Integral City Inquiry and Action

Integral City Inquiry and Action continues Marilyn Hamilton's (and her colleagues') rather unique exploration into the application and extension of Integral Metatheory (and related disciplines) into the entire urban landscape and all of its dimensions, aspects, functions, and qualities. The modern city is the most complex social structure that exists, as far as we know, anywhere in the universe, and as such it is made to order for an Integral approach. This is exactly what Marilyn and her team do. The results are illuminating, novel, insightful, extremely useful and urgently needed. What Integral City tells us, among numerous important specific insights, is that any approach that is less comprehensive or less integral is doomed to failure, because only an integrally pluralistic theory and practice will cover all the truly important bases. These important bases are carefully elucidated in 16 chapters, each one covering a significant ingredient of a genuinely integral approach to city planning, living, exploring, discovering, applying. My congratulations to the authors for another profound, timely, and superb work! - Ken Wilber, Philosopher, Integral Theorist, Author: The Integral Vision, Sex Ecology & Spirituality, Integral Psychology, A Brief History of Everything The unusual and captivating hero of this book is the city. Not an inert mass of buildings, but a collective, a hive, a holarchy that brings people and processes of inquiry together in action. This human centered approach to systems of a city offers well chosen sticky concepts, grounded in practice and expressed with a simplicity that belies their complexity. What's more, the book offers tons of great questions and grounded frameworks that help us articulate Gaia's reflective capacity. It's a resource for action researchers in the field of urban planning and perhaps for all whole systems/integration oriented professionals. - Hilary Bradbury, PhD, Professor (OHSU), Editor Handbook of Action Research & Action Research Journal, Convener, AR+. Integral practitioners will benefit from this book by seeing concrete practices they can do to transform integral theory into integral action. City specialists will benefit from finally having a comprehensive map and set of methodologies that can engage the many crucial dimensions of the city in an integrative way. - Sean Esbjoern-Hargens PhD, Author Integral Ecology: Uniting Multiple Perspectives on the Natural World, Coauthor Metatheory for the Twenty-First Century, Founder and Chief Design Officer MetaIntegral Associates This book is truly a feast of insight, innovation and simplicity on the other side of urban complexity.... The bottom line is that if you feel in over your head regarding catalyzing cities to thrive, then upgrade not only your head but also your heart and skills by reading and using this book. - Barrett C. Brown, PhD, Executive Coach and Author of The Future of Leadership for Conscious Capitalism This is a comprehensive hands-on guide that connects up the dots so you can take as much of the city into account as possible-in your research, decision-making and interventions. A must for all those working in the cities of today's world. - Peter Merry, Chief Innovation Officer, Ubiquity University