Sense in the City Integral News update Feb. 2011 – Negotiating Relationships

February Greetings, Integral City-zens and Friends of Integral City

Today’s Integral City Sparkie for the City Heart :

Through the negotiation of relationships, boundaries are recognized, linked, crossed, embraced, broken, denied and redefined.

Hamilton, M., 2008, Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive, p.182

As I write, the clashes in the Middle East have the rest of the world holding our breath. I keep thinking about the advice of Dr. Don Beck, who has often said, “Don’t confuse getting rid of what you don’t want, with getting what you do want.” If Dr.B is right, then the rulers whom the populace wants ousted may also be right in pleading for a transition plan that offers some significant change of the first order in order to avoid disastrous change (i.e. revolution) of the second order. For anyone who values the future of the city, we have many lessons to learn about how the relationships – between political incumbents and opponents, between honest brokers and thugs, between friendly neighbours and hostile ones, between meddling nations and opportunistic –all bring pressures to bear on the multiplicity of societies alive in Middle Eastern cities that are simultaneously evolving through multiple stages of human development. (We are not yet at any form of simplicity on the other side of complexity – instead we are witnessing or if we are in the middle of it, experiencing first hand — the massive mash up that precedes such a longed-for state.)

For those readers who can remember what pathetic fallacy is, it is not too irreverent to suppose that Gaia herself is erupting on the opposite side of the world with the floods and winds of equally calamitous proportions in Australia.

For these times, we need all hands on deck from the four points of the compass, so this newsletter reminds us where resources are emerging.

Our newest Meshcast interview is with city wellbeing and emergence researcher, Will Varey, located in Perth Australia. Download the Meshcast and Listen to Will Varey to appreciate his evolutionary perspective on the multiple cities that co-exist in one location and how he has helped policy developers navigate those complexities.
In Vancouver Canada, from March 5-8^th, Dylan Newcomb, founder of UZAZU will be bringing his Language of Energy Explorations to town. For more details click here. (I have been fascinated with Dylan’s work ever since he and his dance lab danced the evolutionary intelligences of Integral City two years ago in The Hague!! Deep city work needs the awareness of the body that Dylan’s energizing sessions can wake up.)
April 7-10, 2011, the Center for Human Emergence Netherlands is sponsoring the SDi EuroConfab in the City of Almere, NL, using a case study of the City of Almere. Integral City will be presenting, along Dr. Beck, Dr. Remmers +++ Get details and register here.
Globe Forum is reviewing the final nominations for its Sustainable City Awards 2010 (deadline in Feb. 4, 2011). This award will be announced at the Globe Forum in Stockholm May 11 & 12, 2011. Globe Forum Stockholm will focus on Business Innovation for Sustainable City Growth.
Gil Friend, author of The Truth About Green Business has announced an eLearning version of The Truth About Green Business — Sustainability In Practice — (developed together with partners at Tripos Software) . It will be available in Q1 — delivering engaging, on-demand, interactive learning to your employees’ desktops. Click here to send Gil info about your interests.
In January we started delivering the inaugural Graduate Certificate for Sustainable Community Development at Royal Roads University. We are working with the Green, University Learning, Solar, City of Colwood as our Community of Interest. And we are already taking registrations for next year. Click here.
World Future Society’s Annual Conference is in Vancouver, Canada, July 8-10, 2011. Integral City has been invited to deliver a seminar on “Grok, Talk, Walk, Rock: Constellating a Choreography for Four Generations in the City”.
Center for Human Emergence Canada is sponsoring a Catalytic Conversation on the Livable City in early June (date tbc) and a Spiral Dynamics integral Level 1 Training in Edmonton, July 14-17, 2011. For details contact Civic Meshworker, Beth Sanders at beth@populus.ca.
Recent Blog Postings from marilyn.integralcity.com include: