This website at its heart asks the broad question: What are Cities of the Future?
In order to frame the broadest most inclusive container in which that recurring question can be continually answered the emphasis is on participatory practices within an evolutionary worldview allied to the perspective of the commons.
The Vision for our future cities is therefore an Evolving Vision based on the art of hosting design process this website endeavours to utilise. What that vision looks like depends on our participation and contribution to it. By posting, and sharing insights, views and opinions etc the way Future Cities may look, whatever future cities are, will come more into focus. This process can also enhance our collective sense of the possibilities and our clarity in regard to what solutions may be right for one place and what may be right for another. This is a container and process that can form a central part of an Evolving Vision for our future cities.
Evolving Vision – for Cities of the Future
Version 0.1 Beta on 30th December 2011
Summary
This is the future, our cities have finally become sustainable and thriving places to live, they operate on a political economy based on the flourishing of peer to peer practices and commons ~ a commons based society ~ emerges. Built into the design of the system, the value of money is now reflective of social and natural value as well as financial value. This is a city that takes no particular form but holds the space in recognition of the evolving process we are all a part of, allowing for new forms to emerge from the collective intelligence of the citizens. It is not anti-capitalist or anti-state it is supportive of both but aware that neither sector functions well without our active and conscious participation in bringing them to account to the commons ~ the human, cultural and natural heritage of life. People share and co-create artifacts of productive value which plans for abundance not obsolescence. In the early forms of people and nature centred governance the peoples assemblies ran into difficulties and found limitations even in consensus. Their passion for a better world gave life to new forms of relational models or governance practices that worked for there communities. The people became more self-sufficient the more they participated in the process, the state and market became servants to the extent that they were needed by the particular commons. The people matured and reclaimed their inherent power putting it to work at the heart of the city. The art of hosting model is a popular model among many diverse alternatives that evolved to serve the particular needs of the particular commons (no bigger than 150 people in size). Like cells, commons work together, forming fluid membranes between boundaries interlinking with each other, one or more defined as a community, the communities themselves work in the same way in their interaction with neighbouring communities. Within this vision the evolving nature of the whole city brings a natural self-reflective recognition that everything evolves including not only what we see, but also the consciousness and culture that we are. The facilitators of the commons, the communities and the city embody and hold space for others to become aware that they are evolving citizens. In an evolutionary worldview aligned to the commons - commons, communities and cities work within an evolutionary commons – a society and city design not stuck in time or form but moving, with and as a perpetual unfolding process of social and cultural renewal.
More detail for this vision
More detail for this vision will feed and grow into it through:
- the regular blog posts and info coming into the site from readers and under the pages ‘City Libraries’ and ‘City Cafes’.
- Placeholder awaiting the mid-July issue of the first City Sense-Making Report for the period April to June 2012
