New Orleans: A Prophetic City of Resilience and Innovation

Forty Minute ForumChurch of St. Clement, Eglinton

November, 2009

Cities have become the dominant global human habitat of this century in terms of

geography, experience, constituency, and influence

Morgan Grove Cities: Managing Densely Settled Social-Ecological Systems, 2008

OLD WORLD/ NEW WORLD

THIS

THAT THAT THAT

this

affects

this

Systems/Capital in a City

Financial

Social

Bonding

BridgingSpiritual

Natural

Cultural

How a prophetic city before?

• Disconnected from the local• Public policies/investments driven by distant

priorities/decision-makers• Degraded natural assets• Disrupted neighborhoods• Structurally supported divisions by race,

ethnicity, and class• Export economy extractive and exploitive:

oil/gas, fisheries, tourism and gambling)• Chronic disinvestment in infrastructure

Perverse Opportunity

• Self organization emerges• Communities form ‘hubs’• And need ‘links’• And together these create ‘connective

tissue’• No single solution, no simple answers, no

outside experts with a magic bullet, scarce resources

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A ‘problem’ in a city …

is work that still needs doing

Enabling conditions

Identify locals who pay attention to real, particular things

• Hubs and links: connective tissue that supports reciprocal transactions

• One size NEVER fits all: devolution encourages differentiation

• Subsidiarity brings clearer accountability

Prophetic City

- Enable self-organization and indigenous resilience to combat learned helplessness

- Embrace your assets and anticipate change: Live with water

- Democratize data: the Wisdom of Crowds

- Social and ‘soft’ media

- Distant detached decision-making dooms democracy

- Identity-reinforcing ‘hubs’ : peer-to-peer networks

- need the connection to the ‘other’ through ‘links’: civil society vehicles that enable horizontal connection

- Social cohesion by faith groups, neighborhoods and local businesses. volunteers

HOPE

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