Assumptions in the city arise not only from the four voices of the city - but from the worldviews being expressed in those voices. Worldviews emerge from the beliefs of what is important around here and how those values are translated by the city's voices. In the most basic ego-centric way, assumptions are implicit - [...]
Ten days after the final Integral City 2.0 Online Conference (IC2OC) ... and we have celebrated our first Thanksgiving (whose timing we borrow from Canada :-)) We are thankful for the people who made the IC2OC possible: all the volunteers, the speakers, the affiliates and the participants - in a constantly intermeshing order. We have [...]
Inquiry is so much more productive for the wellbeing of the city, than prescriptions for health, because it opens the doors of innovation and generativity. For a truly vibrant city, each inquiry question reveals a whole system of values all of which must be healthy, in order for the whole city to be healthy. The [...]
Inquiry intelligence asks key questions that reveal the meta-wisdom of the city. The questions are simple and can be addressed to both individuals and groups. What is important to you? What's working in your life, family, community, school, health system, city? What's not working in your life, family, community, school, health system, city? What is [...]
The essential structural and infrastructural systems of the city exist to support the direct and indirect survival of its citizen bodies, relationships and exchanges. Even as cities become increasingly adept at creating built solutions to meet human demands, they seem to be disconnecting from the ultimate infrastructure on which their systems depend – namely [...]
Last month I visited Leon Mexico where I met the Citizen's Observatory and together we all met the Mixteca indigenous peoples who have moved to the city. The Mixteca have created their own urban culture (beside the railway tracks) from the strength of the stories they bring from their traditional ways. Their stories of daily life, spiritual practice, making [...]
Our senses are our biological evidence gathering mechanisms. They gather the data that stimulate both automatic behavior (like eye blinking, flinching, sneezing, gagging) and intentional behavior. Intentional behavior involves choice and therefore consciousness. A city without intelligence sufficient to its complexity is a city that has lost touch with its senses. A senseless or sense [...]
Outer intelligence is the biological "It" space of the citizen — the space where the body acts and behaves. Behaviors demonstrate our inner intelligence in action. Demographics are key determinants of our intentional, cultural and social capacities, because they represent the bodies through which our intentions, cultures and systems are delivered. If we want to understand [...]
July Greetings, Integral City-zens and Friends of Integral City Today's Integral City Sparkies for City Co-Creators: Architect Christopher Alexander is experimenting with the “Phenomenon of Life,” co-designing living worlds where building centers, hulls and space are co-created with the stakeholders and future users of the buildings. He and his team are doing this with everyone from poor [...]
The Human Hive is powered by individuals. This is rather paradoxical because it is the collection of people that we tend to notice in the Human Hive. But the collective (or in terms of the Integral Model, the social holon) is composed of individual holons. Individual people are whole systems who power and empower the [...]