responded shocks or a long-term traumas? What is the adaptive capacity of this city?

For example, when we made three podcast episodes to explore The DNA of Mexico City, eleven wonderful experts joined us and revealed that residents of Mexico City have acquired a strong survival instinct to equip them for the everyday vulnerability of living in this beguiling and fascinating megacity located at high altitude on a sinking lake bed, surrounded by volcanies and at risk of earthquakes.
 

The DNA of Cities studies the interaction between governance structures and urban performance. How can city leadership and governance models promote sustainable growth while maintaining cultural and social integrity? How can we juggle growth with integrity?

A quiet but increasingly recognised risk of 21st century urbanisation is the erosion of distinctiveness, as cities and places increasingly look and feel alike. Sustainable growth that aligns with authenticity or integrity occurs when leaders don’t just have a compelling and shared vision about what they want the destination or city to become, but they understand its carrying capacity, social contracts, governance and heritage. We advocate for this inside-out understanding because it helps those leading cities and destinations to become more conscious of their own capabilities, which then informs their visioning and their action.

Glasgow and Barcelona are examples of two European cities that have hosted specific events in order to enlarge their capacity to host other events: Glasgow’s hosting of COP26, for example, catalysed events and initiatives focused climate finance and just transitions. Another positive example comes from Vienna with their Optimum Tourism strategy, which was crafted based on a recognition of Vienna’s DNA and an understanding of the delicate social contract around tourism which maintains that tourism is good only when it works for the whole city.

The cultural fabric and active participation of citizens are fundamental to a city's identity and potential for innovation. Understanding the relationship between community involvement and urban development is essential to combining these two phenomena in a direction that leads to prosperity. How do a city's culture and community involvement shape its identity and capacity for innovation? 

When we ask the local experts in our podcast ‘What are the greatest discoveries or inventions in this city?’ their answers reveal a lot about the culture of innovation. It looks different in every city. I have already described Mexico City’s survival instinct which also includes within it a proven and incredible ability to improvise at scale. In Philadelphia, we heard about the invention of public libraries, fire services and several other civic services. In some cities, the strong presence of a university or of an industry has provided deep roots for discovery and invention, but in every city, there is a high degree of everyday innovation that has many, many expressions that is shaped by, and shapes, the city’s identity. This is why some of our guests, for example in Istanbul, describe the city itself as the greatest invention.
 

"Sustainable growth occurs when leaders understand carrying capacity, social contracts, governance and heritage."

More developed, resilient and innovative cities generally have the infrastructure, reputation and organisational capacity to host major international conferences, which can further increase their visibility and economic potential. On the other hand, several cities with a smaller tourist footprint are seeking to use events as a foundation for a more balanced visitation, broader development and higher added value. How can high-level conferences and business events strategically leverage long-term economic and cultural impacts and strengthen the position of their respective cities in global urban networks? 

The social value of conferences and business events for local communities should be part of their very fabric. Business events and high-level conferences are not just about hosting events that provide a sectoral match in a destination or a city, but ensuring that there is a positive spatial and social purpose to the event that aligns with the values of that place. That can range from skills and training to thoughtful urban design tactics to integrate event venues with their surroundings.

The sector has potential to support all cities to advance their long term sustainable growth goals, but this needs collaboration and coherence. High level conferences and other business events can catalyse long term agendas and strategies that are based on existing strengths, and it can deepening already existing ecosystems. They can provide an opportunity to for new, direct linkages between small growing companies and large companies for procurement or collaboration. The visibility of high profile conferences can help to position the city locally, nationally or internationally promoting it within clusters or expertise, which may catalyse spillovers in locally aligned sector strengths. Major conferences can also provide an opening for new kinds of institutional collaboration and engagement, or it may create a new platform for conversations between resident, civic, industry and government stakeholders.
 

DNA of Cities' participation in the CityDNA Autumn Conference 2025 provided a platform to share insights and interact with international networks around urban innovation, resilience, and sustainable development. What insights or collaborations have emerged from your session? What role do storytelling and governance play in translating a city's unique identity into resilient and authentic urban development?

Storytelling and visioning are ways of convening and motivating at a higher level of partnership, a coordination mechanism for partners within and outside the city. When destinations share the best version of their own story, they are able to attract interest that is more related to who they are. What is most important in these stories is their people, which means that there must be ways for them to contribute and to co-create that story.

One of the key takeaways from my keynote speech at the CityDNA Autumn Conference was the commitment of European DMOs to their residents. In our work, we suggest that once people begin to feel that they understand the character of a city and its evolution, we can begin to ‘place’ ourselves in the city’s story. This is very important for established populations, new residents and visitors because it helps to create a sense of identity anchored in values and behaviours that are real and not based on trends or comparisons.
 

"High level conferences can catalyse long term agendas and deepen existing ecosystems."

How should cities evolve in the coming decades to harmonise tech advancements, sustainable development and tourism growth, while creating a holistic urban visiondestination strategy? What do you think is the ideal model or blueprint for a future-proof city?

From our perspective, there is no single “ideal” blueprint or model. Every city has the opportunity to define its own role within the destination economy. To do so, it must establish a clear and distinctive positioning, as well as its level of ambition, in order to shape a shared vision that serves its citizens.

We know that the future of destination economies will encompass all the elements you have outlined. While that future remains uncertain, adopting a more holistic approach will enable destinations to maximise their existing carrying capacity while attracting additional capabilities they may not possess internally – effectively connecting the inside out with the outside in.
 

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