Map 3 shows the city as a social holon. Its qualities are not summative but dynamic capacities that come from the unique contributions of each individual holon in the social grouping. Map 3 conveys how capacity development in an individual contributes to capacity in all the social holons of Map 2, while also revealing the reality of capacity dilution and amplification in the social holons of groups, organizations and communities.

As a natural system, the dynamics of social holons are expressed by the algorithms of fractal geometry — the elegant, patterns that result from the repetition of simple rules of relationship, that apply at multiple levels of scale (like Graves’ (2003, 2005) adult development patterns). West (2011, 2017) proposes that such non-linear mathematics can  predict factors affecting human security like people behavior (e.g. criminal actions) and infrastructure (e.g. size of police force).

It appears that at every level of scale, fractal patterns of human systems reveal that city wellbeing (vibrant or dis-eased) is deeply intertwined in the patterns or principles that contribute to the wellbeing of individual holons and the social holons to which they belong as noted in Map 2 (Elisabet Sahtouris, 2010).

Click here to find out about all the Integral City Maps:

• Map 1

• Map 2

• Map 3

• Map 4

• Map 5