The book ‘Deeper City: collective intelligence and the pathways from smart to wise’ – (also known as Urban 3.0) – is published by Routledge – Deeper City

…or download the Deeper City flyer

WHY WRITE A BOOK ON THE DEEPER CITY?

(some deeper questions are to be explored…)

deeper questions

VISUAL THINKING

Deeper City uses the visual as an essential mode of thinking, suitable for problems of deeper complexity, where the rational left-brain has to connect with other wider and deeper layers, of not only individual but collective intelligences….

Here are the full page Pathway Mapping graphics for download…

Chapter 1 – prologue

Chapter 2 – outlook

Chapter 3 – toolkits

Chapter 4 – cities

Chapter 5 – economies

Chapter 6 – ecologies

Chapter 7 – technologies

Chapter 8 – politicals

Chapter 9 – insights

Chapter 10 – local-global 

Chapter 11 – mind-games – part A

Chapter 11 – mind-games – part B

Chapter 11 – mind-games – part C

Chapter 11 – post-script – Pandemic-III

(All graphics: Creative Commons licence 4.0 applies:  colour versions are available on request)

OUTLINE & SYNOPSIS

Hyper-urbanization, rampant inequality, climate change, invasive technology, elite power grabs – all are catastrophically open questions.  For up to 10 billion people to live on one planet in peace and prosperity, this calls for a rethink on how to organize our cities and economies and societies.

We need a next-generation ‘operating system’, a new social contract. We need some kind of collective intelligence which can learn and think ahead. This is about more than ‘clever’ production of stuff, and more than ‘smart’ cities of surveillance. This is about the human dimension – ‘wise’ (or at least ‘wiser’), in all possible ways.

Deeper City is the world’s first mapping of such a collective intelligence, with its many deeper layers.  It’s also about designing pathways, from ‘smart’ systems of ‘winner-takes-all’, to ‘wise’ (or at least ‘wiser’) systems of ‘winners-are-all’.  The result is a ‘starter pack’ of 40 pathways ‘from smart to wise’, together with practical guidance:

  • Cities-III: from ‘smart to wise’ in the spatial dimension, where urban structures can self-organize and co-evolve.
  • Economies-III: from ‘evolutionary to co-evolutionary’, with new thinking on local-onomics, circul-onomics and wiser finance.
  • Ecologies-III: from ‘ecosystems services to eco-social-communities’, with pathways for food, climate change and adaptation.
  • Technologies-III: from ‘smart platforms to collective human-artificial intelligence’, in digital services, education and science.
  • Political-III: from ‘power-over hierarchy to power-with networks’, with pathways for organizations, public services, political economy.
  • Local-Global-III: from ‘smart overseas development to wiser global co-evolution’, with practical setup of the Multi-versity (where everyone learns with everyone).
  • Mind-Games follows a (fictional) experiment in graphic storylining, in which the pathways take off on a wilder tangent…

With pictures and conversations, a field manual and examples, this book helps to build bridges between vision, theory and practice.  Deeper City is for those seeking a sustainable future, from local to global – researchers and policy-makers, inventors and investors, students and teachers, analysts and activists – anyone who could use a map for the perils and promises ahead.

 CONTENTS:

 Prologue: Outlooks: Toolkits: Cities: Economies: Ecologies: Technologies: Politicals: Insights: Pathways:  Mind-Games

Joe Ravetz is Co-Director of the Collaboratory for Urban Resilience at the Manchester Urban Institute. He is author of City-Region 2020, a systems consultant and visual facilitator for UK, EU and international organizations.