Tag: Cities

Social habitat key to journey

 

I started this chapter with a reminder that cities are meant to feel uneasy.  And living in cities, and the process of creating and recreating them, is a journey in two senses: as we travel along in our evolution and as an act of learning.

The learning that takes place in our cities is a result of our drive to endlessly think, make and do new things to improve the quality of our lives.  The work we do creates our cities.  But getting improvement means we need to scratch the itch, for the itch is what tells us that there is something to improve.  It bothers us, compelling us to do something about it.

We are itching for improvement.  At any scale (self, family, neighbourhood, organization, city, region, nation, planet), we experience akrasia, the gulf between what we know we ought to do and what we actually do.  This tension serves as the evolutionary driver of cities and our own development.

Our response to our habitat (our surroundings) is what drives the creation of new work, and the development of new work is a survival skill.  But this only takes place if and when we are receptive to receiving feedback from our surroundings. Our ability to seek feedback and receive it is a survival skill – at any scale.  This practice is critical for our cities, for they are habitats we create for express purpose of improving life.  We shape our cities and they, in turn, shape us.

Our ability to evolve our cities is a survival skill.  Understanding that our cities, and all their inhabitants, are on a journey together is crucial.  We do not know exactly where we are going and we never will.  What we do know is that we are going on this trip together.  Ensuring a healthy connection between our work and our habitat is crucial, and this connection is dependent upon the social habitat we create for ourselves, for it is our social habitat that invites and allows feedback to flow.  If our social habitat is not well, our actions are ill-informed and possibly harmful.  If healthy, we are wise.  For our cities to be well, we need to create a social habitat where feedback flows.

It is time to embark explicitly on a journey together where we create a social habitat that brings the best out of us, that support each of us, and the collective, in the discomfort we find when we start to scratch the things that itch.  We need to organize ourselves to physically build cities that work for us, AND we need to organize ourselves to support each other in the uneasiness of city building.

This is tough work, and critical work.  And it will never end because we are forever recreating our world in city, creating new life conditions to which we adapt, creating new life conditions to which we adapt, creating new life conditions to which we adapt etc.

Tomorrow, on Wednesday October 24, 2012, I am spending the day with 18ish to 30ish year-olds in Edmonton to declare the impossibly awesome neighbourhood possible.  For this event, I am working with The Natural Step Canada to create a social habitat in which dreams come true.  I’ll let you know how it goes.  

 

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This post forms part of Chapter 4 – An Uneasy Journey, of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities.

Nest City is organized into three parts, each with a collection of chapters.  Click here for an overview of the three parts of Nest City.  Click here for an overview of Part 2 – Organizing for Emergence, chapters 4-7.

Itchy patterns

 

My whole being knows when something is wrong.  Sometimes I know exactly what it is, and other times I can’t quite put my finger on it.  I can be conscious or unconscious of what is bothering me.  And the more I get to know myself, I see that I have a choice to make about whether I notice if something is bothering me.

Our work for improvement, at the scale of self, city or planet, requires an awareness first of what bothers me/us.  We need to notice the itch before we’ll scratch it with the express purpose of thinking, making and doing new things.

Many posts ago I described the work of Don Beck and Christopher Cowan on Spiral Dynamics (here’s a link to my first post on their work, evolving value systems).  Here’s a simple pattern they offer about phases of change and how the itch feels (see pages 85-92 of their book).

Beck and Cowan highlight five phases of change, each easily recognizable moments in life.   At Alpha (top left of illustration), everything feels good and comfortable. At Beta, we begin to sense that something is wrong.  At Gamma, we know something is wrong and feel quite confused about what to do and could be very angry.  Through all the discomfort of Gamma, we can emerge at Delta with a new sense of direction and enthusiasm that can lead to New Alpha – a new sense of stability.

The amount of time we spend in each of these phases of change varies – a moment or decades.  As things change around us, we may remain at Alpha, not yet noticing the uneasiness of Beta.  If open to learning, when we find unsettling conditions at Beta and Gamma, we will find ways to understand the discomfort and know it precisely.  If really angry and confused, we could be at Gamma for a long time.  If not well equipped to see how to formulate plans and implement New Alpha, we could be at Delta for a great length of time, or even revert back to Gamma.

Here’s the clincher – if we welcome and seek deeper knowing, we invite uneasiness.  As we look for new ways to think, make and do things – the which is the source of the city impulse articulated in Chapter 1 – we aim to improve our lives, and by doing so we are creating new life conditions to which we will again have to adapt. Time, immediately or longer term, will reveal new uneasiness with those life conditions for nothing is as simple as making everyone happy all the time forever.

This means that as we work to organize ourselves, in cities or anywhere, we must develop practices to recognize when we are feeling uneasy at Beta and practices to figure out what is making us uneasy.  We need to develop practices that will help us through Gamma.  We must develop practices that allow the Delta prototypes to thrive on their way to New Alpha.  Behind the scenes here, there are a series of other questions around the practices that we each need, individually, for self.  And how we practice as groups, communities, neighbourhoods, organizations, cities and for the human species.

We are on a learning journey together as we think, make and do new things to improve our quality of life.

I will explore practices that support our learning journey specifically in Part 3 of Nest City.  My next post will connect our learning journey with Chapter 1 – The City Impulse.

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This post forms part of Chapter 4 – An Uneasy Journey, of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities.

Nest City is organized into three parts, each with a collection of chapters.  Click here for an overview of the three parts of Nest City.  Click here for an overview of Part 2 – Organizing for Emergence, chapters 4-7.

 

Tension – evolutionary driver of cities

 

When I have an uneasy feeling, my being is aware of something whether I am conscious of it or not.  If unconscious to what bothers me I end up avoiding the natural itch within me to do what I know I ought to do, or be the way I really want to be.  I may be able to avoid it for ever, or something just my jolt me to see fully the tension I am experiencing.

Tension is often a gulf between what I know I ought to do and what I actually do. This phenomenon is called akrasia (for more see my last post, our cities are itching for improvement.)  Feeling uneasy is often a clue that akrasia is alive and well.  I have a choice about how much attention to put to that tension.

So what is the nature of the tension that forms the akratic gulf?

  1. Living with the akratic gap is unavoidable.  We operate in a world where we regularly grapple with what we know we ought to do and what we actually do.
  2. Living with akrasia is hard.  Akrasia is unavoidable for most of us – if we are seeking improvement of some kind.  The result is that there are always, everywhere, ways and places that things could be better and are not.  This is a reality that can be hard to live with.  Akratic gulfs are everywhere, so our relationship with akrasia is what matters.  It can be friend or foe.
  3. Living with akrasia means accepting vulnerability.  As we choose to explore what bothers us, we welcome unwanted thoughts.  They are typically unwanted because they threaten the status quo, but deep down they signal what is really wanted.
  4. Akrasia can serve or paralyze.  We can beat ourselves up about what we don’t do, or we can explore what is wanting to emerge as a result of discomfort.  The choice is ours.
  5. It’s not about getting rid of the itch.  The best way to live with akrasia is to scratch from time to time.  Some itches are best left alone because scratching can sometimes cause more itch.  It is a decision to be taken seriously, considering how much more itchiness can be tolerated.
  6. Akrasia is about questions, not answers.  Exploring the gulf between what I know I ought to do and what I actually do is not a linear exploration where questions have immediate answers.  Or any answers, for that matter.  An answer, whether given to me or provided by me, is really a way for me to avoid the deeper questions that will lead to more itch and deeper exploration.  Living with akrasia is a way of being where asking and exploring questions are primary.
  7. Akrasia pulls us along evolutionary path.  As we constantly strive for improvement in self and in our collective endeavours, we are stepping individually and collectively into the future we create for ourselves.

Exploring the tension in our world is a purposeful act of being self-aware and awake to what is happening with self and around self.  This exploration is tough for each of us individually.  It is infinitely more challenging at larger scales of social systems, for the gap is really a span as wide as our collective consciousness.  Imagine a canyon, with a city’s action on one side and what we know we ought to do at the other side.  On the ‘ought’ side, however, there are many perspectives on what that should be.  The gulf is small for some and massive for many others and we discuss and debate what we should do.  The actual span of the collective gulf is as wide as the perspectives within the collective.

As individuals, it is imperative that we explore the gulfs in our lives constructively and in a supportive fashion, or they will paralyze us.  And the only way for our cities to explore their gulfs well is if there are enough of us with the ability to do this for our selves.  This is learning journey for cities.  It is not a simple matter of jumping on a bus and giving the driver directions.  We do not know exactly where we are going.  We have to figure it out yet.  And we have such varied perspectives on this that it is quite messy.

As we steer our lives as individuals, families, organizations, neighbourhoods, cities and civilization, we need to be well with each other, consciously choosing how to live with each other and our tensions.  The gulfs between us and with us do not have to be a hindrance.  They can serve us, for the tension we experience is what drives our economic life and the very creation and evolution of our cities.

My next post will explore ‘itchy indicators’, the things that tell us when something is bothering us.  

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This post forms part of Chapter 4 – An Uneasy Journey, of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities.

Nest City is organized into three parts, each with a collection of chapters.  Click here for an overview of the three parts of Nest City.  Click here for an overview of Part 2 – Organizing for Emergence, chapters 4-7.

 

Our cities are itching for improvement

 

At the heart of our impulse to thrive (Chapter 3), is the essential itch in us all – to improve our quality of life.  What triggers this impulse is what makes us uneasy on the journey of life as individuals, as cities and as a planet of cities.

We are uneasy when we catch a glimpse of something that is wrong, especially when we see how that something could be better and some kind of change is needed.  We are uneasy when we see that there is room and possibility for improvement.  We are endlessly aiming to close the gap between what we have and what we would like, what we actually do and what we would like to do, what we are and what we would like to be.

The gulf between what we know we ought to do, and what we actually do is called akrasia.  This never-ending gulf is the driver of improvement and it requires that we live with unease and consciously allow our unease to be full of meaning.

The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines akrasia:

The Greek word ‘akrasia’ is usually said to translate literally as ‘lack of self-control’, but it has come to be used as a general term for the phenomenon known as weakness of will, or incontinence, the disposition to act contrary to one’s own considered judgement about what it is best to do.  

The reasons for akrasia vary. Philosopher Donald Davidson notes that knowing that if A is better than B, and that if B is chosen, it can be because of lack of will, or due to consideration of a subset of consideration, not an all-things-considered judgement.  It can also be a result of conflict between reason and emotion (see this Wikipedia page on Akrasia for more).  Psychologist George Ainslie notes that akrasia can be a result of hyperbolic discounting; we make different choices depending on our proximity to a reward.

Another philospher, Amelie Rorty, see four forms of akrasia: akrasia of direction or aim, of interpretation, of irrationality, of character.  While we may ‘suffer’ from akrasia, it is actually serving us in a most essential way.  It is at the heart of  our evolutionary impulse to thrive.  It is what compels us to improve our work, which is at the heart of the impulse that fuels our evolution and the very creation and recreation of cities.

Regardless of definition or interpretation of akrasia, we experience a never-ending quest to cross (or close) the gulf between where we are and where we want to be.  Between what we see and what more there is to see.  Between what we understand and what more there is to understand.  Between who we are and who we wish to be.

Our reality is that as soon as we cross the gulf we see another.  This fuels our unease in the world.  This is why consciously embarking on a learning journey alongside our trek to a destination is so critical.  We need to be well individually and collectively to ensure we find a chosen destination.

 

It is not enough to simply say where we want to go and start travelling; that avoids the unease and discomfort.  It is time recognize that it is hard work travelling together and learn how to learn along the way.  In this way, we can take advantage of the akratic gap, rather than be paralyzed and fearful of uncertain future.  Because our cities are literally itching for improvement.

My next post will explore the role of the akratic gap in the city journey. 

 

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This post forms part of Chapter 4 – An Uneasy Journey, of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities.

Nest City is organized into three parts, each with a collection of chapters.  Click here for an overview of the three parts of Nest City.  Click here for an overview of Part 2 – Organizing for Emergence, chapters 4-7.

 

Improvement means scratching the itch

 

Last week, I attended the Canadian Institute of Planners / Alberta Institute of Planners conference in Banff.  As I was there, I was noticing that I was very uneasy, itchy.  While there, I posted a blog about scratching the itch, recognizing that 800 of us were there to collectively scratch an itch – to find and implement better ways of organizing ourselves and our cities to work better.

This is a universal itch for humanity, to make our world a better place, at any scale.  I observed at choice last week about what to do with the itch.  Sometimes it is best to ignore the itch and let it go away.  Other times, the best thing to do is scratch,  inviting the discomfort that comes with learning something new.

At the conference, I chose not to itch.  Today I do.

For the last 15 years I have had great difficulty giving my full attention to speakers at conferences.  I am often, but now always, physically unable to sit and listen to any length of time.  The reason for this is becoming more clear to me.

Over time, I have begun to choose very carefully where I spend my time.  At conferences, I choose to go to sessions that call me.  I take time to generate the issues that I was tackling with at work.  It may have looked to others like I was not paying attention, but I was exploring what was working for me, and not, allowing the words of presenters to pop in and out of my head.  It is a wonderful opportunity to generate a plethora of ideas and ways to improve my work.  It was time well spent.

As I became older and started to meet more people, the conference also became an opportunity to connect with people.  My itch this week was how little opportunity there was to connect with each other.  A professional conference is a room full of professionals engaged in parallel play.  Each of us is taking in what we find of value for our personal, individual work.  We are a collective because we do the same work.  We do not have the power of a collective that engages in deepening our work together, learning how to create the social habitats our cities need to reach their full potential.

Planners work out of a passion for our cities.  As our last speaker went overtime, allowing no questions from the audience, I was acutely frustrated.  And many of the audience rose to their feet in ovation.  We celebrated a one-way transaction.  No interaction.  No feedback.  In fact, we celebrated this one-way information delivery.

This stopped me in my tracks.

I see the value in the presenter’s message.  I see it was appreciated, for it articulates our shared understanding of city life, and a shared intention to improve city life.  And I see that the presentation also, in its delivery, was anti-itch cream.  It maintained the status quo of our shared frustration, slowly-paced change.  We didn’t scratch.

The maintenance of the status quo takes place because there was no opportunity for the interaction of our minds, hearts and souls as we work to similar purpose – the well-being of our cities.  We are able to hide in ourselves because in traditional conference settings there is no, or minimal, opportunity for:

  1. the audience to ask questions and help the presenter share insight relevant to their work
  2. the audience and presenter to hear what resonated with the audience
  3. the audience and presenter to hear what the audience struggled to understand
  4. the collective to make collective meaning
  5. the collective to discern, together a collective course of action

Just as our cities need quality feedback, so too does any group of people wishing to take conscious action together.  Conscious action does not come from hiding.  In fact, as I moderated a session on public engagement strategies, I noticed a further challenge: while together, we do not practice our practice.  We spoke about engaging the public in new ways.  And we did not engage the audience in new ways.  So the audience did not experience something new.  They only heard about it.

And here I am writing about it, telling you about what I see, but not giving you the experience of what it could be.

There is value in simply receiving information, and sitting to get it.  The value of this diminishes, however, when we do not create opportunities to digest individually and collectively the information that comes our way.  I itch for balance.  To hear what others have to say, and to figure out what WE think it all means, and what WE and I ought to do about it.  What we need is no different than what our cities need.  There is a big gap between what we want to do and how we go about learning how to do it.  Just as you can’t learn to ride a bicycle hearing about it, we can’t learn to work with communities, stakeholders, citizens and cities hearing about it either.  We need to practice what it means to live, work and serve our cities.  We need to practice active citizenship, rather than excessive, passive downloads of information.

I love this irony: I figured out the language for this tension as I sat and listened to a plenary speaker at a 2008 planning conference.  My body snapped up straight as Bill Sanford said these words: ‘Akrasia – Greek for the gulf between what we know we ought to do and what we actually do.’

Akrasia implies a gap, a space for improvement that compels us to work to make things better.  The conventional conference has its time and place to share information, but let’s not mistake it for the development of citizens, or professionals.  From time to time, it is the right thing to do, to receive information and hide ourselves.  I am wary of when it tucks us away from working for what we want.

What we need more of: stepping into the uncertainty and unease of living in community and dreaming together explicitly about what our cities are and can be for us, and what we need to be for them.

 

 

Two poems to sum up

 

The two poems below emerged as I participated in last week’s Canadian Institute of Planners / Alberta Professional Planners Institute conference held in Banff, Canada.

 

Perpetually unfinished cities

We do not take

this place for granted

as stewards

we threw away

our cities

we now reclaim

the future

walkable

changing climate

where more is better

spirally upward

to walkable urban neighbourhood

places making

home

perpetually unfinished

serially created

with no fixed destination

the city’s conduits

are webs of learning

recovering, adapting

 

Learning cities

learning cities

are naturally

mobile

connecting everything

we do

everywhere

simultaneous success and failure

catalyzing complexity

 

 

Planning as we have may be a dinosaur move

Planning the way we have always planned is a Dinosaur move.  Refusing to see, or keeping others from seeing, that context is changing is hazardous to our health.  (For more on cities, see this post – Uneasy journey of cities and dinosaurs.)

When I first started working in Brandon, Manitoba in 1995 I had to learn the ropes. I was fresh out of school so I didn’t know how development came about, how approvals took place, how the community’s planning documents worked, let alone how all the people involved in these processes fit.  So I asked questions about things with the intention to understand how the system I was working in worked.  For one colleague, Dave, the answer was always, “Because that is the way we have always done it.”

I see now that in saying this, he really didn’t understand why things happened they way they did.  The connection to purpose of our rules and protocols was lost.  Or, if he had the purpose in mind, it was a purpose that was no longer desirable.  The result was that Dave was unable to see the value of a different way to do something, even if it meant responding better to the community’s needs.  He was a dinosaur.

Now in saying that Dave was a dinosaur, I don’t mean this pejoratively.  I simply mean he had a hard time noticing that when the context changed, the purpose for our rules changed as well. That meant that our rules needed to shift and adjust along with what those rules were supposed to accomplish.

And herein lies the planning trap – planning with what happened.

We so often research to see what has worked before, or we research what has worked in other places.  We look for trends and then plan for that to continue, assuming that what has worked for years will continue to work, or what has worked elsewhere will work in our place.

At the heart of this trap is standardization.

There is a time and place for standardization, when the life conditions are appropriate for it.  It’s companion is diversity, necessary to spark our imagination.  Moreover, we learn little when applying anything blindly, with no regard to setting.  We do learn if we explore, notice patterns, reflect on what is happing in our mileu, then find the way forward that meets the life conditions of our mileu, not those of another.

The way through the trap is patterns.

There is a distinction between standardization and patterns.  Standardization is a predetermined course of action, where a pattern emerges from what we notice about how things happen.  Standardization is a recipe.  Pattern is about discernment. Standardization is about having more of what has happened.  Patterns is about being sensitive to what has happened, but holding this lightly, ensuring that our ability to notice when the pattern changes.

So, is planning a dinosaur move?  I propose that rampant standardization is a dinosaur move.  Finding peace with the discomfort of not knowing is the opposite.  It is an uneasy journey, and the more uneasy it is, the less likely it is a dinosaur move.

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This post forms part of Chapter 4 – An Uneasy Journey, of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities.

Nest City is organized into three parts, each with a collection of chapters.  Click here for an overview of the three parts of Nest City.  Click here for an overview of Part 2 – Organizing for Emergence, chapters 4-7.

 

Scratching the itch

 

I am spending this week in Banff, Alberta for the Canadian Institute of Planners’ national conference.  In my official capacity as president of the Alberta Professional Planners Institute, I welcome 800 planners from across Canada, and some special guests from the United States and Australia.  We work in urban and rural settings, north and south. We work in agriculture and urban design.  Some focus on policy, others on implementation.  Collectively, we work in many areas, at every scale.

Collectively we also share an itch – an itch to find and implement better ways of organizing ourselves and our cities to work better.  This itch is not unique to our planners.  It is an integral aspect of humanity.

We aim, endlessly, to improve our lot.  This is the essence of an impulse within us to grow and develop.  Specific to our cities and communities, this is what 800 planners are gathering for this week.  We are telling stories about our itches and how we scratched them.  We will also, informally, while we visit with each other around the formal aspects of a conference, notice new itches.

At this point, the choice will be about what we do with the itch.  Sometimes, the best thing to do is ignore the itch and let it go away.  Other times, the best thing to do is scratch the itch, invite more itch, invite the discomfort that comes with learning something new.

I’m curious to see what we will itch this week, and the itches I/we will choose to scratch.

 

 

 

Lingering September practices

September was a busy month, full of life and excitement.  Now a week into October at a totally different speed, I notice some new practices in response to the life conditions of September that I choose to continue.

  1. I visit the river every day.  Every weekday in September we had contractors on hand to put a new roof on our home.  I work at home, and before I get to work I have a routine of some physical practice and journaling. The contractors’ noise was too much, so I walked over to the river valley for a beautiful view and a bench.  (See Writing from the red chair.)  The contractors are gone, but I still head out in the morning for some time alone with me, the river and the city.
  2. I write at night.  Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in September I was working as Interviewer and Harvester at the Integral City 2.0 Conference.  We hosted 36 sessions (three each day, twelve days) and interviewed over 60 visionaries. I played the role of interviewer, and when not interviewing, supported the host and interviewer by catching audience questions and crafting questions for break-out groups’ exploration.  At the end of each day, I wrote a ‘harvest’, my meaning of the day for immediate publication on our web site.  This schedule meant for some very late nights during the week.  I am finding now that I am inclined to write for a couple of hours each evening.  I am not totally exhausted in the morning because this somehow fuels me.
  3. I stop to breathe. In the middle of September’s craziness, I took some time to pause and deepen one of the ways I gather with people: circle.  I attended Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea’s Circle Practicum.  One of the most meaningful learnings for me from this experience is the importance of pausing for breath.  Ring the bell, take a breath, then ring the bell again.  This is useful when feeling frenetic, or when something profound has occurred, when there is a transition of some kind, etc.  We even came up with a way to articulate this by text in the digital world: *~*  I am no longer sitting in circle for several days in a row, but I circle up with myself and I choose to notice when I need to stop and breath.  Sometimes I even use a bell.
  4. I pay attention to my energy. There is a lot of synchronicity in my life right now around personal energy.  At the Circle Practicum, and several times throughout the Integral City 2.0 Conference the word ‘energy’ and practices around knowing and cultivating personal energy surfaced. I recognize that I have been intrigued by this for a while, but not yet able to explore this in my personal development.  I sense a whole new area of learning here for me.  One of the gifts of September is curiosity about where my energy is, where I choose to put it and how it moves throughout my body. I am also curious about how energy behaves between and among people.  I choose now to pay attention to the subtleties of my body and being.

Each of these new practices are in response to my life conditions of last month, yet I have chosen to stick with them even though the reasons for them are gone.  In some way, each of these are responding to today’s life conditions too.

There is a virtuous circle at work within me, allowing me to see myself well, and see when life conditions change and when I need to shift in response.  Regardless of what form my habits take, they serve what Marilyn Hamilton and I call the master rule:

  • look after self
  • look after others
  • look after this place

 

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This post forms part of Chapter 4 – An Uneasy Journey, of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities.

Nest City is organized into three parts, each with a collection of chapters.  Click here for an overview of the three parts of Nest City.  Click here for an overview of Part 2 – Organizing for Emergence, chapters 4-7.

Uneasy journey of cities with dinosaurs

 

Cities are not all that straightforward.  They are hard to figure out and make sense of.  They are tricky and messy.  They can make us quite uneasy, yet they are clearly where most of us choose to live.  Living in cities is a choice.  It is a journey we have chosen, even though it makes us uneasy from time to time.  It is an uneasy journey

The next series of posts focus on the left circle of the Nest Works, shown above.  We will take a look at the things that make us itchy and uneasy and discern some practical principles and practices that will support us in our city life.  These principles and practices will support us in our efforts to create cities that serve citizens well.  Perhaps most importantly, we can learn how to be citizens that serve cities well.

To begin, I revisit a 2009 post called The runaway train, the dinosaur and the house of cards, that emerged from reading Ronald Wright’s A Short History of Progress.  Here are two passages to note from Wright:

The myth of progress has sometimes served us well – those of us seated at the best tables, anyway – and may continue to do so.  But I shall argue … that it has also become dangerous.  Progress has an internal logic that can lead beyond reason to catastrophe.  A seductive trail of successes may end up in a trap (p. 5).
 
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Civilization is an experiment, a very recent way of life in the human career, and it has a habit of walking into what I am calling progress traps.  A small village on good land beside a river is a good idea; but when the village grows into a city and paves over the good land, it becomes a bad idea.  While prevention might have been easy, a cure may be impossible; a city isn’t easily moved.  This human inability to foresee – or to watch out for – long-range consequence may be inherent to our kind, shaped by the millions of years when we lived from hand to mouth by hunting and gathering.  It may also be little more than a mix of inertia, greed and foolishness encour-(p 108)aged by the shape of the social pyramid.  The concentration of power at the top of large-scale societies gives the elite a vested interest in the status quo; they continue to prosper in the darkening times long after the environment and general populace begin to suffer.Yet despite the wreckage of past civilizations littering the earth, the overall experiment of civilization has continued to spread and grow.  The numbers (insofar as they can be estimated) break down as follows: a world population of about 200 million at Rome’s height, in the second century A.D.; about 400 million by 1500, when Europe reached the Americas; one billion people by 1825, at the start of the Coal Age; 2 billion by 1925, when the Oil Age gets underway; and 6 billion by the year 2000.  Even more startling than the growth is the acceleration. Adding 200 million people after Rome took thirteen centuries.  Adding the last 200 million took only three years (p. 108-109).

Wright highlights Joseph Tainter‘s nicknames for three kinds of trouble that lead to the collapse of a civilization:  the Runaway Train, the Dinosaur, and the House of Cards.  An illustration of these phenomena are in Dickens’ Little Dorrit, a wonderful story of city life.  You’ll see direct connection to today’s world.

Dickens illustrates the Runaway Train in Merdle’s Bank, where debt pays debt, and that debt pays more debt.   Merdle alone, as the conductor of the train, sees the inevitable crash.  He despises the Dinosaurs that seek his favour to “invest” with him, yet takes them on as passengers.  The Dinosaurs continue to believe in his wisdom and prowess.  ‘Society’ has complete faith in Society, hence Merdle.  For Society, the financial returns will continue.  This is what is owed to position, prestige and privilege.  Status is taken for granted.  There is nothing that can go wrong.  But it does.

The House of Cards is found in the degradation and literal collapse of the Clenham household, and the rise and fall (and rise and fall again) of the Dorrit family.  The Merdles themselves who have enjoyed privilege find it gone.  The newfound wealth of the Dorrit family is gone.   “I might go back to dancing,” says Fanny Dorrit.  Her brother, Tip: “But what about me?”  All in which they found meaning is gone.

Enter Arthur Clennam, in debtors’ prison as a result of inability to pay his creditors after having lost his fortune on Merdle’s Runaway Train. His despair is not from having lost his fortune, but from having let others down.  His happiness in the end is as it always was – enjoying, and in relationship with, people regardless of their status and position in Society.  Through Arthur Clennam and Amy Dorrit and the cast of characters that support them on their journey, we see that relationships are what endure in the world.   If you count only on riches and material goods, then you can’t have much to count on.  The House will eventually crumble.

In today’s world, Merdle’s Runaway Train is the fall of Wall Street.  Dinosaurs refused to see – or let others see – that the economic train was heading fast down a path of disaster.  The harm for many is substantial.  The House of Cards is revealed.  What we have can disappear in an instant.

In the news these last few weeks is the story of E. coli and 1500 meat products recalled across Canada and 30 states in the US.  The highest ranked comment on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s website declares this event a result of allowing corporations to self-regulate, similar to the US allowing Wall Street to self regulate. This looks like a Runaway Train.

It appears, if we stop and think about it, that our very existence is a House of Cards.  Our privilege in the West is a House of Cards, and perhaps a Runaway Train. Whether it is the economic conditions of our time, or the environmental and health stresses at this time, let us be wary of the Dinosaur.  It is what keeps us from noticing the Runaway Train and the House of Cards.

Then what is the opposite of Dinosaur?  Awake, conscious, in tune with the world.  In relationship with the world.  In relationship with others in the world to seek understanding and solutions.  A sense of happiness.  In Little Dorrit, the happy folk have relationships that cross (yet keep) many boundaries – jailed and jailor, poor and rich, female and male, servant and master, harassed and harrassor, young and old, unloved and loved. Perhaps this is the antidote to the Dinosaur. A way of being that gets the best out of people for the challenges ahead.

It can’t really be named, this anti-Dinosaur, but it seems this is what will cultivate our needed collective ingenuity, for it is the Dinosaur that allows time to gather its moments secretly.

 

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This post forms part of Chapter 4 – An Uneasy Journey, of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities.

Nest City is organized into three parts, each with a collection of chapters.  Click here for an overview of the three parts of Nest City.  Click here for an overview of Part 2 – Organizing for Emergence, chapters 4-7.