Finally, a book on the science of cities!! Geoffrey West’s Scale explains the universal laws that govern cities and how growth, innovation, sustainability, companies and economies contribute to the patterns of city dynamics. Every couple of years a new book is published that corroborates key tenets that Integral City has framed for cities [...]
Imagine Durant has drafted a working Vision. They are at a stage where that Vision will continue to be refined and wordsmithed. But it captures enough of the intentions of the last 3 years of Dialogue that three strategic themes have emerged. 1.Learning & Growing Citizens through: Growing (participation) Educating (to world-class level) [...]
When Imagine Durant embarked on it first Thought Leader Dialogue with the 4 Voices on the topic of Economy & Community they discovered the power of the Early Win. From the explorations of what was working around here, what was not working and what people envisioned for the future, participants discovered a shared longing. [...]
When we first visited Durant in 2013 we asked for a tour of the city. That gave us a feel for the outer space of the city – its geography, built city and economy. But more importantly we organized with our Tour Guide 4 ways to get to know the inner space [...]
This newsletter is published quarterly using a cycle of perspectives on the Integral City viewed from: Planet, People, Place and Power. The theme of this issue is Planet. The design for this Integral City prototype [of sustainable community development] places emphasis on the development of the people skills in sustainable communities because this [...]
Aliveness requires three processes: surviving, connecting to my environment and regenerating. Grief has a way of interfering in the practice of all three activities that make aliveness feel no longer attainable and seemingly not winnable. But grief also calls forth a recovery process that uses the relationship between these three practices like a scaffold that [...]
If the first injunction of aliveness is to survive, the second is to “connect with my environment”. Survival may seem like a one-person job, but that is mere illusion – for I survive in an ecology of relationships, actions, structures and infrastructures and nature herself. This “I/me/mine” depends on right behaviours, responding to cultures and [...]
When we lose a companion from our lives, the shock or grief can disconnect us from our very sense of self. My husband’s recent passing, raised many questions. Who am I without this person? How do I fill this “spouse-shaped” space within me? How does daily life continue without him? How do I survive without [...]
2017 is moving so quickly it has been difficult for me to seize any day as it has waxed, wholed and waned. The cultural markers of New Year, Presidential Inauguration, Family Day, and Valentines have already come and gone. Wars flare. Peace is threatened. Borders are breached. For me the world outside my doorstep has [...]
Fort McMurray, City of Energy is city of the year 2016. Surviving the worst natural disaster in Canadian history, the city of Fort McMurray endured a fire which engulfed its structures, but not its cultures, acts of super-human persistence, nor its extraordinary human kindness. 88,000 people were safely evacuated from a fire started on May 2, [...]