Is information in your city easy to come by? or is it difficult to make sense of your city because information is scarce or misaligned? Information in the Integral City is critical to the city's functioning, wellbeing and thriving. But when we are overwhelmed by electronic news blasts it can be difficult to know what [...]
Terry Patten dialogues with Dr. Peter Levine about the 3rd and 4th wave of psychotherapy. (Read Terry's blog and listen to the dialog here.) They talk about “Creating Health In a Traumatized Society” in a way that links the insights of human brain development and compassion. This has fascinating implications for the Integral City. Dr. Levine [...]
Y2K ... 911 ... Hurricane Sandy ... What do they have in common? How did each of these events trigger evolutionary intelligences? From the perspective of Integral City each of these events posed a global pain point that was/is matched by a glocal care response. Y2K was the computer software bug that threatened infrastructure communication [...]
Navigating intelligence allows us to scan the environment and make decisions about our course corrections using Integral Vital Signs Monitors (IVSM). An IVSM is a reporting system whose design is based on an integral framework. It utilizes life-sustaining indicators and communicates its results in a universal language. An IVSM system mines existing databases, gathers new data [...]
Navigating intelligence monitors and discloses the wellbeing or general condition of the city. Many city information officers are now developing versions of vital signs monitor for monitoring and reporting the health of the city. From an eco-regional perspective the indicators should track what Jared Diamond noted every society must pay attention to for long-term survival: [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
The Inner intelligences of the human condition relates to a person's subjective sense of wellbeing and happiness. The Subjective I is the psycho-emotional-spiritual way I experience the city. The Subjective I feels inspired and uplifted by the personal pleasure of walking down a street lined with cherry blooms, imagining the excitement of expressing ideas, with [...]
As the city becomes more complex individuals, organizations, and community systems interconnect and interplay. Life and death and the health of the city are very much reflected in healthy alignment of the many systems that make up the whole city system (or holarchy). These different scales of city systems co-exist at different stages of their [...]