februari 2015

At the core of the challenge we face is the inevitable uncertainty of dynamic combination human-natural systems. Rapid modifications of biophysical systems have the potential to trigger regime shifts —abrupt and irreversible changes—that will have significant consequences. It is clear that the likelihood of regime shifts is higher in ecosystems where humans have reduced resilience by modifying biogeochemical cycles, altering hydrological regimes, reducing biodiversity, and changing the magnitude, frequency, and duration of disturbance regimes. We know these are hard problems to solve, but they are by no means impossible. A new understanding of our relationship to the natural and designed…

The lifeblood of cities, the city dwellers, who have a life of their own and who introduce human fuzziness and socio-cultural variables, create a gigantic scenario of human possibilities and achievements. Just like their inhabitants, cities must constantly reinvent themselves in order to develop and keep themselves alive. They are alive with movement. A rapid flow of exchange is facilitated by a meshwork of infrastructure connections. Transport grids, building complexes, information and communication technology, social networks and people form the bones, organs, muscles, nerves and cell tissue of a city. City districts grow and change their character, people change their…

The old urban crisis, characterized by the decline of central cities, still has not been addressed adequately. Business districts shrank; economic, political, and cultural centers diminished in size and function; once-fashionable residential neighborhoods fell into decline; and deterioration, crime, and emerged in despair and poverty. Communities today face a complex range of social, environmental, and economic challenges. There is growing debt at household, government and corporate levels, and wages are not keeping pace with the cost of living. The gap between the rich and the poor is becoming bigger, not smaller. Many communities are seeing that new ways of addressing…