P 1. Ecosphere Intelligence 1. Honor the climate and geography of your city. 2. Steward the environment. 3. Add value to the Earth space. P 2. Emerging Intelligence 1. Survive so holons serve each other’s existence. 2. Adapt to the environment. 3. Create a self-regenerating feedback loop, by interconnecting human regeneration cycles so that they [...]
STOCKHOLM, March 28, 2011 − The South Korean district Songpa wins the Globe Sustainable City Award 2011 for excellent sustainable urban development. The Globe Sustainable City Award is now presented for the third year. The aim of the City Award is to recognize cities and municipalities, which excel in sustainable, urban development, and to set a [...]
I spent last week at Royal Roads University delivering the first Residency of the Sustainability Graduate Certificate. Ten students from across Canada provided a rigorous proving ground for the Integral City approach to sustainability. Using the Integral City Compass to prove the design with three leverage points, here is what we did. Integral City Compass [...]
In yesterday's National Post two stories intrigued me that ultimately relate to resources available to the Human Hive. They appeared without linkage to each other but they raised bridging questions for me. The first article was about a Super Human Hive - a megacity that China has plans for turning the Pearl River Delta into [...]
I have just finished editing an interview I did with one of Integral City's Advisors, Will Varey, of Emergnc in December, 2010. It will be posted for readers' listening pleasure on Meshcasts later today. We had a most wide-ranging dialogue that explored cities as living systems. Will's grounding in sustainability provided a "pingable" trampoline to explore the ecology [...]
A few days ago a trusted colleague, John Steiner, sent me an email thread that told the story of an interesting Japanese invention - a machine that converts plastic into oil. You can see a video for yourself if you click here. This machine answers a question I have harboured for years, and that is: if plastic [...]
Detroit in ruins: The Photographs of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre In downtown Detroit, the streets are lined with abandoned hotels and swimming pools, ruined movie houses and schools, all evidence of the motor city's painful decline. The photographs of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre capture what remains of a once-great city – and [...]
One of the things I like about the Holland America cruises is the ship's log they give at the end of the voyage. It is an interesting accountability document for key resources, especially water and fuel. My recent cruise on the MS Rotterdam used 120 tons/day of fuel to travel a toal of 3529 nautical [...]
When you are looking for weak signals about the toughness of economic times look to see how business keeps the revenues flowing. I just returned from a floating city holiday aka a cruise. The travel industry has been hit in so many ways from terrorist threats, biological invasions and economic down cycles it is interesting [...]
At the World Planners Congress (WPC), in June, 2006 I witnessed a notable public paradigm shift when Planning Leaders from around the world issued a position paper on the New Urban Planning (Farmer et al., 2006). In 2006, the authors stated that New Urban Planning was smart planning because it is a responsive learning system. [...]