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When you follow your passion in your work to make the world a better place, you create the force that generates and regenerates our cities. You are what our cities need. We are what our cities need. A Habitat Manifesto explains why.

I have just published the latest edition of the Nest City News – A Habitat Manifesto. The special feature of this newsletter is a link to what has come of the first series of posts from the Nest City Blog. As its own publication now in draft form, A Habitat Manifesto explores our evolutionary impulse to build, organize and thrive in cities. I am inviting folks to review this document before formal publication.

Only subscribers have the first chance to explore A Habitat Manifesto and explicitly feed and nourish each other in our work for cities and citizens.

Leave your name and email address to the right to stay in touch.

 

 

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This post is part of Chapter 8 – The City Making Exchange. Here are some plot helpers of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities, the book I am sharing here while I search for a publisher:

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The bear and the boor

 

At the beginning of May, danger ran away from me. At the end of May, danger stood in my face. The first was a bear, the second was a boor.

May has been wonderful and horrible. I have been exploring new places and people, and as with any new terrain, whether on the outside to be seen, or on the inside of me, unseen even to me, the world can be full of beauty and anxiety.

On May 9, as my brother and I began our final hike to finish Canada’s West Coast Trail, our eyes caught the movement of a black shape scampering up the shore ahead of us, up into the woods and away from us. The bear saw us first and, startled, ran away. We were left on high alert – the bear we (might have) imagined each night on our trek, sniffing around our tent was visible. We had reason to have bear spray and knives on the ready. (The likely truth is, much smaller and more curious creatures were exploring our campsite at night. Not the bear that ran away.)

On May 26, my 12-year-old son was desperate to bear the holiday-weekend queues to ride the London Eye, the large ferris wheel aside the River Thames in London. After 20 minutes of standing in line to buy tickets, on the home stretch, a man cut in line ahead of people who had a 15 minute wait ahead of them. I stepped in to say this was wrong. There was a quick exchange between us, a few people behind me slipped in front of him and he was successful. Everyone behind us was oblivious.

After ticket purchase is the queue for the ride itself. After being in this line for 10 minutes, he cut in again. 10 minutes later, at a switchback in the line, he jumped ahead again. As my knees rattled and my belly turned, I confronted him. His responses: “I was in the wrong line.” “I need to join my family.” His words, “It’s not what it looks like,” gave me an opening to settle myself down.

I offered this: “It doesn’t look good.”

We agreed on that.

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In the heart of the city, in the throngs of people, I felt like a bear on the attack. Not curious about why he needed to jump the queue, but needing to say that everyone is having to wait a long time and it is not OK – or right – to jump ahead of people.

I’m still not sure who the boor is. It is equally me – I took him to task each of the three times I saw him jump the queue. No one else did. No one else seemed to care. Perhaps it is the Canadian rule-follower in me.

Our cities are full of beauty and anxiety. Whether the cut-in-man is the boor, or me, we do represent the challenge of living together in cities. As frustrated he was with me, he looked back at me at one point, across the switchback, and smiled. Could have been a smile to say, “look at me, here I am,” or “suck it up, lady.” Or simply, “hey, this is city life.”

While our values clashed, we remained calm and perhaps we both realized that this is just a ride we are waiting in line for. A reminder that the purpose of cities is to create the conditions for conflict.

Here’s the rub. After all his efforts to jump ahead, and my efforts to get him “in line,” he was only one car ahead of us.

Any value clashes in your city life recently?

Bear tracks on beach

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This post is part of Chapter 8 – The City Making Exchange. Here are some plot helpers of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities, the book I am sharing here while I search for a publisher:

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Donkey engine

 

While hiking last week on the West Coast Trail, on the western edge of Canada’s Vancouver Island, my brother and I came upon a derelict and abandoned donkey engine. We stopped to marvel at its existence at the edge of civilization.

Donkey engine beside the trail

Long before foreign sailing ships reached the coast 200 years ago, the Huu-ay-aht, Ditidaht and Pacheedaht lived on Vancouver Island’s west coast. Our trail map reports that as trade increased, “many sailing ships met a tragic fate navigating in these unfamiliar and hazardous waters. Sailors soon referred to this coastline as the ‘Graveyard of the Pacific’.”

One of the derelicts of the times is the donkey engine, which took part in the work to establish communication between villages and new lighthouses – a telegraph line that also became a trail for shipwreck victims and their rescuers.

So what does a donkey engine on a remote trail have to do with city making?

Think of it this way – when we need something to improve life for self and others, we organize for it. And in the process, we change the shape of the places that are involved. One the west coast, when the shore became a graveyard, people recognized that action needed to be taken. They took action, built lighthouses, a telegraph line and a trail. And they left a story behind.

The donkey engine, if nothing else, stands out as a physical marker of the trail’s original purpose. When its job was done, it was left where it stood.

Decades later, the purpose of the trail is different. The users of the trail are explorers of a different kind – not shipwreck victims and their rescuers now, but hikers exploring the beauty and challenge of the terrain. (And their rescue from time to time!)

The very purpose we build structure for – any part of a city – changes over time. And that is part of the city’s story too, only we see it in many more layers. We really do shape our landscape, and we also shape the stories we tell ourselves about our cities and the places we explore.

What is your favourite layer of story in your city? 

 

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This post is part of Chapter 8 – The City Making Exchange. Here are some plot helpers of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities, the book I am sharing here while I search for a publisher:

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Ride the release safely

 

Ride the release
North Saskatchewan River in Edmonton, April 27, 2013

I knew three years ago that a transition was coming for me in April/May 2013. In 2010 I was elected my my professional planner colleagues to serve one year as president-elect, then two as president, for my professional organization – the Alberta Professional Planners Institute. Our AGM was last week and I have officially handed the reins over to our next president. And I have picked up a new set of reins; as past president, I am on the board of the Canadian Institute of Planners for two years. Knowing this transition was coming, I stepped down as president of my community league.

The nature of the transition is clear and unclear. I have shed my two “presidential” roles and took on a new board. The other transitions I am less clear on. Two significant pieces of contract work are concluding and I don’t know what will come next to help pay the bills. As I look at my schedule for the coming weeks, I see that I have created space for myself to make a transition of some kind. My antennae are work!

Last week, I spent a day with David Whyte, reflecting on my work and where it is going. A big realization came to me: Lost? Let the city find you. On my way to spend a day with a group of women exploring their personal leadership, from the inside to the outside, the ice flows in the river have firmly caught my attention. Just when I think spring’s work is done, when life is flowing freely, a jam I never knew was there releases. I don’t see the jam, just the ice and the debris it carries. The smooth surface of the river’s spring flow is now a torrent, a rush I only noticed with the ice. There’s some inner work to notice what is flowing in and through me, and how to ride the release safely, or how to boldly grow the self.

Today, I have gathered with 40 other circle practitioners to explore our work creating the social containers our world needs at this time. For me, the social habitat is a critical aspect of making cities that serve citizens – and citizens that serve cities. While the gathering is work related, it is equally about my personal social habitat and my approach to myself and my work. My operating principle remains the same: nourish self, others and place.

I have no idea what will come next, but I choose to spend time where I feel nourished, where I can nourish others and the places we live, work and play. I choose to nourish my/our social, physical habitats and my/our economic life. This is ultimately what will enable me to ride the river, and whatever she throws at me.

What ideas and practices support you in your life’s journey? 

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This post is part of Chapter 8 – The City Making Exchange. Here are some plot helpers of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities, the book I am sharing here while I search for a publisher:

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