Praise for
For those who make the city, andespeciallycities, their life/work place par excellence, this is probably the most comprehensive, inclusive and balanced framing of their fieldbroadly, and integrally, definedthat they are ever likely to encounter. It focuses on reframing complex challenges, but the mainalmost pre-requisitechallenge involves a fundamental reframing of their own, whole, selves, in a wholeness-privileging project like no other.
This is not for the faint of heart, or the weak of will; it actually calls for an extraordinary generosity of spirit, and an embrace of the fundamental spirituality of it all. Practitioners will be called to account, and especially to care, to an unprecedented degree. Professionals will be challenged to address not simply what they profess, but how andespecially whythey profess, in ways that will shake them to their professional core. Purpose will become the object of exquisite discernmentongoingly, alwayswith reflection-in-action as default mode.
In bald terms the call is to deepen care, raise context and widen capacity: to go on an outer and inner journeyto take caring to new levels, and new levels of mastery; to scale up and outand down and in, addressing evolution and involution; and to aim for a capacity of overview that is also an integration, an integration-in-action that is as much spirituality-in-action. The explicatory framing is applied Integral theory, leavened by Spiral Dynamics, with a guide who is first and foremost a practitioner, who very much walks her talkwith the sensibility of a grandmother caring deeply for the world being bequeathed to her granddaughter. The author models integral as a reframe of professional, and we wonderwho might be inclined to follow her example?
Drawing on the metaphor of the city as human hive, and inspired by the incredibly productive life of bees, you will be challenged to identify the 20 kilos of honey that defines your purpose, and your modus operandi. It will engage not only your minding (your normal thinking) but will take you very much into the realms of your hearting and souling. The understanding on offer is as much an over-standing (and an inner-standing, and an outer-standing). It takes all-round and as-a-whole to mind-boggling new interpretations; and your caring will never be the same, nor as nuanced, again; care-taking takes on a whole new visceral meaning.
Being proficient, or professionalor simply being a human being rather than a human doingis further reframed as beeing for Gaia. The provenance is as delicious as life-sustaining honey.
Ian Wight PhD FCIP GTB, Senior Scholar, City Planning, University of Manitoba
Where do we begin to heal our world in crisis? Marilyn Hamilton has chosen one key entry pointthe citythe unit of human culture she calls the human hive. And she has explored, in many diverse ways, how cities can make wise choices to address their challenges and create more healthy futures.
Dr. Hamilton helps her reader understand cities and how to foster civic regeneration by looking through a rich suite of powerful integrative lenses. Each reveals something unique about the life of a city, and they reveal the patterns that connect the peculiar challenges and opportunities of thousands of cities.
In the three Integral City volumes she synthesizes and applies an encyclopedic range of powerful integrative frames to help cities dialogue skillfully, plan consciously and evolve cooperatively. She is one of the most creative social architects applying integral and evolutionary tools to practical real-world challenges. If you care to understand a city, the Integral City books are a crash course in bringing a birds-eye meta-systemic intelligence to the task.
The third volume may be the most ambitious and elegant of them all. It reframes the means with which we can bring our best intelligence to the hyper-complex challenges of the 21st Century in terms of care, context and capacity, a useful original system for understanding different crucial dimensions of what must be necessary for successful collaboration among a citys stakeholders. Her writings renew hope by uncovering and highlighting many hidden opportunities for cities to lead the way toward a regeneration of human culture amidst our crises of fragmentation.
Terry Patten , Author A New Republic of the Heart:An Ethos for Revolutionaries , Co-Author Integral Spiritual Practise , Founder Integral Heart
No longer are cities defined by a single slowly evolving Worldview as they have tended to be up until the erosion of both modern and post-modern Worldviews failed to provide fair, equitable and resilient cities for all. Current trends in sustainable or smart cities have proved insufficient to encompass and include the degree of complex thinking needed. A complexity that defies individual or expert group planning. A complexity that needs to involve us all in the development of self-organising evolving cities which allow us to define who we are and what we want from our co-created urban environment. A city capable of holding various cultures and Worldviews that can be technically resilient and can be socially relevant and culturally inclusive for all its citizens. Marilyns Integral City 3.7 and the other two earlier volumes are part of the evolving process that defines the actions we all need to be involved in if our cities are to be places we love to be a part of.
Paul van Schaik , Founder Integral MENTORS , Creator and publisher of the Integral UrbanHub seriesThriveable Cities and Executive Director Integral Without Borders
Imagine human hives who know how to connect. They can map their existing connections, align people to purpose and priorities. They can amplify what works, let go of what doesnt and continuously improve the value they contribute to Gaia [Appendix F1: Imagine the City as a Human Hive]. From the breadth and depth of her work, Hamiltons third book in the Integral City series appears to be a scientific and philosophical exploration of the challenges facing a burgeoning humanity increasingly nested in urban environments. But it is much more than that. It is also a handbook for stewards of the growth and structure of living cities as well as for curators of complex evolutionary learning communities. Her work explores the scientific bases for the emergence of collective wellbeing in hypercomplex human communities and their potential for expressing intelligence through networked connections between and among them. In an age of increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environments, Hamiltons work is an essential guide for understanding the evolution of a city as a learning system and how to fulfill its potential as a true expression of Gaia.
Alexander Laszlo , PhD,
- 57th President of the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS) and Chair of the Board of Trustees
- President of the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (BCSSS)
- President of the Honorary Board of Advisors of the World Complexity Science Academy (WCSA)
- Director of the Doctoral Program in Leadership and Systemic Innovation at the Buenos Aires Institute of Technology (ITBA)
What is truly amazing about the book and its author is that they serve as guides for the real-world heroes dealing with the real-world issues, while offering a direct connection to the timeless dimension of ever-present Wisdom and Wholeness.
Integral City 3.7 is an indispensable aide for anyone reaching beyond the obvious and mundane in a beautiful journey to holistic living in the cities we could consciously co-create.
