Professor of Cities, Richard Florida has reconsidered the consequences of cities pursuing the creative class as a desirable strategy for their success (subject of his book The Rise of the Creative Class). In his new book The New Urban Crisis: How our Cities are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class – [...]
A series of articles on China’s empty cities triggers a series of Integral City thought capsules and thought experiments. China Ghost City , Photographed by Caemmerer According to a Wired article, China has built 100's of cities to house millions of people over the next 20 years. Today they stand empty. No people in [...]
Lessons from history abound to warn us that the shift involved in moving from one worldview, or system of intelligibility, to another, is unlikely to be smooth or easy. (Brian and Mary Nattrass, Integral Leadership Review – January- February 2015) Urban Metabolism http://sustainablecommunities.environment.ucla.edu/2011/07/energy-baselines-the-urban-metabolism-of-los-angeles-county/ Today in thinking about our Evolutionary Crossroads in the city [...]
Why Not Just Privatize the Government? Why not privatize city government? Jane Jacobs described two moral syndromes necessary for a human social system to survive – one called Guardian and the other called Commercial. She argued that mixing their ethics created “monstrous hybrids” that were immoral and subversive to life. Reframing these syndromes from an [...]