Regenerativity arises from the relationship of the 4 Voices. As they connect in the city, they find the energy for change and in the process create a culture of regenerativity.

The opportunity for regenerativity is always arising because the dynamics of the city mean the relationship between Citizens, Civic Managers, Business/Innovators and the 3rd Sector is always changing. The 4 Voices of the city in relationship with one another can evolutionarily support, culturally inspire and transitionally guide each other because they depend on one another to optimize their wellbeing.

Civic Managers depend on being voted in and/or the support of taxes or fees for public services at City Hall, Education, Health, Police, Fire, Emergency Response. It is Citizen votes and taxes that fuel those offices. The regenerativity of these Civic Management services must in turn support the resilience and regenerativity of Citizens.

By the same token, Business/Innovators depend on Citizens to be their customers and clients. Without the purchases of Citizen consumers Business/Innovators would not have the flow of revenues to finance the production or services. And Citizens depend on Business/Innovators to meet their needs for everything from the basics of food and shelter to the conveniences of recreation, transportation and communication.

The Third Sector/Civil Society depends on Citizen effort, resources and contributions that range from physically volunteering to financially supporting. Citizens, in turn, are the beneficiaries of the not-for-profit philanthropies, non-governmental organizations and faith communities.

Not only, do we see the interconnections of the 4 Voices amongst each other, but inevitably each Voice is linked in a supply chain with others of the same Voice.

Thus, we can view the City as a Regenerative Economy where energy flows through the living system like air and blood through a living body.

We have written elsewhere, how evolution biologist, Elisabet Sahtouris thinks of a cell as a city – because the fractal patterns that exist at cellular level are repeated up the scale of living systems to the organelles (organizations) and organs (cities) of Gaia herself. Thus, cities reflect the same patterns as cells and the regenerative capacity of the smallest system (cell) impacts through the relationship across cultures and scale, the regenerative capacity of the largest systems (city and planet).

Regenerativity is the quality of living systems that enables their aliveness in all cultures at every scale. Regeneration perpetuates person, people and place, all of which, in turn, enable the planet to be a living system.

When we consider the consciousness and culture of human systems, regenerativity cannot simply be relegated to a biological or systemic function. Regenerativity must arise from a consciousness that takes responsibility for creating the conditions for regeneration. Furthermore, individual consciousness interacts with group consciousness to co-create a culture of regenerativity.

Daniel Christian Wahl, concludes his book on Designing Regenerative Cultures (2016) with these thoughts:

As life, as nature, as consciousness, as universe we can bring forth a world in which humanity, like the rest of life, creates conditions conducive to life. Living the questions together is the practice of doing so responsively and responsibly, using our human capacities for collective intelligence, foresight and vision to get clear about our collective intentions and to design and co-create the regenerative communities we want to live in.

Daniel goes on to assert: “The intention to act as a cultural creative, a transition designer and an evolutionary activist in the co-creation of regenerative cultures is something that deeply informs [his] being and … doing.”

May our relationships, deeply embedded in our regenerative cultures, strengthen us to transition into living fully the Master Code of Care that enables our regenerative persons, people, places and planet.

This blog series explores Regenerativity as: