Recently, Marcia Caton Campbell, Milwaukee Director of the
Center for Resilient Cities, brought this book to our attention: Thriving Beyond Sustainability: Pathways to a Resilient Society, by Andrés R. Edwards. According to the author,
what we find in the book is inspiration and catalytic ideas for social,
economic and environmental change. The inspiration comes from stories of small
and large initiatives undertaken by people, organizations and communities
around the world. Rejuvenating, restoring and reinventing are key themes in moving
toward a thriveable future.
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| Courtesy of New Society Publishers. |
“Edwards presents a SPIRALS framework for projects that are Scaleable,
Place-Making, Intergenerational, Resilient, Accessible, Life-affirming and
involve Self-care. The framework reaches from the individual, household or
local level to larger-scale regional, national or international projects and
initiatives. He describes the SPIRALS characteristics as interdependent and
evolving activities, grounded in a model of abundance rather than one of scarcity.
“Edwards also provides examples from around the
world ranging from campus greening to the greening of commerce through new
business models, from innovations in energy and environmental systems to the
development of new tools and metrics for measuring progress – and all of this shared
worldwide through open-source technologies.”
Wanting to explore more deeply the fundamental values of resilience – and how these play out on the ground – the staff at the Center for Resilient Cities has been researching initiatives, projects, programs and images that we believe exemplify the breadth and depth of resilience. What we’re learning is that resilience comes in many forms. In future posts, we’ll delve more deeply into what we believe are the core resilience concepts. We’ll share examples we’ve found that inspire us in our work – and we hope you’ll tell us about the examples of resilience that inspire you.
Wanting to explore more deeply the fundamental values of resilience – and how these play out on the ground – the staff at the Center for Resilient Cities has been researching initiatives, projects, programs and images that we believe exemplify the breadth and depth of resilience. What we’re learning is that resilience comes in many forms. In future posts, we’ll delve more deeply into what we believe are the core resilience concepts. We’ll share examples we’ve found that inspire us in our work – and we hope you’ll tell us about the examples of resilience that inspire you.
Sustainability is one of the most overused word in our industry. Isn't Resilience a more tangible concept and feasible to monitor? Isn't sustainability, at best, a feature of resilience?
ReplyDeleteIf we put the discussion about the technology on hold for a moment and focus on communities, is it possible to measure how sustainable they are over time or what we are actually measuring and trying to achieve is a resilient community?
I agree that sustainability is an overused word. It may well be a feature of resilience.) What I find so compelling about resilience theory and its practical applications is that it incorporates the idea of adaptation over time, to changing circumstances. If we focus on communities -- one of my favorite areas of our work on which to focus -- then, yes, we are attempting to measure and achieve resilient communities. More to the point, we're trying to learn from the indigenous or local knowledge that people in communities already have, build upon what they know by bringing additional skills and expertise (and a different way of knowing) to the mix, and then seeing how far we can take new ideas that emerge, in collaborative partnership. We pilot projects and programs, track progress, measure outcomes (using both "soft" and "hard" metrics), evaluate, reframe, improve...and increase resilience over and over again.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment -- you're our first commenter!
Does sustainability mean representing the wishes of future generations in our development choices today? Is resilience about supporting networks and technologies that maximize the choices available now and in the future? Perhaps sustainability is more of a class of considerations than an ethos. And resilience seems more like a way of world-making than a criteria overlay. I'm not convinced the two ideas really occupy the same space, much less that one could be subsumed within the other. What's clear is that they are both valid and useful descriptors of behavior. As an architect I have become very precise in using 'sustainable' and avoid it when 'ecological diversiy' or 'healthy' or 'social equity' are the desired connotation. But in our multiple and varied world the meanings inevitably (and thankfully) overlap.
ReplyDelete