The City We Became

The lesson for cities, writes N.K Jemisin is that they are much like any other living thing: they are born, mature, get weary and die. She writes about cities with soul, but also the dark sides that threaten to destroy them and the ways in which cities can ‘make a weight on the world, a tear in the fabric of reality, like black holes... Eventually it gets so deep that it forms a pocket, connected only by the thinnest thread of whatever cities are made of’.

Nature is Here

Across the south-east freeway overpass near where l live I can see the 5-lane car-clogged highway and city sprawl. Over the bridge there is a high timber barrier that separates the freeway from the walking/cycle path near the main arc of the river. There is a piece of graffiti that simply says - NATURE WAS HERE.

Living Systems I

Nature is still here of course – in the sky, air, mycrobiomes, humans, plants, water, the materials of the wooden barrier – but transformed or displaced through urban processes. While some communities have thrived, many have not and what is critical is understanding who benefits and loses, and who gets left behind. How to think deeply and take action to protect what is at stake.

Living Systems II

Wild weather, wild capitalism, wild people and wild politics have shaped cities like Naarm/Melbourne. Vast power asymmetries exist, but that does not preclude radical care and empathy in a wounded world. Working out how to live together in ways that are ethical and realistic. The starting point for planetary civics is the entangled vitality of living systems and communities – ‘life itself’.

Let’s Reimagine

Creative and collaborative work– whether real or fictional – helps us regenerate. Design, storytelling, science, sociology, music, philosophy, history, art, ecology and grassroots activism are needed to see the world in new, generative ways.

Radical civic practices can transform individuals, community, spaces and places and will come in many forms. This includes the power to captivate and engage , raise and respond to questions, inspire ethics, empathy and mobilise action.