| Sense in the City NEWSLETTER January 20, 2008 |
| Sense in the City NEWSLETTER January 20, 2008 |
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New Years Greetings, Integral
City-zens and
Friends of Integral City
Today's
Integral City Sparkie for the City Body :
From our earliest
upright steps as Homo sapiens we have trekked
from one awakening to another, becoming a
slightly different being with every one. New
times produce new thinking as new theories of
everything are spawned, history is revised,
priorities and values are reordered-stacked, and
people marvel that they did not see it all so
clearly before.
Beck, D., & Cowan, C.
(1996). Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values,
Leadership and Change. Malden, MA: Blackwell
Publishers. p.24
The theme
for this newsletter is new
awakenings, new foundations.
1. Three recent
publications have really highlighted the progress
that some cities are making in waking up to their
potential. What is interesting about the stories of
New York, London and Calgary is that both insiders
and outsiders are seeing new systems of
accountability, metrics and comparisons that bring
new meaning to managing city life. In these three
examples the mayor, the media and a think tank are
defining criteria that bring fresh insights and
innovative approaches to old problems. Although none
of these criteria sets are fully integral, each
encompasses both qualitative as well as quantitative
measures -- and that indicates cultural and social
values and priorities are becoming more integrated.
a) The first example is the remarkable State of
the City report that New York's Mayor Bloomberg gave
last week. Bloomberg put real faces to his thorough
overview of the city's vision for where it is headed
in the next year, and that represent its progress
over the last year (and prior). He invited five
immigrant families to share the stage with him and
then fearlessly took on everyone from the federal
politicians to the local homeless, and revealed how
the energy of New York comes from the new ideas,
efforts and commitments of citizens like the
five families who immigrated to New York from South
Carolina(!), Italy, China, Columbia and India. He
says, "Take
a look behind me. ... This is New York City. This is
Freedom. This is Compassion, and Democracy, and
Opportunity." His full address can be accessed at
http://www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.c0935b9a57bb4ef3daf2f1c701c789a0/index.jsp?pageID=mayor_press_release&catID=1194&doc_name=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nyc.gov%2Fhtml%2Fom%2Fhtml%2F2008a%2Fpr018-08.html&cc=unused1978&rc=1194&ndi=1
b) The second example is London, England,
which has been voted by the Independent Press online
news service as the most outstanding capital in the
world. Their criteria included everything from
population, to arts and culture, to transportation
and stock market value. Their story and their
ratings can be found at
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article3276224.ece .
c) The third example is Calgary, Alberta, which
has been identified by the Conference Board of
Canada as Canada's top magnet city. The Conference
Board used seven criteria to rate their cities on a
Report Card system (A, B, C, D etc.): economy,
health, society, housing, environment, innovation
and education. An abstract and links to the
Executive Summary and full report can be found at
http://www.conferenceboard.ca/documents.asp?rnext=2352 .
Interestingly, two years ago, Integral City named
Calgary as the most integral city in Canada.
2. While the
cities above are demonstrating awakenings about how
to integrate their success factors, Dr. Don Beck is
on the march in the Middle East, meshWORKing with
both Israel and Palestine to enable new capacities
to emerge in cities in both cultures
www.buildpalestine.org..
Helping him to do so, are a new breed of Foundations
that are investing in meshworks to bridge a whole
spiral of functions. Dr. Beck has contributed our
feature article to this month's Sense in the
City Ezine: A Spiral Full of
Foundations. He discusses the seven
different kinds of Foundations and how they are
organized around core beliefs. Here is a short
extract. (The full article can be accessed at
http://www.integralcity.com/Ezine%20Files/archive.asp .)
" While a specific foundation, through its myriad of activities, may incorporate several of these basic foundation functions, most will tend to identify with one of the categories over the others, as its core motivations and central thrust. Many of the disagreements and debates that occur within various brain syndicates or groups of stakeholders may, indeed, reflect these differing and often conflicting perspectives. And, a specific foundation may start out in one category but as power and control change hands, it may end up in yet a different grouping. A foundation is not identified according to what it does, or how it donates its resources. Rather, it is grouped based on its reasons for doing so, the core beliefs that drive and support its initiatives. " 3 . We have three training conferences scheduled in February, 2008. See below for details or contact us directly.
Spiral
Dynamics integral Level 1 ( February
8-11, 2008 ) at
beautiful Dunsmuir Lodge.
Quantum Woman
Inquiry - a spiral/integral inquiry for
women only (February 12-14, 2008) at beautiful
Dunsmuir Lodge.
Leadership That
Is Alsways One Step Ahead (February 28-29)
Justice Institute, BC, New Westminster, BC.
Details
and
Registration Forms are
now online at
http://www.integralcity.com/DiscoveryZone/Training/SDiL%20Value%20to%20Grads.html
...meshful
cheers and blessings ...
Marilyn
======================
Founder & President,
www.integralcity.com
Unit
v:604-855-8478 f:604-855-8870
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