Are economics and technological factors sufficient to incubate innovation and sustainability? At least they are a start to consider the importance of cities to organizational success.

That was a recent focus of Greenbiz forum where the growing recognition that the wellbeing of cities is an underlying condition for the success of organizations. Drawing from a recent report on the SustainAbility that identifies the States of Cities the discussion explored cities through the lenses of:

  • Personal Values
  • Decisive
  • Connected
  • Collaborative/Competitive
  • Visceral
  • Adaptive
  • Experimental

What is really encouraging about this identification of city qualities is that they appear to align with the four capacities of an Integral City:

UL: Psychological Capacity

  • Personal Values
  • Decisive

LL: Relationship Capacity

  • Collaborative

UR: Embodied Capacity

  • Visceral
  • Adaptive

LR: Systems Capacity

  • Competitive
  • Experimental

Furthermore this approach to SustainAbility appears to bring to the table the voices of stakeholders from the four quadrants of both the city and organizations. This is promising news for the future of Integral City Sustainability Planning. Perhaps the States of Cities will become the leading indicators of the wellbeing of City States?