CITIES
Rapidly growing cities are affecting the well-being of residents
SEI Initiative on City Health and Well-being
An initiative from the Stockholm Environment Institute on City Health and Well-being investigates how rapidly-growing cities are affecting the wellbeing of residents, and how this interacts with the overall health of city systems.
Using novel approaches to investigate how evolving cities affect residents’ well-being and how this interacts with the overall health of city systems.
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We are aiming with Mobilized to create a vibrant forum for ideas. “Big deal”, you might say, there are already places for that.
Well, you’re not wrong. There was, in the earliest days of the web, a loose and wild forum called The Well. The great and powerful Google had as it’s mission the goal of “bringing all the knowledge of the world to every person”… before it pivoted to a new goal of just making money off of what it knows about us. That change was a real pity. There have been sites such as Wiser Earth, which aimed to be a global directory of people and non-profit organizations so that collaboration could happen on a larger scale than ever before. It lasted about two years, sadly; not long enough to create a legacy. Huffington Post had a good run in its’ early days, sharing ideas widely and helping to boost its’ contributors in the public’s mind.
What’s important to know, is that as of this writing, there is not really a widely recognized forum online or in ‘meat-space’. There are print publications such as YES! magazine, Tikkun, The Sun Magazine, and The Utne Reader, all of which which reach a population of hundreds thousands. Great, but their reach could be even more broad, in my humble opinion. Within social media sites there are plenty of good ‘groups’ but they also don’t reach enough folks outside of their own memberships.
Probably the most popular comparable live events right now are the TED talks, which do serve a valuable purpose. Sadly, they also tend toward the ‘Gee-Whiz‘ and the ‘Shiny New Buzzword‘ in their contents. Mobilized really wants to focus on the proven, the existing, and the hidden. There are already, all over, groups doing wonderful work, but too many of them are laboring in obscurity.
So, how do we do that? Well to begin with, we’re not trying to be a technology startup. There is no secret sauce, no fancy algorithm at work here. Almost all the underlying code behind Mobilized is made with off-the-shelf parts, such as WordPress. There is zero reason to re-invent the wheel, and frankly the notion that one must do so has tripped up several earlier attempts at building a successful progressive community. We take the approach of using the tools at hand to build our house.
Secondly, we are going into the future with an eye firmly on the past. And that leads us to the point of this essay, a look at how America became America. We can take many lessons from the past. One of our best ideas as a nation was the Chautauqua movement. It had it’s heyday from the 1870’s right up until the beginning of World War II. In part, it helped spawn a Lyceum movement, the Vaudeville traditions in the theater world; and had an effect on the earliest days of the motion-picture industry. Here’s why it was so popular: the average person, anywhere in the land, could go to a Chautauqua when it came to their town, and engage in spirited discussion with the brightest minds of the day. It was direct, person-to-person, and offered a mix of local and national ideas and people; presented on a rotating basis. So ideas could be hashed out and spread rapidly. And they did. In no small part due to these two movements, the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age were defeated. The Great Depression was tackled too, and along the way no less than Susan B. Anthony, Teddy Roosevelt and Mark Twain became huge fans. No part of society could, or wanted to, ignore the notion that average people could teach other average people.
Mobilized aims to help bring that back into common understanding. In the present era, there may well be a place for tents and lecturers setting up in farmer’s fields. There certainly is a crying need for an educational platform that is accessible to the masses. And now, there exist enough robust tools for us to re-create the ethos of a Chautauqua on the internet.
We, the people, when it really mattered and the stakes were high, collectively taught ourselves how to better ourselves. Now, in every corner of the world, the stakes are once again pretty high. It is time for a new Chautauqua movement, and this one will be truly global. So step right up, come on inside our virtual tent. Welcome to the show.
At a time of rapid change, there is a better way forward. A path that leads to optimal health and well-being, hope and happiness.
Localization.
As globalization and consolidation has changed many of the ways we live and work, it has also contributed to the depletion of resources, on-going pandemics and crises and human suffering.
For four decades, Local Futures has revitalized communities and local economies around the world
Mobilized spent about one hour speaking with the visionary founder of Local Futures to the ideas into action for a better way forward.
“A new human story founded on connection and diversity is emerging. It’s called localization.”
Helena Norberg-Hodge, Founder and Director is the founder and director of Local Futures/ISEC. A pioneer of the ‘new economy’ movement, she has been promoting an economics of personal, social and ecological well-being for more than forty years. She is the producer and co-director of the award-winning documentary The Economics of Happiness, and the author of several books, including Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh, described as “an inspirational classic”, and most recently Local is Our Future. She was honored with the Right Livelihood Award (or ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’) for her groundbreaking work in Ladakh, and received the Goi Peace Prize for contributing to “the revitalization of cultural and biological diversity, and the strengthening of local communities and economies worldwide.”
Become a Mobilized Collaborator in Creation and help to transform the news to the stories that serve, inspire and empower our collective human potential. Sign up now to be a collaborator in creation
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