The faint signals of re-imagining the city, in the next decade, arise from those who recognize it as the most complex human system ever created – and one that deserves to be respected and honoured for the living system it is. The city is a social holon, like a human hive, where each person experiences life through individual exteriors like body, brain and behaviours and collective exteriors like systems, structures and infrastructures. In addition, and more importantly for the next decade, the city resonates with the individual interiors of intention, inspiration and imagination and the collective interiors of values, visions and cultural vitality.

Read the rest of this Blog at http://kedgeforward.com/2010/05/17/ktls-emerging-cityscapes-volume-4-number-3/

Thanks Frank Spencer for the invitation to contribute to Emerging Cityscapes.

The Brazilian city Curitiba awarded the Globe Sustainable City Award 2010

STOCKHOLM, April 7, 2010 − The Brazilian city Curitiba wins the Globe Sustainable City Award 2010. The city of Curitiba is awarded for excellent sustainable urban development. The Globe Award statuette will be presented to representatives from the City of Curitiba on April 29^th at a gala dinner at the Nordic Museum in Stockholm, Sweden.

The Globe Sustainable City Award is now presented for the second year. The aim of the City Award is to underline cities and municipalities, which excel in sustainable urban development, and to set a positive example for others. The general mission of the Globe Sustainability Awards is to highlight and acknowledge particular cases and initiatives within the sustainability area.

The competition was hard and the runners-up were sustainable cities like Malmoe in Sweden, Murcia in Spain, Songpa in South Korea, Stargard Szczecinski in Poland (the winner of the Globe Award Polish Edition 2009) and Sydney in Australia. Curtiba’s holistic approach to sustainable urban development impressed the jury and the city was unanimously selected as a winner.

The jury’s motivation: “The City of Curitiba shows maturity in their understanding of sustainable city development – both regarding policy and implementation. The holistic approach is well framed and managed in order to create a strong and healthy community, integrating the environmental dimension with other dimensions like intellectual, cultural, economic and social.”

The jury group for the Sustainable City Award is chaired by Jan Sturesson, World Economic Forum, in the global agenda council “future of Government”, Partner PricewaterhouseCoopers and Global Leader of Government and Public Service in Sweden.

The winning city will be awarded at a prestigious gala dinner at the Nordic Museum in Stockholm, Sweden on April 29, held in connection to the Globe Forum sustainability conference on April 28-29^th in Stockholm. The Globe Sustainabilty Awards have been given out since 2007 in four cathegories: Sustainable research, innovation, reporting and cities. For more information about the other Globe Award winners see www.globeaward.org.

For more information please contact:  

Lars-Olle Larsson, Chairman of the Globe Award jury, Partner PricewaterhouseCoopers Sweden Mobile: +46-709 29 39 83, e-mail: lars-olle.larsson@se.pwc.com

Martina Nee, Manager Globe Award, Globe Forum, Stockholm, Sweden

Mobile: +46-733 17 53 55, e-mail: martina.nee@globeforum.com

Carin Balfe Arbman. Press Contact Globe Forum, Stockholm, Sweden
Mobile: +46-706 33 35 08, e-mail carin.balfe.arbman@globeforum.com

About the winner:

Curitiba, Brazil – Municipal Master Plan indicates reorganization of the urban territory, considering drainage basins as basic planning units, institutional strengthening, seeking the development of transversality in planning and environmental management processes as well as changes in production and consumption standards, reducing costs and waste. www.curitiba.br

The Jury:
The jury for the Globe Sustainable City Award consists of highly experienced and internationally recognized experts. The overall chairman of all four jury groups is Lars-Olle Larsson, Partner PricewaterhouseCoopers Sweden.

Jan Sturesson – World Economic Forum in the global agenda council “future of Government”, Partner in PwC and Global Leader of Government and Public Service, Sweden

Lawrence Bloom – Deputy Chairman of Noble Cities Plc., Former Chair and Current Member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Urban Management, Chairman of the UN Environmental Programme, Green Economy Initiative, sector on Green Cities, Buildings and Transport. and the UK Chair of the Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Organisation

Marilyn Hamilton – PhD, CGA is the founder of Integral City Meshworks Inc. and TDG Global Learning Connections, Canada

C. S. Kiang – professor, Chairman of Peking University Environment Fund, China

Carlos Arruda – PhD, Chairman of the Unicon, Director of the International Relations and coordinator of the Innovation Central Fundação Dom Cabral (FDC), Brazil

Globe Award was founded in 2007 in Sweden by the international business network and marketplace Globe Forum. Globe Award 2010 is acknowledging prominent researchers, innovators, cities and companies – from all parts of the world – within four categories Sustainability Research Award, Sustainability Innovation Award, Sustainable City Award and the Sustainability Reporting Award; www.globeaward.org, www.globeforum.com

Sustainable cities can be nominated for international award

STOCKHOLM, NOVEMBER 23, 2009: Globe Awards will be presented for the fourth consecutive time at the annual gala at Nordiska Museet in Stockholm April 29^th, 2010. The applications will be viewed in four categories: research, innovation, city and reporting. The most innovative, prospective and practical projects will be chosen by the jury composed of new members for 2010, with the top names from scientific, business and academic world. Now is time to apply.

The Globe Award’s main purpose is to explore and support researchers, innovators, cities and companies that are leading in sustainable development. The awards are divided into four classes: the Sustainability Research Award, the Sustainability Innovation Award, the Sustainable City Award and the Sustainability Reporting Award.

The decision, who will obtain a concrete award, depends on four objective jury groups. Each of them consists of highly experienced, well-educated and internationally recognized experts. Lars-Olle Larsson, Partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers Sweden, is the overall chairman of the jury.

– It is necessary to support research and innovation to find solutions to the present problems related to climate change, poverty and welfare development. A Globe Award demonstrates pro-activity and best practice in the largest challenges we have ever faced, says Lars-Olle Larsson.

Members of the jury for the Globe Sustainable City Award are: Lawrence Bloom, Deputy Chairman of Noble Cities Plc., Dr Marilyn Hamilton, the founder of Integral City Meshworks Inc. and TDG Global Learning Connections and professor C.S. Kiang, the Chairman of Peking University Environment Foundation. Jury group Chairman is Jan Sturesson, Partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers, Global Leader of Government and Public Services.

– I believe sustainability will be the most important aspect when it comes to rising and developing the brand of any city in the future, no matter where it is located in the world. So we do hope to get many nominations from cities all around the globe for this new and extremely exciting category in the Globe Award, says Jan Sturesson, Chairman of the jury group for the Globe Sustainable City Award.

- Winning Globe Award builds the name of the city and gives the focus on the media, he adds.

Promoting sustainability can be very beneficial to the city and the country.

Sustainable cities all over the world can apply to be nominated for Globe Award. Information and application forms can be downloaded at www.globeaward.org. The nomination period closes February 28th, 2010. The Globe Award 2010 nominees will be made public April 5th. The candidates can send in their application from November 24^th at www.globeaward.org.

For more information please contact:

Lars-Olle Larsson, Chairman of the Globe Award jury, Partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers, Sweden

Mobile: +46-709 29 39 83, e-mail: lars-olle.larsson@se.pwc.com

Martina Nee, Manager Globe Award, Globe forum, Stockholm, Sweden

Mobile: +46-73 317 53 55, e-mail: martina.nee@globeforum.com

Paulina Korbak, Assistant Globe Award, Globe Forum, Stockholm, Sweden

e-mail: paulina.korbak@globeforum.com

The concept of Living Buildings was first introduced three years ago and quickly gained recognition as the world’s most revolutionary approach to green building. 

Most green building certification programs have focused on individual buildings, but the new Living Building Challenge program is both more comprehensive and more expansive, including small in-home remodels, community or campus-wide initiatives and infrastructure projects ­ including bridges, roads and parks.

The expanded breadth of version 2.0 brings more people to the table. “This standard is a unifying tool, bringing together many disciplines and players for the 
first time under one green building standard ­ architects and developers with urban planners and landscape architects, environmentalists and social activists, as well as affordable housing advocates and preservationists ­ to form a visionary pathway to a restorative future,” says Jason F. McLennan, CEO of the Cascadia Region Green Building Council.

…Three projects have completed construction and have entered their verification phase: Tyson Living Learning Center in Eureka, MO; Omega Center for 
Sustainable Living in Rhinebeck, NY; and Eco-Sense, a private residence in Victoria, British Columbia.  The Living Building Challenge is primarily performance-based, requiring a minimum of twelve months of operation prior to certification.

Visit the ILBI website to download the new version of the Challenge. www.ilbi.orgAbout Cascadia
The Cascadia Region Green Building Council is a 501(c) (3) non-profit in the US, and is incorporated as a nonprofit in British Columbia.  Cascadia promotes 
the design, construction and operation of buildings in Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon that are environmentally responsible, profitable and healthy places to live, work and learn. 

Cascadia is one of three original chapters of the US Green Building Council and, as a chapter of the Canada Green Building Council as well, is the only international chapter in North America. It is the originator of the Living Building Challenge, authored by Jason F. McLennan.
www.cascadiagbc.org.

# # #

Media Contacts:
Kathleen Warren, Parsons Public Relations
Kathleen@parsonspr.com / 206.789.5668

Eden Brukman, Cascadia Region Green Building Council
Eden@cascadiagbc.org / 503.228.5533 (o) / 503.544.9778 (m)

Do you get Cascadia’s monthly announcements? Subscribe at http://www.cascadiagbc.org/Jessica Woolliams, MA | LEED-AP
British Columbia Co-Director

Forwarded from Smart Growth BC’s Livable Communities digest:  <livable-communities@lists.smartgrowth.bc.ca>

Not surprisingly, this fountain I see, has four quadrants — all issuing flows of emerging wisdom that seem to be tapping a deep well of evolutionary knowledge.

As I walk around this fountain of knowledge, the first quadrant that inspires me is the Leadership Cascade. I recognized it in action in July at the Royal Roads University School of Leadership where the learners I was coaching were seriously engaged in expanding their capacity to apply the tools of leaders that Gerzon (2006) describes as those of the Mediator – Integral Vision, Systems Thinking, Presence, Inquiry, Conscious Conversation, Dialogue, Bridging and Innovation.  These qualities transcend but include the qualities of leaders who are managers and even demagogues — because the situations where those qualities are needed still exist. Building on these qualities, Erin Stewart (2009) (whose RRU Master’s thesis I have just approved), examines similar leadership practices in relation to a community capacity building approach within a health care alliance.

The second quadrant,  I encounter, surged forth as a community of practise process, from last week’s design charette with the Ginger Praxis team. There we mapped out the trajectory of a five day program for leaders who could be in any sector, but who had a change challenge, that demanded new ways of relating to people in the city. The Foundations of Innovation and Transformation, (to be offered at RRU in January 2010) revealed the power of the U process (developed by the Presence (2004) authors, team and institute ) to reveal the stages of development that unfold the Me into the many Me’s, the WE and the ME/WE in the system. We designed a process of initiation, sensing, presencing, co-creating and co-evolving that requires change leaders to engage the increasing contribution and complexity of the collective system.

The third quadrant comes like a water jet — but it was really an email from Jamin Stortz (2009), who shared with me her just completed thesis on the evolution of Public Administration, through the eras of the pre-modern, modern and post-modern into the integral. With clear and firm framing she proposes we must initiate the era of Integral Public Administration to guide the capacities of our great bureaucracies into practises that transcend and include the systematic, strategic and social values that have framed public administration until recently. She describes the qualities of this new integral public administration that can flex and flow with the chaos and complexity of our current times.

The fourth quadrant I admire is the geyser that could be called Planning Theory. In an article crafted by Dr. Gert de Roo (2008), Professor of Spatial Planning, at University of Groningen, NL, he maps out the evolution of planning theory through three systems that can be situated along the spectrum of steady-state technical rationality, oscillating network systems  and unpredictable communicative rationality. Professor de Roo explores the need for yet a fourth system for planning theory to emerge — that of the non-linear, evolutionary system that transcends and includes the first three systems but introduces the elements of time and co-evolution. With the embrace of conscious communications, this sounds awfully like an integral planning theory, doesn’t it?

Leadership, Community Process, Public Administration, Planning Theory — when all these domains converge with new theory and practise, the fountain of what can contribute to a Mayor’s effectiveness really starts to run over. Knowledge of each of these domains is necessary for a Mayor to become an effective integrator. A Mayor needs  expert practitioners and managers and elected officials in each of these domains, who can represent the span of views and situations that arise in the city. But the Mayor then needs to bridge all the separate domains and integrate all the capacities within them so they work together in a value adding, evolutionary way.

With the insights from the Integral Fountain, that I see emerging, the tools, people, capacities and processes seem to be available to mesh the four quadrants of the fountain in a way that makes the waters really dance to a new height!!  What a beautiful and refreshing vision that encourages and refreshes us in Integral City hall square, before we step into the days of the challenging season ahead of us.

References

DeRoo, G. (2008). The Question is Being or Becoming! Confronting Complexity with Contemporary Planning Theory.

Gerzon, M. (2006). Leading Through Conflict: How Successful Leaders Transform Differences Into Opportunities. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Senge, P., Scharmer, C. O., Jaworski, J., & Flowers, B. S. (2004). Presence: Exploring Profound Change in People, Organizations and Society. New York: Currency Doubleday.

Stewart, E. (2009). The Art of Centralized Coordination: A Study of a Provincially Coordinated Strategy in a Health Care Organization Royal Roads University, Victoria.

Stortz, J. (2009). Can Integral Theory Develop Public Administration for Twenty-First Century Challenges? , National University, San Diego.

Life is moving too quickly for just a newsletter or an

ezine — so I’ve finally moved to create a Blog. This

blog has old memes in it, as I originally set it up to

invite readers to review early drafts of the Integral City

book.

Once I learn the ropes here, I will post blogs, periodically

to share my stream of thoughts on the ever dynamic,

always emergent Integral City.

meshfully yours

Marilyn