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 [...]
Last week the National Post (NP) ran a most interesting series on the death of personal responsibility . Many of the reporters spoke nostaligically of a time when life was determined by the decisions of individuals and families unmitigated by the so-called nanny state . This vociferously argued dialectic seems to me a false one. It [...]
Further to my interview with Will Varey in Perth about emergence in the city (also see Blog) we talked about the dilemma that in one location we have multiple cities. Effectively each citizen carries around a unique mental model of the city and through the magic of self-organizing systems we negotiate this complex territory. The [...]
In the last decade the concept of the city as a human habitat that is mapped in terms of bricks and mortar, managed by fiat from city hall and developed by entrepreneurs for corporate profit has given faint signals of change. This has happened because we have witnessed the city collapse underneath the weight of [...]
If you want to find out how complex the relationship between ecology, water resources and human food supplies is becoming, check out this item on Endangerd Species Act Ruling and food production in California. In order to even grasp the players in this scenario one has to gain some altitude and look at it systemically. It [...]
In the Human Hive, we need truth, beauty and goodness to sustain our capacities and encourage creative impulses. It is not always easy to find them in cities designed from pre-modern, modern and post-modern design principles. Someone who is committed to changing that is Mark Dekay, Director of Graduate Studies, School of Architecture, University of [...]
I am always on the look out for blogs and writers who can write dispassionately about the issues that affect cities. I just discovered this one by Dr. Joe Romm today. It has a great archive and the following quote from the blog can be fully read at www.climateprogress.org Climate Change Progress. Thanks to the [...]
In October I visited Almere, NL and met City Planner Alex VanOost. He gifted me with the monograph of the Almere Principles, developed by Architect, William McDonough & Associates. The seven principles resonate strongly with Integral City's 12 Intelligences: Cultivate Diversity (@ Emergence and Living Intelligence) Connect Place and Context (@ Collective Intelligences and Eco-Intelligence) Combine [...]
This article published early in December 2009, reveals the biases of the voting blocks at Copenhagen, based on their emissions, GDP and % of world population. The spectrum of intelligences hidden inside these numbers does not reveal who the complex thinkers are in each block -- those people who can think at a geo-centric level and [...]
As we are in the stage of chaos in our international community -- what voices of intelligence point to evidence-based information that we can continue to learn from? Bill McKibben uses 4 numbers: 350 degrees target, 100 countries, 4% and 770 degrees actual!! Read below for background behind these feedback loops. http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2009/12/16/bill-mckibbens-guardian-uk-article-features-climate-interactive/#more-2214 Bill McKibben’s Guardian [...]