Cities Rising for a Regenerative World

Cities Rising for a Regenerative World Reframing the role of cities as Gaia’s Reflective Organs This is a weeklong program January 11 - 15 convened by Integral City, Nest City, Ubiquity University and Humanity Rising ChatAction Group OVERVIEW Inspired by HR’s week of Bouncing Beyond to a Regenerative World convened in October 2020 by Ubiquity U and U International Cooperation and partners, this Cities Rising Week focuses on human systems at the scale of the city. We view “city” as the human habitat (or human hive) at scales from village to megalopolis and our definition of city embraces the ecoregion where it is located and that constrains it. We intend our inquiry to complement the exploration of Bouncing Beyond to a Regenerative World, by providing the context and contribution cities can make to a Regenerative World. Prior to the 2020 year of the pandemic, cities had become the habitats where more than 50% of humanity live – in the developed world more than 90%. This week will reframe cities from the bricks and mortar infrastructures of the visible city into a human system with consciousness, culture, behaviors and structures. This is the Integral City – a fractal that lies on the trajectory of living human systems, stretching from the individual, to the collective, to the city, to the planet Gaia (person, people, place, planet). This way of looking at the city assumes that it is a complex adaptive living system, evolutionary in its nature and integrative in its potential to serve the wellbeing of Gaia. If we have learned anything in 2020, it is at the scale of the city where humans make life and death decisions and where people have the opportunities to thrive or waste. The overriding purpose of this week is to inquire how people serve the wellbeing of the city and how the city serves the wellbeing of people, while together we serve the wellbeing of Gaia. THEME FOR THE WEEK The overarching theme of the Cities week is to help you experience your city/community as a dynamic living system. This week-long exploration will offer a variety of lenses, tools and practices—and opportunities for you to reflect—that will enable you to best serve your city/community so that it can best serve you and together we can all serve the wellbeing of our planet, Gaia.

Monday: Notice your relationship with your city/community and your learning edges. Tuesday: Experience your city /community as a living system of complex, adaptive dynamics. Wednesday: Discover and explore the governing principles and structures that best support the local conditions of your city/community functions. Thursday: Generate ideas for your “civic practice" that will enable you to use the tensions in your city /community to shape your service to your city/community so that it can best serve you. Friday: Notice how you and we are mobilizing with regenerative action in ways that enable relationships of reciprocity with, within and from cities/communities, ecoregions and Gaia. PARTICIPANTS AKA REFLECTIVE PRACTITIONERS For short biographies go here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xW8wkHHQSqvckagarKdQs5rtqO4WKF_iuYa2p5mAQvw/edit Jim Garrison, Ubiquity University Sabinje von Gaffke, Humanity Rising · Hani Quan, Life Coach, Social Entrepreneur, Canada · Jorge Garza, Future Cities, McConnell Foundation · Hugo Araujo, Founder 7Vortex, Mexico, Belgium · Taina Ketola, Public Sector Specialist, Finland · Andres Malave, Cultural Consultant, Nantes, France · Mark McCaffrey, Founder Co-Focal ECOS, Author Climate Smart & Energy Wise, Initiator Powers of 10 Framework , Italy · Stanley Nyoni, The Natural Step Consultant Africa, Sweden · Paddy Pampallis, Founder Integral Coach Africa · Raji Jayasinghe, Ubiquity U Youth Initiatives, Sri Lanka · Luis Camargo, Biomimicry Expert, Columbia · Katerina Zalamova, Smart Cities Expert · Lev Gordon, Co-Founder of Living Cities Russia Association · MiraMichelle Jones, Founder The Sacred Female Rising Institute, Shaman · Tesoc Hah, Architect, Seoul Korea · Soni Dasmohapatra · Keren Tang, Public Health Professional, Participatory City, McConnell Foundation · Taisa Mattos, Global Ecovillage Network, Brazil · Indra Adnan, Journalist, Founder Alternative UK · Shweta Srisastav, Design Researcher, Architect, Sustainability Consultant, India & Netherlands · Julian Baller, ED Co-Creating Europe · Yene Assegid, International Coach, Ghana, Africa · Vandana Shiva, Author Earth Democracy, India GUIDING PRINCIPLES, ROLES & FACILITATION In designing our week we have set 4 guiding principles: Enable various levels of participation Enable agency at scale Display and integrate diversity of faces and experiences Make the community system visible to itself

We have also defined 4 Roles for each day.

Convenors Welcome the assembly Hosts Host and guide the process / conversation Add insight and perspective Reflective practitioners Demonstrate the practice of reflecting in action Share their reflection publicly, and relevant stories Focus reflective practitioner Share ways of thinking about cities Reflect on the reflection Engage in discussion about how “a model” can be used in practice, in the city

Behind the scenes we also have support from: 7 Vortex, meshwork visualizers, etc.

Facilitation for each day will use the Guiding Principles and include: for the chat function to stop, to allow for personal reflection explicit opportunities to for the chat community ideas to be integrated with those of the guests post-session- facilitated gathering where people can meet each other, find people with similar interests, in the same part of the world, language, etc. (see ChatAction below) ChatAction Group - please join the conversation by adding your ideas and questions using shared document TBD

DAY THEMES, MESSAGE, GUIDING QUESTIONS DAY 2021 THEME, MESSAGE + GUIDING QUESTIONS Day 1 Mon Jan 11 AQtivating cities at scale Cities thrive when we activate agency at scale

What is your learning edge? How would you describe your learning edge? Where is your learning edge?

Day 2 Tue Jan 12 Living in cities as complex adaptive systems Cities are living systems with consciousness and culture, in addition to behaviours and infrastructure

How do you experience the linear city? How do you experience the city as a living system? Where do you see the city as a living system coming alive? How to amplify the city as a living system? What happens when we act as if the city is a living system?

Day 3 Wed Jan 13 Governing with life-cycle patterns Cities are where we can practice governance with local conditions and needs in mind

What can the city learn from its eco-region? What are the universal principles that can guide / inform city life? How is mutual trust and respect core to civility? How does (explicit) governance shift from hierarchy primarily to hierarchy and self-organizing? What minimal critical structure is needed to support self-organizing in the city? Under what conditions? When? The role of (city) government is shifting… from what to what?

Day 4 Thur Jan 14 Practicing mutual agency Cities are living systems of mutual agency, a survival skill. A diversity of practices enables us to serve our cities well so they serve us well in return

What behaviours of mine enable or disable the agency of others? What are the tensions I experience in the city around me? How do they indicate the improvements I wish to make to the city? What is my calling in service to the city? How do I trust that others will do what I am not doing? How/why is mutual trust and respect core to the quality of your life in the city?

Day 5 Fri Jan 15 Integrating coherence for regenerativity Cities are vehicles for regeneration when we take responsibility for our relationship with the ecoregion

What experiments are you conducting? Who do you experiment with? What feedback channels do you use? Could you use? What is regenerating in you? Survive, connect, regenerate Master code Scale How does culture impact context and feedback to give us information re coherence? Why/how is regeneration important to the city? PART 2: THE COMMUNITY IN CONVERSATION WITH ITSELF After the daily HR Zoom session, the Moderators and Reflective Practitioners (who are able) will join the ChatAction Group in their Zoom Meeting format. Here is the general design for this 60-90-minute session:

Who Hosts: ChatAction Group (Lesley Southwick-Trask and Hilary Van Welter and others) Beth and Marilyn will actively participate, along with other Cities Rising guests

Opportunities Model participatory leadership Reflect on the day “Feed” the next day Enable the community to see itself :)

What A hosted dialogue / intentional dialogue Facilitated Large group Small group conversations Large group Empowering conversations to take to my municipality… By Friday, into activation -- how do we do this intentionally in community In out in out in out IN OUT IN OUT IN OUT

Supports Living library: Othernetworks.org Hub to index action: origin.org (activated in the New Year) How our acting is connected (USE AS A PROTOTYPE IN CITIES WEEK) Hunger work Documentary on Humanity Rising Peace week in March -- To make a voluntary contribution to support the partner organizations and the Humanity Rising team, please see our contribution form. Each Zoom live webinar will have a maximum capacity of 500 participants. If you are not able to join on Zoom, we will be live streaming here on the UbiVerse and on: UU Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UbiquityUniversityOnline UU YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/UbiquityUniversity AwakeTV: https://www.awaketvnetwork.live/humanity-rising-channel Category City, Ecoregion, Community, EducationSpirit & Soul, IndustryEconomics & Finance, eChange & Innovation, Sustainability, Regenerativity