This post is the 5th in a series outlining Marilyn Hamilton’s 12 evolutionary intelligences. We have seen how integral intelligence and ecosphere intelligence are crucial to the successful evolution of cities. Both of these intelligences, for Hamilton, are critical to learning a new language about cities that helps us contemplate cities as whole systems of integral systems.
Emerging intelligence is about seeing wholeness and aliveness in the city. It is also about looking for more than we usually see.
In this post, I will highlight the sense Hamilton makes of this form of intelligence and reveal the sense that I make about how this intelligence shapes our work in and for cities and citizens.
First, consider that cities are alive. Hamilton draws on scientists such as Fritjof Capra (his book Web of Life), and what he tells us about the qualities of aliveness. To be alive means that a system:
survives,
connects to its environment, and
regenerates
Reflecting on my previous blogs, I can see that cities as systems behave this way. So let’s contemplate each of these three elements of the city as a system.
The city survives
Each city is a whole system that survives. Cities have survived for many generations, decades, centuries and millennia. If it survives, it is alive. It is, as a system, also an alive ‘whole’. Another scientist comes into Hamilton’s view: Arthur Koestler, who coined the term ‘holon‘ to describe a whole system. Each whole is a holon. The holons of the city are articulated in Hamilton’s nested holarchy of city systems.
The city, as a holon, is made of other several smaller wholes, or holons. Each their own whole, identifiable system. Seeing the city this way it is easy to discern what Hamilton calls the “massive interconnections” between the holons that make up a city. It is a series of relationships that are both dynamic and stable.
The alive city is not made up of parts that can be easily disassembled and assembled. The city is “a whole system of the human species that has characteristics as a whole that transcend but include communities, organizations, groups, families and individuals and the built environment that we have created to contain us [1].” Cities are alive because they are made of wholes that are alive.
The city connects to its environment
Hamilton astutely ascertains that the second quality of aliveness is really about adaptiveness. Cities are very connected to habitat; their existence relies on our ecosphere intelligence. As I explored in Chapter 1, everything we think, make and do is our work, our economic life, and it is always in response to the changing conditions around us. In particular the physical conditions we are given or created by us. We are the mechanism by which cities adjust. As individuals adapt to internal and external life conditions, so too our neighbourhoods and cities[2]. In part and in whole, citizens and city aim to survive and we regularly adapt to ensure our survival.
This back and forth relationship between ourselves and our habitat is what creates our resilience – in ourselves and our cities. Our adaptiveness is our “capacity to survive under conditions of stress [3].” This back and forth is also what allows evolution to emerge.
The city regenerates
Our evolving relationship with our city habitat also results in the regeneration of our cities. Our internal relationships with each other, the makers of cities in all our wholes, are what create city regeneration: “regeneration occurs through inner renewal, shared learning and teaching and coaching others in roles, competencies and capacities, inevitably in collective groupings [4].” The city’s adaptiveness depends on the adaptiveness of the holons that make up the city.
_____ _____ _____
Emergence is about the creation of new capacities to respond appropriately to the changing conditions around us. Hamilton questions whether the “emerging city” might have more traction than the “sustainable city”. It just might, particularly when “emerging” connotes adaptiveness. But this is new, unfamiliar language. “Sustainable Development” was also at one time new, unfamiliar language, but perhaps it isn’t about naming the language just yet.
Our work is about naming the intention – to be keenly adaptive to our changing conditions. Hamilton issues a more distinct intention than this: “to add value to life on Earth that is both sustainable (not over-using resources) adn emergent (always creating new capacities from existing resources) [5].” This is our emerging intelligence. It is what allows us to thrive.
My next post take a closer look at first of the four quadrants of integral theory applied to the city: inner intelligence and conscious capacity.
Ecosphere intelligence is both our ability to locate human settlements in appropriate locations and our ability to shift and to forever adjust with changing conditions to our habitat. As a species, we clearly exhibit this intelligence as we continue our migration across the planet and into cities. (Please see early Nest City posts: Are people growing cities or are cities growing people? and Driven to do more than merely survive.)
At every turn, we have chosen places to settle depending on geography, for example. These choices have life and death results. The choice to settle in St. John’s, Newfoundland had everything to do with ecosphere intelligence: an ice-free, protected harbour at the eastern most point of NorthAmerica with abundant fish stocks. Much as Jane Jacobs wrote, Hamilton notes that our cities have begun in relationship with their specific physical habitat. We choose places to settle because they make sense. This relationship with our habitat continues, even if we have stopped noticing. At every turn our cities are adjusting:“…the stability of our cities is forever dynamic.”[1].
Figure A - City Dynamic
Our ecosphere intelligence applies both to establishment of a settlement and to a city’s ongoing existence. The fundamental relationship is between everything we do – our work – and our habitat (Figure A – City Dynamic). Cities are the result of our evolving interaction with our habitat.
To continue, our cities need quality feedback from our habitat to ensure that we are able to adjust. The quality of the relationship between our economic life – our work- with our social and physical habitats dictates our ability to generate cities that meet our economic, social and physical needs. The feedback loops within this dynamic are what give us our ecosphere intelligence. Without the feedback, we do not have this intelligence.
Figure B - City Dynamic (with feedback activity)
Here is a big question – How do we organize for ongoing, quality feedback for our cities? the good news is that we already know how to do this. We have been doing this for thousands of years. Every time, as a species, we set up a new settlement and every time that settlement has shifted to accommodate changing conditions, we exhibit this intelligence. We adjust to the changing weather conditions over the short and the long term. We adjust to the physical changes we ourselves make to our habitat and we keep growing. We know how to do this.
____ ____ ____
This post is the third instalment in a series of posts about Marilyn Hamilton’s 12 evolutionary intelligences for the Integral City. The first two posts outlined four ways of looking at cities as whole human systems: integral intelligence part 1 and part 2. The four integral maps in these posts are critical to understand the future development of our ecosphere intelligence. Our cities are becoming more complex, which is in itself a life condition to which we have to respond. Our usual ways of obtaining feedback about our cities are of an era of earlier complexity. Think about the census as opposed to the practice of analytics now, where data is everywhere. more and more open to the public. Public decision-making is becoming more public.
I don’t know what ecosphere intelligence will look like in a few short years, but I know we will use it. It’s what we do. As we organize ourselves in cities, we will use this data to create feedback loops to form and inform our decision-making in cities. It is time to create the conditions for us to dynamically steer our cities to the future. This is what it will take to create cities that serve us well: being in tune with our habitat and forever evolving with our habitat.
Tomorrow’s post is about Emerging Intelligence – seeing wholeness and aliveness in the city
In my last post, Integral intelligence for the city – part 1, I outlined two maps that help us see cities as whole, integrated systems: the nested holarchy of city systems and Spiral Dynamics integral. The two remaining maps complete the collection of maps presented by Marilyn Hamilton in Integral City (click here for the book and here for the website).
The two maps I present today are the integral map and the scalar, fractal relationship map.
1. The integral map
The basics of this intelligence have been applied in the Nest City blog in my post entitled City – a dance of voice and values. The map here is very simple: four quadrants that help us notice within our selves and any scale of human system the individual and collective, and the internal and external.
Figure A - Wilber's Four Quadrants (illustrated by Brandy Agerbeck)
As a map, it helps us track this territoity. It isn’t the territory itself, but a frame for us to explore the territory we are experiencing, or not. Marilyn Hamilton applies this lens expressly to the city:
Upper Left (individual, internal, subjective, intangible) – appreciates the beauty of life and the city, particularly in living systems. This is the psychological well-being of the city.
Upper Right (individual, external, objective, tangible) – appreciates the truth of life: the actions that support our material survival in the city. From this perspective we determine the energy flow in the city for life: water, food, waste, shelter, clothing. Our attention here gives us a quality built environment. This is the biological well-being of the city.
Lower Right (collective, external, interobjective, tangible) – appreciates the the truth that emerges from the material systems generated by the Upper Right. From here the artifact of the city emerges for us to live in collectively – our combined habitat. This is the social well-being of the city.
Lower Left (collective, internal, intersubjective, intengible)- appreciates the Goodness in life. From this perspective we see the moral qualities of our collective choices. We weave this voice into the stories of everyday life. We see this view in our formal laws. This is the cultural-well-being of the city.
The lens of the integral map is crucial to seeing the whole city as a system of citizens, city managers, city builders and civil society. Any contemplation of a city without all four of these integral voices is not complete. In our work to create cities as habitats in which we thrive, this is a crucial part of integral intelligence.
2. The scalar, fractal relationships of human systems
I have not written about this map in an explicit fashion so far, but the spirit of this map is within Next City. Two images I have shared here are fractal: our work and habitat, and the city dynamic.
Figure B - Work in Habitat (at any scale)Figure C - The City Dynamic (at any scale)
By fractal, I mean that regardless of the scale, the pattern is the same. The image and concept of our work evolving in response to our habitat, social and physical, is one that holds for individuals, families, neighbourhoods, cities and so on. We don’t come up with new ways of doing things but for in response to some kind of challenge that we face. This pattern is in place regardless of scale of human system.
The other important consideration when using this map, is that each individual whole that makes up a larger system (think nested holarchy of city systems in my last post) is each in response to her/his/its own set of life conditions, making a soup of values and responses to changing conditions. Understanding these dynamics are critical to understand as we upgrade our work to ensure cities are habitats for citizens to thrive.
The pattern
We build habitats for ourselves at many scales. We build habitats for self, for family, for our neighbourhood, our organizations, our whole cities, regions, nations, continents and even our planet. We have even begun building habitats for ourselves when we spend time in outer space. The scale at which we do this work is expanding, yet it is only as good as the health of the wholes that make up the whole. The well-being of selves, families, neighbourhoods, organizations, cities, etc., determine the well-being of the larger wholes. Our work, as people keen on creating cities that serve citizens, is always at many scales, and in many directions (think quadrants) at once.
Marilyn Hamilton – An Integral City “is dynamic, adaptive, and responsive to its internal and external life conditions. An Integral City acts much like a complex adaptive human system that concentrates habitat for humans like a beehive does for bees or an anthill does for ants.”[1]
My next post will explore ecosphere intelligence – our ability to locate cities in appropriate locations.
Integral intelligence is about charting patterns. Since I began blogging Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities on May 1, 2012 (click here for the first blog), I have used three of the four integral maps introduced by Marilyn Hamilton in her body of work called Integral City (here are links to her book and website).
The four integral maps to look at cities in a whole, integrated fashion are:
The nested holarchy of city systems
Spiral Dynamics – the complex adaptive structures of city change
The integral map
The scalar, fractal relationship of micro, meso, macro human systems
In this post, I will outline the first two maps. The next two will be outlined in my next post on Monday.
1. Nested Hierarchy of City Systems
Figure A – Nested Holarchy of City Systems
I first introduced the nested holarchy of city systems when describing the role of work and our work life as the evolutionary spark that began our migration across the planet, then into cities, and the subsequent growth of our cities. We are driven to do more than merely survive, so we constantly find ways to think, make and do new things. The result is that we change our habitat along the way – we create settlements and cities (and many other things that physically change our habitat). More importantly, our work, at every scale in the city, creates the conditions for even more ways of thinking, making and doing new things: innovation. Our cities are engines of innovation, which means that the development of cities is a survival skill.
For Hamilton, to look at a city as whole we must contemplate the city as a human system, which is comprised of a nest of systems, each of which are themselves whole. Each of which has its own level of complexity that includes the preceding “smaller” systems.
The value of this map is that at minimum, it reminds us to thing of city life at more than one scale. It also reminds us that to work at any scale, we must also work with the systems that make up that system. If working at the neighbourhood scale (5), then we must also work at the individual, family/clan, group, organizational scales as well.
The Nest City blog next introduced Spiral Dynamics as a means to map the evolution of the purpose of cities. A series of posts (Is an unplanned city part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4) tell the story of St. John’s, Newfoundland and reveal how as the levels of complexity change (as the scales of system in the nested holarchy of city systems get larger), we adapt to provide structures that support new levels of complexity. As the purpose of a human settlement evolves, we shift and adjust our values and priorities to organize ourselves in response to changing conditions. These posts are a window into how the Spiral shows up in the city.
The value of this map is not just in the map itself. The places on the map tell us about the values of that spot, and the things that motivate people and systems from that spot. This understanding has huge implications for designing and communication with city systems.
The additional value of this frame is the understanding that movement up or down the spiral is always in response to life conditions – our habitat. This is so critical for cities – for our cities are our habitat, made by us.
Both of these maps are intensely connected to our drive to thrive in cities. The nested holarchy reminds us that cities are a systems made of systems and part of larger, expanding systems. Moreover, as we build our cities we are creating the conditions for our own movement up the Spiral. We are creating the conditions for our own evolution.
The next post will address the two remaining maps of integral intelligence: the integral map, and scalar, fractal relationships.
In many preceding posts, I have referred to Marilyn Hamilton’s application of integral theory to the city: Integral City. She articulates 12 evolutionary intelligences in her book, Integral City. (Visit the Integral City web site here.) (For a quick summary of integral theory, visit this post.)
Integral City identifies 12 intelligences that are part of our evolutionary relationship with cities. Each of these intelligences are described on Hamilton’s website. If you visit her site, you will find this compass. When you hover over the words in the compass, the text immediately to the left of the compass will describe that intelligence. If you click on it, you will go to a new page with some text that describes that intelligence in more detail.
Here is a quick phrase describing each intelligence:
Ecosphere intelligence – locating places
Emerging intelligence – seeing wholeness
Integral intelligence – charting patterns
Living intelligence – living and dying
Inner intelligence – conscious capacity
Outer intelligence – embodying right action
Building intelligence – creating structures that flex and flow
Story intelligence – feeding each other
Inquiry intelligence – releasing potential
Meshing intelligence – enabling order and creativity
Navigating intelligence – directional dashboards
Evolving intelligences – imagining the future
Over the course of the next several posts, I will look at each of these. At times, I will look at clusters of intelligence, and other times I will explore only one. My intention is to present the ideas of the intelligence, reveal the power of the intelligence, and find an example of how the intelligence is lived in world. Following this exploration of evolutionary intelligences, I will apply them more specifically to the Nest City model that articulates how we organize ourselves in cities: the city organizing dynamic.
Stay tuned if these evolutionary intelligences catch your eye – your evolving being. I’ll start tomorrow with integral intelligence.
NOTE – If these evolutionary intelligences are of interest to you, the Integral City eLab will be taking place in September 2012. Please click here to see the invitation. Please click here to see the preliminary program.
The last five posts articulate a body of work called Spiral Dynamics:
Pause for evolutionary understanding begins Chapter 3 – The Thriving Impulse outlines the need to pause and understand our evolutionary trip as we organize ourselves in cities.
The perspective offered by Spiral Dynamics is best viewed integrally, that is to say in consideration of the spheres and scales by which we experience the city. In City – a dance of voice and values, I begin to knit together the Spiral of values and the four integral city voices: civic managers, civic developers, civil society and citizens.
Imagine the Spiral alive in each quadrant. Imagine the Spiral alive in each individual in each quadrant. Imagine the Spiral alive across the whole city: a symphony of voices each expressing themselves from where they are at any given moment. When an earthquake hits and our city is destroyed, we will hunker down for BEIGE survival. On a day when the local hockey team has just one a big game, the city experiences a surge of RED elation and pride. On a day when a drunk driver has killed a busload of school children, we call for a recalibration of our BLUE rules. When we reach the big job at the top of the corporate ladder, we revel in our ORANGE achievement. When we realize that our success has meant that others do not succeed, we are motivated by a GREEN communitarian ethic. There is a point where we realize that the gifts of all these value systems are indeed of value together, rather than in competition with each other. This is when we hunger for the integration of YELLOW, to flex and flow.
In a city’s population, these value systems are forever in flux, in each and all of us. The dance of voice and values is in self, others and the city all at once, all the time, at every scale, at every moment.
It makes city life a wonderfully dynamic experience with endless possibilities.
The next series of posts will explore some broad, macro principles that help create the conditions for the self and the city to thrive: evolutionary intelligence.
New value systems are emerging as each of us as individuals, and in our city life, evolve. In my last post, A primer on the emerging spiral, I described Spiral Dynamics, a way of seeing the pattern in our emerging value systems. Seven principles describe the core intelligence of Spiral Dynamics and frame the emergence of new patterns, paradigms, theories, etc. As Spiral Dynamics authors Beck and Cowan put it, the principles uncover the deepest trends that generate trends.
1. Humans are able to create new vMEMES. Looking back over the history of the human species, Beck and Cowan track the emergence of each vMEME[2]: 50,000 years ago PURPLE emerged as we formed tribes, experienced magic, art and spirits. 10,000 years ago the RED world emerged with warlords, conquest and discovery. 5000 years ago BLUE emerged with literature, monotheism and purpose. 1000 years ago ORANGE mobility, individualism and economics came to the fore. 150 years ago the GREEN vMEME emerged as human rights, liberty and collectivism. YELLOW emerged 50 years ago with complexity, chaos and interconnections. TURQUOISE emerged 30 years ago with a new discourse on globalism, eco-consciuosness and patterns.
2. Life conditions awaken vMEMES. VMEMES are a product of our interaction with the life conditions that we face in the world. This is not a scripted biology, but rather a result of dynamic interaction between our internal states and our external world. The age we live in, the place we live in, the problems we face and the social circumstances we find ourselves in shape our beliefs, ideas and values. For example:
3. vMEMES alternate between ‘me’ and ‘we’ focus. Imagine a pendulum that swings between two poles. As the pendulum approaches each pole, it generates life conditions that can only be addressed with solutions from the other. Here are the two poles and their characteristics:
4. vMEMES emerge in waves. Beck and Cowan describe this best: “New vMEME systems come in like waves to a beach. Each has its own ascending surge… At the same time, each also overlaps the receding waves of the previous system as they face. Sometimes the interference generated as the new systems compete in their ascendancies slows the overall Spiral’s momentum, even shoving it backwards. At other times, the vMEME waves resonate and reinforce one another to speed the evolution of thinking along.”[3]
5. Higher levels of complexity emerge along the Spiral. There are four characteristics[4] of this flow:
Expansion of psychological space – toward more multifaceted personalities, diverse organizational forms, and a much more complicated planet
Expansion of conceptual space – toward bigger picture views, wider span on influence, and extended time frames
A progressive increase of alternatives – toward more choices to make from a broader menu of ways to do a thing
A progressive increase in degrees of individual freedom – toward more possibilities in terms of how to be, ways to display emotions, acceptable kinds of human interrelationships
6. vMEMES co-exist. We have the capacity to think in many different ways about many different things all at the same time. While I may be very competitive (RED) on the soccer field, I am also conscious and respectful of the rules (BLUE) and the diversity of skills (GREEN) of my teammates. I notice the strategic (ORANGE) choices our coach makes about who plays where, how and when on the field, and I appreciate the sense of belonging we have created as a team (PURPLE). How bright each of these vMEMES shine depends on the life conditions – at a game, RED will be brightest. As I write, PURPLE is surging as I notice the fond connection I have with my teammates.
7. There is a momentous leap after the first 6 tiers. The first six vMEMES, BEIGE through GREEN, are the culmination of our primate nature. They are the 1st tier of human development and focus on human subsistence. The 1sttier vMEMES have very little tolerance for each other. They conflict and clash, and these are the seismic battles we experience in the world.The leap to the 2nd tier offers a shift from subsistence to ‘being’ – which means appreciating the wisdom of each of the first six vMEMES. Beck and Cowan advise that the momentous leap is characterized by a dropping away of fears and compulsion, an increase in conceptual space, an ability to learn a great deal from many sources, and a trend toward getting much more done with much less energy or resources.[5] The words of Clare Graves:
After being hobbled by the more narrow animal-like needs, by the imperative need for sustenance [BEIGE], the fear of spirits [PURPLE] and other predatory men [RED], by the fear of trespass upon the ordained order [BLUE], by the fear of his greediness [ORANGE], and the fear of social disapproval [GREEN], suddenly human cognition is free. Now with his energies free for cognitive activation, man focuses upon his self and his world [YELLOW, TURQUOISE, etc.].[6]
Summary of the principles
The seven principles provide insight into how the Spiral works. We are able to create new vMEMES and we do so in response to our life conditions – our habitat. As we do, the focus of the vMEMES swing back and forth between ‘me’ and ‘we’. New vMEMES arrive like waves on a beach – always in relation to the other waves – with each wave upward bringing a high level of complexity. As these vMEMES awaken, all the previous vMEMES remain in tact. And until such time that a momentous leap is made from the sixth (GREEN) to the seventh (YELLOW) level, where we recognize the value of each perspective, there is great conflict between the vMEMES.
The emerging value systems highlighted by the Spiral are so clear in city life at many scales – self, family, neighbourhood, organization, city, province, nation, continent, world. Readers interested in an example may be interested in the series of posts on St. John’s, Newfoundland: Is the unplanned city unplanned? Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4. In the meantime, the next post will look at how we move up and down the Spiral.
[6] Clare Graves as cited by Beck and Cowan, Spiral Dynamics, p. 274. Graves’ use of the masculine in this explanation is indicative of his life conditions and the times.
There is a pattern in human activity that reveals how our intelligence evolves (Figure 1). The story of St. John’s emergence as a city in Chapter 2 – The Planning Impulse highlights this evolution in the creation of a city. The purpose of this post is to provide a primer in one way of thinking of evolving intelligence: Spiral Dynamics.
Spiral Dynamics
Imagine the double-helix spiral of our DNA and the work that has been done to catalogue our genes – the codes that guide our physical being. Imagine a similar spiral with our cultural codes: our organizing principles.
Don Beck and Christopher Cowan, drawing on the work of Clare Graves in the 1970s, have revealed how the organizing principles emerge in humans, and how they glue together our social systems. This area of work is called Spiral Dynamics. The organizing principles are found in levels of value systems that emerge as we evolve. They are called value memes, or vMEMES for short (rhymes with genes), as coined by Richard Dawkins.
vMEMES are codes, or behavioural instructions that are passed on from generation to the next, social artifacts, and value-laden symbols that glue together social systems.[1] Beck and Cowan:
These vMEMES include instructions for our world views, assumptions about how everything works, and the rationale for decisions we make.[2]
We evolve and grow through these vMEMES – as individuals, as families, cultures, workplaces, cities, nations and as a species. Here is a summary of the eight vMEMES that have appeared to date in humans – our ideas and beliefs gather around each of these:
The spiral of city purposes in Figure 1 is an interpretation of the vMEMES described above. Here is another take on the spiral with some key words you will recognize as the structures and processes associated with ways of thinking at different levels of the spiral:
Highlights
The first six vMEMES, BEIGE through GREEN, form the first tier of value codes. Their focus is subsistence. Very simply: BEIGE, is explicitly about surviving. When our basic needs are met, in PURPLE we survive together and make sense of the magical world in groups. When resources become scarce, our groups compete for independence (RED). When we recognize that stability is needed, BLUE surfaces and we establish institutions, protocols and rules with purpose. When those rules get in the way, ORANGE shows up as an entrepreneurial, creative spirit. When uncomfortable with achievement orientation of ORANGE, GREEN emerges and seeks caring and socially responsible communities.
These first six vMEMES have very little tolerance for each other; we see great conflict between the values of competition and community, or the power of the individual vs the role of the collective. A second tier of vMEMES (YELLOW, TURQUOISE) surfaces when we desire to integrate the first six.
It is critical to note that none of these vMEMES are better than another. They simply reflect different perspectives on what the world and its complexity .[3] Each vMEME builds on the one(s) before. Each building block arrives as we adjust to new levels of complexity. Each transcends and includes the previous vMEMES, responding to increased complexity in the world, meaning that the building blocks already created remain in us.
vMEMES are types of thinking in us, not types of us.[4] As a body of work, Spiral Dynamics notices the patterns in human development, and recognizing the pattern allows for deeper views of the role of cities – and ourselves – in human development.
How does the Spiral work? The next post will describe seven principles that frame the emergence of new patterns. As Beck and Cowan put it, the trends that generate trends…
The purpose of planning is to support a city’s efforts to notice, adjust and organize to ensure the city is able to integrate the needs of its citizens with its context. As we build cities, our work is to ensure that we create a habitat for ourselves in which we will thrive.
This second chapter of Nest City explores where the impulse to plan comes from as our cities become more complex. The first four posts that form the second chapter of Next City build on my experience in St. John’s, Newfoundland, where Mayor Dennis O’Keefe invites visitors to a planning conference to explore the ‘unplanned’ city. My exploring continued after my visit there. The first four posts that make this chapter are:
Is an unplanned city unplanned? Part 1 Life conditions – the times we live in, the geographic place, the challenges we face and the social circumstances – shape the purpose of a city.
Is an unplanned city unplanned? Part 2 The shape of a city is determined by its geography, its purpose, the activities within and in connection to other cities – it’s life conditions.
Is an unplanned city unplanned? Part 3 As life conditions change, cities shift and adjust. The purpose of the city evolves. Planning is an activity that supports our collective work to organize ourselves to ensure our habitat – our cities – serve us well.
Is an unplanned city unplanned? Part 4 Along with evolving purposes of the city come corresponding evolving modes of organizing. One of the new ways of organizing was the planning profession.
The subsequent posts tease out the complexity of planning now – it is not a simple linear, mechanical process:
City – a dance of voice and values The evolving city purposes and modes of organizing are part of an evolving value system. There are four integral ‘voices’ in the city: city managers, city builders, civil society and citizens. These values and voices are in the mix as we organize ourselves to thrive in cities.
Integrating voices and values Many purposes, modes of organizing and purposes occur all at once, creating a messy and uncertain world. No one entity has control of the city. Planners do not have a recipe – let alone all the ingredients.
Recalibrating the purpose of planning As an activity, planning has to hold a destination in mind, allow for learning and adjustment along the way, and recognize that we do not know exactly where we are going to end up.
A new era of planning cities Planning now is about have a clear, collective sense of intention and purpose to drive our work. Cities are growing and we are growing with them. The opportunity is to grow purposefully.
Two conclusions arise. The first is that the overriding purpose of a city is to integrate the needs of its people, with its context, to create a habitat in which people will survive and thrive (Is an unplanned city unplanned? Part 3). The second is that the purpose of planning is to support city efforts to notice, adjust and organize to ensure people survive and thrive (Is an unplanned city unplanned? Part 4).
The activity of planning is in the process of recalibrating, in order to integrate the new and emerging voices and values of the city. This is necessary for planning to respond to today’s life conditions, rather than those of decades or centuries ago. To meet the needs of citizens, cities must adapt. In order for cities to adapt to the evolving needs of citizens, citizens need to adapt as well.
The next series of posts will form Chapter Three – The Thriving Impulse. They will explore what it means to thrive, from an evolutionary sense. Part Two – Organizing for Emergence and Part Three – Nest City will get into the details of how we can organize ourselves to serve ourselves better.
Sanders, Beth, “From the High Water Mark to the Back of the Fish Flakes: The Evolutionary Purpose of Cities,” Vol 51, No. 4, p 26-31, Plan Canada. Print publication of the Canadian Institute of Planners.
The activity of planning cities is a kind of work that has emerged with cities. It is a mode of organizing that began in Canada with land surveyors and engineers. The work of planners and planning in Canada is recent; Canada’s Commission of Conservation hired Britain’s Thomas Adams in 1914 as its Town Planning Advisor. His work supported the creation of town planning legislation across Canada, and a whole new area of work distinct from that of surveying and engineering. For Adams, the additional focus of planning was to improve civic conditions[1]. This was the beginning of a structure (legislation) and a profession dedicated to contributing order to settlements across Canada, work that emerged with the fourth purpose of the city (Figure 1), and the fourth level of organizing (Figure 2). (For more on the evolution of city purposes and modes of organizing, please see Is the unplanned city unplanned? Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4).
Figure 2 - Evolving Modes of Organizing
The activity of planning our communities – even just thinking about planning – has played a critical role in the shape our communities today. Gerald Hodge and David L. A. Gordon, authors of Canada’s primary text for students of planning Canadian communities, note:
…the regard for planning and making plans is strong. Even in… contentious situations, the essential debate is not about the need for planning, but for better planning – not whether but how it should be done.”[2]
Citizens, developers and builders, civil society and our various public institutions and politicians are always ready to tell planners about needed improvements. And they are right – there are many improvements to be made. What we ought to be wary of is the assumption that it is up to planners to make the changes.
Today’s challenge – recalibrating the purpose of planning, plans and planners
This is the challenge that faces planners, citizens and decision-makers today: our communities function with an extended focus, broadened purpose and less concentrated decision-making processes. The formal act of ‘planning’ as we recognize it today, with zoning by-laws and area structure plans, is in response to life conditions of a certain time, geography, challenges, and social circumstances. It is as set of activities that fits the era in which Thomas Adams worked. In today’s world the work of organizing a city belongs to many. The planning profession is simply one of many kinds of work. The work of organizing ourselves to thrive belongs to all of us. In 1922, Thomas Adams stated: “Cities do not grow – all of them are planned.”[3] It is as though we build them as we build a building, with a complete set of plans. That just doesn’t happen with cities. They do grow.
None of this means that plans and planning are not relevant. Plans do have a purpose. Having a plan means that we know where we are going and what it will take to get there. A plan documents our shared purpose, intention and intended actions to reach our goals. In every aspect of life, this is a critical function. Specific to city planning, Hodge and Gordon describe it this way: a plan is “for the purpose of achieving a goal desired by its citizens… community planning is about attaining a preferred future built and natural environment.”[4] They cite two reasons why a community makes plans: to solve some problems associated with its development; and/or to achieve some preferred form of development.[5] This is work that makes a meaningful contribution to cities.
In conventional planning circles, the professional planners are charged with this work. Citizens, civil society, civic builders and developers along with politicians provide feedback to planners through formal public engagement activities. Yet we are growing into an understanding that city hall is not the only player who organizes a city, but that there are many others involved. Numerous organizations, activities and events shape the city without city hall’s direction. Environmental groups have had an influence on our tolerance for weeds. Arts foundations find the funds to build new museums and art galleries. Business leaders join forces to advance technology research and innovation. The university hospital chooses to emphasize health research and expands its facilities. School boards decide to allow families to choose their schools. Citizens choose where to live in relation to employment/schools/services. All and each of these players shape our complex cities.
Citizens, civil society, civic builders and developers are increasingly demanding a role in the process of planning our communities. Even departments inside city hall are hungry for ways to integrate their work with planners. As a result, the role of the plan has evolved into something new. City plans are no longer simply the blueprint early land surveyors and engineers prepared for orderly development. A new kind of work is being called for that supports an expanded view of what it takes to make cities that are healthy habitats for citizens.
The value of plans is in their intention and common direction. They are now more about shape and spirit, rather than control. There are times when control is important, but the scope of planning is widening and more and more aspects of planning are about much more than control. As an activity, planning has to hold a destination in mind, allow for learning and adjustment along the way, and recognize that we do not know exactly what we are going to end up with and we can’t control that. Part Two and Part Three of this writing endeavour will flesh out how to organize ourselves with kind of understanding. For the moment I offer this:
Figure 3 - City "Nestworking"
The next post will conclude Chapter 2 – The Planning Impulse with a question: Is planning even the right word any more? Chapter 3 – The Thriving Impulse, will be a theory side trip into what it means to thrive before thoroughly exploring the City Nestworking model above for the remainder of the book in Part 2 – Organizing for Emergence and Part 3 – Nest City.
Sanders, Beth, “From the High Water Mark to the Back of the Fish Flakes: The Evolutionary Purpose of Cities,” Vol 51, No. 4, p 26-31, Plan Canada. Print publication of the Canadian Institute of Planners.
