This blog will be used to post Regional Community Development News and occasional thoughts relating to the greater community work that faces humanity today. Three years of publishing my newsletter has given me great confidence that working cooperatively across boundaries is being done all over the planet.
Tom
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
The current paper is here: "Prototype Global Coding of Political Geographies for Library and Data Management – Wikipedia Example" in Papers in Applied Geography. The first paper is "Global Region-builder Geo-Code Prototype" This project is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Humanity's Local Planet
Universe Man's place on earth is local and regional silmultaneously depending upon the system of regions, sub-regions of the planet as local wholes: continents, nations, states, provinces, districts, counties, shires, municipalities. etc., which have local regions within and between them which are capable of being greater communities at many scales.
To take advantage of opportunities/solve problems, the need for a greater than local/cross-boundary approach can be seen. Regional cooperation is the nominal tool, yet the goal is to be greater; have greater capacity, resources, market,…. Greater is regional; working across boundaries achieves it. Cooperation is possible when people recognize such regional community. This is regional intelligence: Greater Communities solving problems, of which security is foremost; altogether “community motive.”
"Community Motive" - What is it?
Prototype for Global Coding of Political Geographies Library and Data Management – Wikipedia Example
The system is based on a geocode scheme set up for earth that focuses on established political boundaries as a basis for regional grouping of nations, states and localities. It is decimal system based to take advantage of the sort criteria for numbers in computers. It utilized the Sector Group and Region codes of the United Nations and ISO. Geographic information system technology does not solve the problem, but its tools can be used with the geocodes.
The geocode system effectively organizes Wikipedia entries as a library management and the geocodes can be used for data aggregation. This has been developed under a Creative Commons license and would benefit from a global network implementation where local users cooperatively related subnational geographic regions and component political geography.
Examples are at the links which follow:
1. Global Geocode Library Use Organizes Wikipedia Pages Geographically
2. Global Geocode Library Use Organizes U.S. State Wikipedia Pages Geographically
Contact: Tom Christoffel
The current paper is here: "Prototype Global Coding of Political Geographies for Library and Data Management – Wikipedia Example" in Papers in Applied Geography. The first paper is "Global Region-builder Geo-Code Prototype" This project is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Search This Blog
Earth ( we know its a spherical whole)
Humanity's Local Planet
Universe Man at the Boundary
Local Planet - Regional Space
Our Local Planet has systems of Political Geographies which combine as Regional/Greater Communities
Universe Man's place on earth is local and regional silmultaneously depending upon the system of regions, sub-regions of the planet as local wholes: continents, nations, states, provinces, districts, counties, shires, municipalities. etc., which have local regions within and between them which are capable of being greater communities at many scales.
Community Motive – Three Thoughts by Tom Christoffel, FeRSA, 3/16/09-revised 9/29/09; 9/26/11
Based on my experience as a regional planner and agency director, 1973 -2008, and in recognition of emerging "regional communities," I developed three thoughts about community that relate to the challenge of working across-boundaries as greater or regional communities. The thoughts/theses apply for communities at the scale of bonding or bridging social capital as defined by Robert D. Putnam, which is alternately local or regional. (link below)
As of 2011, considering the global financial crisis brought about by pursuit of the "profit motive," it struck me that this has come to dominate modern life. This is a relatively new invention of civilization and wasn't a concern for most of the time that homo sapiens has been on the planet.
For more on Regional Community and Scale, see the Slideshare box below.
To learn about bridging and bonding social capital, read Chapter 1 of Bowling Alone: the collapse and revival of American community By Robert D. Putnam
The three thoughts below that had emerged in my experience of working on regional cooperation now represent what I now posit as the "community motive." Concern about "profit" can emerge within an established community over time, but, to my mind the "profit motive" does not exist in the wild.
1) Community precedes cooperation.
2) Community is how life solves all problems.
3) Security is the primary purpose of community.
These three thoughts, theses if you will, are the basis of the "community motive." Following is some exposition about each one.
1) Community precedes cooperation.
2) Community is how life solves all problems.
3) Security is the primary purpose of community.
These three thoughts, theses if you will, are the basis of the "community motive." Following is some exposition about each one.
As I see it, security has always been the priority for humans since the plains of Africa. That's why communities first seek to establish defensible boundaries. After the basics are in place, security focus shifts to the social and economic. Boundaries work like the membrane in the osmosis experiment most of us have seen in a science class. The membrane is a filter that lets the good things pass through, but keeps unwanted things out. (Osmosis -YouTube - 45 sec.)
The evolved political boundaries of today have consequence. The rules change when you cross them. Though marked on the ground and fortified in some instances, they are conceptual, as pictured above, with Universe Man. The boundary divides the space between local, that within, and regional, everything outside, as labeled in the second panel. The third panel repeats the image within, to show, without graphic elegance, that the land on which Universe Man sits is regional at another scale, as determined by other boundaries, and another area that's local. A territory is both local and regional, depending upon the perspective.
Communities of communities, “regional communities” are greater communities organized to solve a problem, be it managing a watershed, strengthening an economic cluster or ensuring peer competition for school sports. Regional boundaries can be imposed for administrative purposes within states, but for these to be a basis for effective cooperation, a greater community sense is needed for that geography among the people. This is true for multi-state and multi-national regional communities as well. The leaders with such a vision can build a regional community by finding that which is already in place.
This is not to suggest that community is easy to build in order to solve problems. In a crisis, humans of any culture, belief or politics can quickly come together and self-organize to save themselves and others. It was the on-the- ground response to the 9/11 attacks that demonstrated to me the deep responsiveness of human community, as well as the fundamental importance of security. Community is how humans have always survived. This, I think, extends to all life forms.
The evolved political boundaries of today have consequence. The rules change when you cross them. Though marked on the ground and fortified in some instances, they are conceptual, as pictured above, with Universe Man. The boundary divides the space between local, that within, and regional, everything outside, as labeled in the second panel. The third panel repeats the image within, to show, without graphic elegance, that the land on which Universe Man sits is regional at another scale, as determined by other boundaries, and another area that's local. A territory is both local and regional, depending upon the perspective.
Communities of communities, “regional communities” are greater communities organized to solve a problem, be it managing a watershed, strengthening an economic cluster or ensuring peer competition for school sports. Regional boundaries can be imposed for administrative purposes within states, but for these to be a basis for effective cooperation, a greater community sense is needed for that geography among the people. This is true for multi-state and multi-national regional communities as well. The leaders with such a vision can build a regional community by finding that which is already in place.
This is not to suggest that community is easy to build in order to solve problems. In a crisis, humans of any culture, belief or politics can quickly come together and self-organize to save themselves and others. It was the on-the- ground response to the 9/11 attacks that demonstrated to me the deep responsiveness of human community, as well as the fundamental importance of security. Community is how humans have always survived. This, I think, extends to all life forms.
The "community motive" comes into play when there is a problem to be solved. In a monetized civilization, the "profit motive" may be an incentive for some action, but most of the problems of life don't have a check at the end for their solution. They are things that must be done. Because this is the case, humanity has been able to perpetuate. ©
For more on Regional Community and Scale, see the Slideshare box below.
To learn about bridging and bonding social capital, read Chapter 1 of Bowling Alone: the collapse and revival of American community By Robert D. Putnam
Regional Community News
Financial Crisis - New Necessity for Cooperation
Slideshare - PowerPoints and PDFs
Regional "Communites of Practice"
- AAG - American Association of Geographers
- AMPO - Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations
- APA - American Planning Association - Regional and Intergovernmental Planning Division
- METREX, the Network of European Metropolitan Regions and Areas
- Metropolitan Policy Program - Brookings
- Mid-Atlantic Regional Planning Roundtables
- NADO - National Assocation of Regional Development Organizations
- NARC - National Association of Regional Councils
- Regional Planning Foundation
- RPA - Regional Plan Association NY-NJ-CT
- RSA - Regional Studies Association
- RSAI - Regional Science Assocation International
- SERDI - SouthEast Regional Directors Institute
- SRSA - Southern Regional Science Association
- The Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America
- WFS - World Future Society
Facebook Badge
StatCounter
No comments:
Post a Comment