Congratulations Mei, great concept - I can't wait to see what this might become!

I think the rivalry concept makes the people proud again of their cities again. Thank you Mei for sharing this concept. Maybe this concept could help you to last moment refinement. http://www.openideo.com/open/vibrant-cities/concepting/proud-city/

This idea for revitalization has serious potential. I really like the scenario of seeing which restaurant has the best type of food. I live in New York City and it would great to see which pizzeria has the best pizza. It would be interesting to see how business react to their rivalry! results, if they seek to improve(they probably will) or just don't care. rivalry! reminds me of the NYC Health department grades that are on every restaurant. Business get a letter grade of either A, B, or C based health standards, and even though each letter is considered a pass and A is a source of pride for the business owner whereas the C is a source of embarrassment.

One of the pitfalls I see in this idea is what happens to the business that lost the rivalry! Potentially the business would close and that would result in loss of jobs even though it would be better for the consumers in the end. rivalry! seems reminiscent of survival of the fittest when played out across the economic landscape. How business adapt to new technology and opportunities to attract customers would lead to innovative ways of growing their business.

I can see rivalry! being used as a tool for the people to enact change for the good of their society. What if a community challenged all the stores in the area to switch to environmentally friendly light bulbs? In return for that business becoming "green" it would get the business from the community that issued the rivalry! challenge. This is the carrot mob. For video proof of it working see this youtube video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUz0kM1u_jk&feature=fvsr

So much potential for this idea! Mei and Rebekah seem to be on a roll: If the point of this competition is to create an identity for the city as well as generate business, it may be a good idea to focus on competition between businesses inside Detroit. I like Rebekah's idea of choosing competitions that reflect the identity of the city (actual or aspirational).

My gut feeling is to roll this out in phases starting with a very simple and straightforward competition to generate a buzz, then maybe build up to something more complex, like Rebekah's example of the team competition in Brasil. Once a brand identity for Rivalry! is built through city-wide competition in products and services that appeal to locals and visitors, then you can launch CityRivalry! or something similar across states. That may help put Detroit back on the map for businesses and families shopping for a place to locate.

Mei, another idea. From a business perspective, products, companies, and cities brand themselves as being excellent at a given thing. For example Naples is known for pizza, and Whole Foods for healthy higher-end foods. In order to effectively brand a city, we would probably want to focus competitions on the things where they can really offer something stand-out. A wide variety of competitions where Detroit is everywhere from cutting edge to middling to last place may be less effective in city branding than focusing on what it does best. (Such is the wisdom of the advertisers.)

How to apply this to rivalry? I'd suggest that each city or neighborhood thinks about 3 value propositions: What it especially offers
-- To its residents
-- To potential tourists and
-- To prospective businesses.
Then the area can target the key high-profile rivalries around those. So if a neighborhood is or was especially rough, like Belfast was during the Troubles, it became known for tourists as a place to go to learn about conflict, and look at the murals created by both sides about their own narratives of history. Perhaps there could be a mural competition with other cities (like Bethlehem) that have also done murals in response to conflict. Or for residents maybe there is a competition on fantastic skateboard tricks, if skateboarding is a feature of the teen community.

Ideally at the end of several rounds of competition not only has more community formed, but the neighborhood or city has gained a reputation for new value propositions for residents, tourists and businesses.

Mei, what a fun idea. The idea of game-ification is powerful. I wonder if here Ashoka fellow Edgard Gouveia is an inspiring example. He got teams of people in Brazil competing over how to rebuild spaces demolished by floods (http://www.ashoka.org/node/3950). One idea from his concept that I think could be amazing here is that he had people sign up in teams to qualify to compete: each team needed 3 sub-teams: 1) local team that could facilitate conversations about what the destroyed community needed--all qualifying members had to be teenagers, 2) a team of designers and resourcers--the rules were that no money could be used so they had to get everyone to donate any relevant supplies and design with resource constraints in mind and 3) a team of people willing to go out for 1 week to build the new space. What this did is create a structure for collaboration built inside the competition, ensure each team was equipped to accomplish something fantastic, whether they ultimately 'won' or not, and created a need for excited people to pull more people in.

What if rivalary! also had designated roles that teams had to qualify for--e.g. 1) a team of local citizens ready to source fresh vegetables for the competition so all pizzas made for the final tasting had to be from all local ingredients 2) a team of ready-made tasters--all under 15 years old 3) a team of sous-chefs from the local culinary school--each challenge might have different teams, or there could be a broader structure tying each competition together.

What I like about this idea is that is draws on pride so much. I think collaboration-forcing mechanisms can help communities see resources where they had not thought to look before and discover how much they have to be proud of.

Fun idea Mel! I was just thinking how it would be great to see local businesses team up with other businesses or create partnerships to compete against one another. This would encourage collaboration and bring together people in the community to think of creative ways to help each other out.

I think to get people excited and stay interested is a way to track the progress over time. People maybe be motivated when teams are close to reaching the set goal or winning to help push them to the end. Nike+ is a great example of tracking, competition and constant feedback for inspiration.

Mei, the use of competition is really a a fun and proven motivational way to get people working and moving. One challenge I see is the competition across cities of the individual businesses. This appears that it could be tough to get businesses involved in competing against a restaurant in another city, when they have competition in their own city as well. Could the friendly competition be between neighborhoods
or even city blocks?

 The idea of having the entire city compete against another reminds me of cities competing for Olympic bids, which we all know can be very motivational! Some thoughts of mine: Is there a goal they are competing for besides winning a title? Is there a pool of money to be granted, or a group of investors to win over, or a team of social innovation "helpers" that they win?

Mel, I wonder if this would work best actually within cities. I'm not sure about Detroit's specific culture, but I wonder if those who are left in the city already care a lot about it. I'd bet many of them do and would love to see some competition between restaurants they already support. Maybe a physical prize actually goes back into the city itself, like funding for the restaurant to feed a neighborhood, or funding to teach a large cooking class, or [insert idea here]. I'm agreeing with Natalie below, so my point isn't to come up with a prize but rather to harness the existing pride and to keep the love and competition local.

Hi Mei, what a great Top 20 concept! We especially enjoyed that your idea taps into local pride and identity, and harnesses that for friendly, spirited competitions. In the Refinement phase, might it be possible to talk this idea through with some local businesses to see what they think? What do they love, or what would they add or change to make this idea easy to implement?

This is cool! I could definitely see myself getting exciting about my favorite restaurant taking on another, especially since it directly benefits me as a consumer. In the case of restaurant A vs. restaurant B, the consumer would be getting deals and could probably expect better service. As a result, such incentives can cause neighborhoods to rally together and support the local economy or community service projects.

Fab idea, Mei! We all how local pride plays out in sports – this is a great extension of that notion.