From an overhead view we see Africa divided into countries. Visualize as it is geographically, a live continent. Slowly all the "hot spots" of armed conflict appear as beacons in red. The intensity of color is based upon length of conflict and intensity. Then come the areas of instability where armed conflict could break out or just was recently resolved in an orange. How much of the continent and its people are affected by these areas? (A lot) Next we fly over the continent looking at everybody. The poverty, the hate, the greed, the compassion, the love, the utter hopelessness of the situation so many find themselves, a kaleidoscope of human life. We also see the natural and insecurity embodied in it. All these motives, all these things, we feel them, we see it. What is this? What is the answer contained in the sum total of all this life? What is too big for a person to conceptualize/grasp and project solutions on?
Is planning over-complicated on the macro-level? Visualize like SimCity. Zoom in, zoom out, and treat people like automatons. I would say that the problem with development is related to the ability to perceive. The larger your view, the more you have turn people and things into numbers. Once everything is just a collection of statistics, you lose the dynamic of how they act/react in the real world. There has to be a level of disassociation. You can't plan for every single individual. You need to be able to see the dominoe effects of actions from an overhead perspective.
Imagine city planners working in a blimp, or zeppelin, anything that hovers above a city that is just below the cloud level, maybe lower. As construction is taking place and the city developing, they can see how the entire city, more like a larger portion of it, is affected organically. They become trained to see, to project, what projects will do to the overall dynamic of areas. By seeing it in a more complete way, it simply isn't a matter of numbers, and things can be done on more of a micro-level too.
I really like this idea.
2 comments:
Thought of different concepts coming together in this post. For now, no discussion of Africa, because that can go a lot of places(ad-hoc boundaries, "tribal groups", colonial development/lack of fundamental institutions). We do need to start looking more at both the big picture and local variables.
The big picture relates to how our activites interact with the rest of the environment. As "Crade to Cradle" discusses, our manufacturing needs to analyze more how all its products and byproducts(and inputs) affect the rest of the area/country/world.
We also need to loosen up some regulations/common conceptions of how things(mostly buildings but also general land use) should be built/comport to the localized environment(also "Cradle to Cradle", with some Buckminster, among others, thrown in). Too much standardization of materials and styles has taken away both the distinctness of architecture/land use and has ignored the incentives to different building techniques. I won't discuss the many examples in the book, since you already know them.
Finally, part of the problem with the way we look at things economically is the focus on GDP(was this also in "Cradle to Cradle", or did I read it somewhere else..."The End of Economic Man" probably discussed it too). There needs to be a push away from material development to personal development. Why can't America move towards a labor system designed more like Europe with less hours worked per week and more days off?
I am trying to get away from the belief, but I believe that, as you mention in a previous post, something big(something bad) will have to happen before we change our ways. If that is the case, shouldn't we be asking how best to prepare?
I don't think the European labor model is best. Less hours and more vacation just isn't competitive. That sounds totally contrary to arguments about improving working life and not yielding to the manufacturing pressures of developing countries. My main issue is that the European way is too regulated. This causes workers to feel obligated to some form of reward even if they do not perform up to par. People should be able to work less and have a decent wage. But, the population also needs to be more productive when using its free time. Allowing "full-time" to be 35 hours per week is silly if people go home, sit on the couch, and watch 5 more hours of American Idol and such.
There needs to be a change in the working environment and the role of the worker. Whatever people do, they need to appreciate and somewhat enjoy it. Make the company a more enriching experience. Don't define yourself by your work, define your work.
There is a strong undercurrent that GDP should be eliminated as the measure of growth, but I can't see any official ever truly believing it. Though, I would be very interested to see what more countries in Northern Europe (Sweden, Denmark, etc.) think. They appear to be more progressive about this type of thing, though I am not a scholar of the region.
Post a Comment