Asking the Right Questions

On October 1, 2012, St. Andrew's United Church and the Halifax Shambhala Centre jointly sponsored an all-candidates forum for the mayoral election titled "Values and Vision: Behind Policies and Beyond Platitudes".

From my notes on Values and Vision what mayoralty candidates advanced:

Growth and Prosperity

Taking care of everyone

Sharing the wealth

Education

A lot more compassion

Caring for fellow citizens

Taking care of each other

Too much apathy

Inclusiveness

Compassion

Everyone feels like they belong

Kindness & Generosity & Respect

Social cohesion

Taking responsibility

Wealth creation for everyone

On diversity and inclusion:

We can do better

Not turning a blind eye

Engage community

Training and mentoring

Nurturing

On urban/rural HRM:

Empower communities

On what's sacred:

Everything!

Understanding the needs of the people

Conversations

Listening

Respect

Authentic Leadership

While the values and vision expressed here is all very well intentioned and designed to feel good, does any of it actually take the 2012 bull by the horns?

There was a question raised about membership in Mayors for Peace, a Program to Promote the Solidarity of Cities around the world toward the Total Abolition of Nuclear Weapons. Halifax is conspicuously absent from Mayors for Peace city roster of 5400+ including 96 Canadian cities. Might this have something to do with our city's centuries long alignment to defence and current commitment to defence industries? At least 3 of the 5 candidates for mayor expressed that they would be in favour of joining Mayors for Peace.


		Capabilities	Directory	“Likes”

2012-09-19	Asking the Right Questions
	I skipped the Halifax mayoralty all candidates debate at the Lord Nelson Hotel this evening. For some months now I've held the conviction that we really need to confront some larger questions — larger than pot holes and convention centres... Those near and far know my sermon. I even delivered it quickly to Mike Savage on the Seahorse Tavern steps last spring. This week it's clear that rather than speaking — I might better be writing my piece. Sunday night I attended what might have been Halifax's first ever salon on SPIRAL DYNAMICS. Last night I was in the packed to the brim cinema for the AFF screening of Rob Stewart's REVOLUTION. This Friday is ZERO EMISSIONS DAY a chance to pause and reflect for 24 hours while not contributing to the big unrelenting fossil fuel burn. The big question is really on everyone's mind, and yet it almost never comes up. What are we doing? What do we really want to do? — not so much as individuals but as a city — *what do we really* want to align to? Let me explain. If one looks back at Halifax through time, this city has been aligned to defence. For over 200 years Halifax has done a remarkable job at that. One can count about 50 built fortifications through time including the current naval base and Shearwater. Our city's bones are all about defence**.

	Post WWII, this focus has waned somewhat (although we're told Nova Scotia’s aerospace and defence industries contribute by far the lion's share of provincial GDP even today). Building forts was fashionable and happening the world over — one could even say necessary — in centuries past. During the cold war and ever since brick and mortar forts and the cannons of earlier years provide much less protection than skilful diplomacy. Since the last great war, perhaps the single biggest influence on city design all over North America has been the car. We've aligned and designed our city and civilization to car convenience to such a great extent, that we'd be lost with out them.


	Having a well protected city and a sound transportation infrastructure would seem to have merit, and yet by simply following what's been happening in other jurisdictions, Halifax may have come to a dead end. Forts that aren't crumbling have tourist — but not defensive — value. Personally owned automobiles are the least efficient and most energy-intensive means of transportation. Turning the city into a Hots Wheels set rather than offering multi-modal, people-friendly mobility options comes at a high cost to the cityscape and to city-dwellers.		The big question is: *What do we really want to align to?*
	Can our city — our culture — actually mature if it doesn't fully engage in a conversation about what we really deeply value? Let's look at the facts: We are always building and leaving architectural artifacts for our children and subsequent generations that say what we as a society value most. We can copy trends that happen elsewhere and do what every other city is doing, or come up with our own ideas that embody our unique and distinctive values. The human heart naturally tends to want to align to something larger. Witness steeples for instance.

St. Matthew's shelters the homeless in winter.	Proposed Halifax Convention Centre expresses what values?		What were Stonehenge builders aligning to?

Gobekli Tepe (12,000 BP) predates the world's first cities in Anatolia and is the oldest known man-made religious structure.			Crystal Island, a proposed building project in Moscow, would be the largest structure on earth.
	Generally, folks are more concerned about pot holes and the like. Getting into larger questions is uncomfortable. Who wants to discuss values? And yet if we don't engage in conversations at a deeper level, we are always merely responding to problems and our city and culture manifest as reactive rather than creative. At a glance everything seems perfect in the moment and yet society in reality is more like a large ball of band aids placed one atop the other. We know that: the city will play an ever-increasingly important role in our lives; decisions about it's future will be made; buildings will result; infrastructures created and upgraded. Should we not really reflect on what we care about rather than leaving major decisions up to seeming happenstance, bureaucratic inertia, political maneuverering, or the whims of a select few? Marilyn Hamilton, author of Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive, refers to such an exploration as Appreciative Inquiry and describes it this way: "Appreciative inquiry is a way of coming together where we can bring together the whole collective that is the city and engage it in way that we can answer the questions: What's working around here? What's not working around here? And what is that we aspire to? What are our dreams for the future? "Out of this kind of inquiry we can actually start to get a picture of what it is that we have as a vision for our city and what are the values. And by bringing vision and values together we are going to be able to overtime shape a much clearer picture of what is the equivalent of our forty pounds of honey for the human hive. How much energy is that we would need to generate, and how much that we need to renew. What is it that we can return to the system. What is it that we draw from the environmental system so that there is a resilient cycle that we are part of contributing to in a positive way. "Meshworking utilizes those four perspectives from citizens, from civil society, from the workplaces, from all of the ways that we think about managing the city and also developing the city, and bringing together those capacities and values and the developmental levels of complexity and being able to align them so we can actually achieve our vision and live the values that really mean the most to us, that are life-giving and important to us." — from An introduction to "What is an Integral City" by Marilyn Hamilton on YouTube. See also: www.integralcity.com

World's largest Buddha Ling Shan near Shanghai 88 m, 700 tons	Burj Khalifa, Downtown Dubia Tallest manmade structure in the world 829.84 m		Tian Tan Buddha Lantau Island, Hong Kong 34 m, 250 tons
	From a design matters point of view, all this is quite crucial. Are we doing the right thing? In 2012 when we're selling tickets to orbit the moon, apparently cooking our planet with green house gases, and speeding through an anthropengenic sixth great extinction toward technological singularity, what would be an appropriate course of action for a city today? What ought we align to fundamentally? Here are a few ideas: A People Centred City 8-80 cities Art Celestial Alignment London's Aluna Project Clean air and water Children Collaboration Deep ecology Diversity Fossil Fuel Free City Kristianstad Genuine Progress (GPI) GPI Atlantic Gross National Happiness (GNH) Integral City Military Industrial New Economic Paradigm The Great Transition Prosperity Protecting Mother Earth Kogi people of Columbia Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth Reality Science Survival Ubuntu Sustainability While all sorts of notions swirl around in the background for everyone, it's rather rare that they're actually made explicit. Here are some steps in this direction: "Values and Vision: Behind Policies and Beyond Platitudes" On October 1, 2012, St. Andrew's United Church and the Halifax Shambhala Centre jointly sponsored an all-candidates forum for the mayoral election titled "Values and Vision: Behind Policies and Beyond Platitudes". From my notes on Values and Vision what mayoralty candidates advanced: Growth and Prosperity Taking care of everyone Sharing the wealth Education A lot more compassion Caring for fellow citizens Taking care of each other Too much apathy Inclusiveness Compassion Everyone feels like they belong Kindness & Generosity & Respect Social cohesion Taking responsibility Wealth creation for everyone On diversity and inclusion: We can do better Not turning a blind eye Engage community Training and mentoring Nurturing On urban/rural HRM: Empower communities On what's sacred: Everything! Understanding the needs of the people Conversations Listening Respect Authentic Leadership While the values and vision expressed here is all very well intentioned and designed to feel good, does any of it actually take the 2012 bull by the horns? There was a question raised about membership in Mayors for Peace, a Program to Promote the Solidarity of Cities around the world toward the Total Abolition of Nuclear Weapons. Halifax is conspicuously absent from Mayors for Peace city roster of 5400+ including 96 Canadian cities. Might this have something to do with our city's centuries long alignment to defence and current commitment to defence industries? At least 3 of the 5 candidates for mayor expressed that they would be in favour of joining Mayors for Peace.
	Halifax’s Vital Signs® Halifax’s Vital Signs®, 64 pages, 3.5MB PDF "Information included in the report compiled from current statistics and special studies look at twelve different, yet interconnected, issue areas that are critical to the well-being of HRM and its residents. Areas covered include: Getting Started, the Economy, Getting Around, Learning, Housing, Health and Wellness, Arts & Culture, the Environment, Safety, Shared Prosperity, Youth, and our Sense of Belonging." Take a look if you have not already. This is a fantastic starting place!
	Alternative Municipal Budget for the Halifax Regional Municipality (CCPA) On August 28, 2012, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Nova Scotia (CCPA-NS) released A Sustainable Vision for Our Community: Alternative Municipal Budget for the Halifax Regional Municipality "Now is the time to have serious discussions about what kind of community Halifax residents want for themselves and their neighbours." Now is the best time to start conversations about what we really care about for our city, make some lists, prioritize and over time try to commit to and embody the unity of values and vision we all share. Ken — update 2013-03-11
	Previous post Design matters matter
	Work with Ken Skype: sealevelns T: +1 (902) 444-4218 E: design@sealevel.ca Sealevel Special Projects is a member of CEP Local 2040.