This blog is the fourth prologue for a keynote at the FreshOutlook Feb. 27, 2012 Building SustainABLE Communities Conference. An Integral City is a complex adaptive human system that concentrates habitat for humans like a bee hive does for bees. Let me tell you about why I am attracted to the story of the human [...]
This blog is a first prologue for a keynote at the FreshOutlook Feb. 27, 2012 Building SustainABLE Communities Conference. Meshworking is an intelligence of the human hive (Hamilton, 2008) that creates a "meshwork" by weaving together the best of two operating systems — one that self-organizes, and one that replicates hierarchical structures. From an Integral City perspective this [...]
On this Remembrance Day of 11-11-11 let us be grateful for the Freedoms gained by our ancestors, that equip us for the Future. May we Celebrate the Resilience of Life in Remembering our Evolutionary Commitments: to protect our individual needs for physical and spiritual safety and survival; and prevent harm to all individuals. to honour the traditions [...]
How do you integrate five of the resilience models that I have used in Integral City? How can they help us understand how to respond, repair and restore the city as a living system in disasters like we have seen this year in Brisbane, Christchurch and Sendai? Integral City(p. 43) illustrates the four stages of the resilience cycle as they progress through [...]
Events in Egypt this last week show how the consciousness of people in the rural area that serves cities can ignite a whole culture. The amazing pictures of hundreds of thousands marching in Cairo and the Mubarak government's progressive retreat in the face of the population's fearless demands mark what the media call a "regime change". [...]
A domesticated cousin to the apis melifera honey bee, is raising questions about how life conditions - including those created by humans - can offer a species the opportunity to expand its territory because of its natural but transplanted capacities. It is a good example of unintended consequences, and may prove to us (yet again) that resilience [...]
Marilyn Hamilton talks to host John Schmidt of Avastone Consulting re Integral City on Zoomd Radio. Click here for the link. We talked about the Integral City as the Human Hive - and how that enables Leadership, Relationships and Resilience. Examples that were used included New Orleans and Burning Man. Listen to the broadcast or download it [...]
I have begun to reframe the results of Copenhagen Climate Forum in light of my experience over the years with changing the political will/mind. Two decades ago, in the small city where I live, I served as President of the Chamber of Commerce. Actually the Chamber served two municipalities which had grown together so closely [...]
I've been watching the series on New York produced by Ric Burns (released through PBS but available as a DVD). It is an impressive revelation of the city's 400 years of history. Last week I watched the episode exploring the massive infrastructure creations of Robert Moses including his hundred of miles of turnpikes that decimated [...]
Thank goodness for youth and student activists. I had the pleasure of enjoying this week, the UFV Film Festival sponsored by the International Development Club and the Students for Sustainability Club. Here was their movie line up: The Story of Stuff The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil Flow – the [...]