Hallsmith's "Success" from Key to Sust. Cities

I decided to read the chapter called "Success" in Hallsmith's Key to Sustainable Cities because of the discussion in class on Tuesday. It seemed important for the group to understand what exactly Hallsmith means by terms like, "whole human life," "basic needs," and even sustainability itself. What, for her, is a successful sustainable community? Is such a thing possible?

Unfortunately, I was not able to discover her exact definition (not a surprise). It was more the case that by not telling us what she thinks, she was hoping for us to examine what we think is successful.

Most usefully, she cautioned that rather than following procedural guidelines to the tee, one should carefully delineate the goals or aims of a certain project before beginning. This way, it will be more clear at the end whether the project was a success or not. Instead of spending time fulfilling the requirements of the funders, one should spend time evaluating whether the initial (ideals?) goals are being met.

This is almost common sense, it seems. So I wonder a couple of things. The system that is in place currently, where a foundation or organization calls for grant proposals include certain requirements for an appropriate project, is the way things are right now. How can we change that? Can we? (Who is we?) Also, I begin to wonder how it came to be this way. I ask this in a larger context as well. It seems to me we cannot fix something we don't understand. So how has society come to be the way it is?

In the end, she writes that, "Ultimately the success of efforts to improve the sustainability in communities will be evaluated based on whether or not all the human needs are being satisfied in the community." (P215) Still, one might wonder what are needs and who can/should define them. Is it like Thoreau said, and all a person needs is food and shelter? Or are needs defined by the television? Or as we are wont to do in the United States, entirely on an individual basis?

Lots of questions!

The Challenge of Change (Ch 7)

I found this chapter particularly relevant after Tuesday's discussion. Let me begin by quoting Hallsmith's final sentence: "whole systems change comes about through co-creating a shared vision, generating a contancy of purpose, and germinating new emergent possibilities." After identifying the dynamic systems relationships and how these systems work in order to implement a new vision it is important to review different transformation strategies to determine how to successfully implement the vision. Hallsmith begins by recognizing that due to a city's complexity, metamorphasis is a better term to speak about the changes that occur when implementing a vision. Hallsmith writes of the success of servant leadership, essentially the concept that strong leaders have been servants first, additionally, that this is a leadership of service, not ego. When I was given a promotion at the small, four-person, non-profit I worked at before coming to Cornell, I felt my abilities as a leader were enhanced by the fact that I had worked for a year "in their shoes." I could use my own experience as a "servant" to be a better leader. Another principle identified by Hallsmith is innovation diffusion, a concept developed by Everett Rogers. Innovation diffusion looks at ways in which people respond to a proposed change and attempts to identify personal response patterns that can be applied more generally to the population. I felt that this principle was most applicable as both a way of anticipating how people will behave, but also as a strategy that can be used to implement change or metamorphasis. The main players in this strategy are the Innovator, Opinion Leaders or Change Agents, Trendsetters, and Conservatives or Mainstreamers. Innovators are individuals who may come up with a change but are too isolated to implement or communicate it. Change Agents have the social skills and connections to communicate the innovation to others. Trendsetters are the people that are the first to embrace the innovation. The Mainstreamers are the group who are resistant to the innovation. They need to see clear demonstration of the benefits before they embrace the innovation. An example of this would be an Innovator who sees that recycling can reduce the amount of waste they output. A Change Agent sees the social and economic benefit of recycling and uses their influence to implement a recycling program, possibly through their influence in city government in this case. Trendsetters are the first people to fully use the program, and give it enough popularity to continue. Mainstreamers may be resistant to recycling, feeling like it is too much effort but hopefully would see the results, or the economic benefit of the recycling program, such as the one in Ithaca where recycling saves on the cost of trash tags.

The other players in innovation diffusion are Iconoclasts, Reactionaries, and Curmudgeons. These outsiders are more difficult to engage and their identification in innovation diffusion demonstrates Hallsmith's other most relevant point to our recent discussion: one person really can't change anyone else and that innovations are more successful when "the people on whom the change is imposed agree to it." Hallsmith outlines several other strategies for participatory processes which engage all the affected parties. These strategies include tips on successful meetings, retreats, and conflict resolution. The greater inclusivity of the process, the greater potential for success.

"Leverage Points" - Hallsmith Chapter

I chose to read Hallsmith’s chapter on Leverage Points (pp. 169-185). I wanted to learn more about some of the strategies to effect change, since overcoming inertia and engaging nonparticipants seemed to be threads running through Tuesday’s class discussion. Leverage points, as defined by Hallsmith, are institutions or actions that can help to spur or solidify a community’s commitment to change. To that, I would add that people can sometimes be leverage points: witness Bogota’s mayor, Nelson Mandela, MLK Jr., etc. Although their strategies and actions certainly made use of leverage points, I would argue that the people themselves became emblematic of the possibilities for reform.

The main idea of a leverage point is to identify some way to make a relatively small change that will in turn have systemwide impacts. Two examples:

• Building community spirit around a natural resource (i.e., a watershed or river) by initiating a festival or outdoor classroom that will raise community involvement and awareness around the issue.

• Identifying nexus points that already involve the entire community in some way or another, to bring a particular issue to light and show how every person is in some way effected. (E.g., Using the public school system and students to bring attention to neighborhood crime.)

As any student of business knows, there is such a thing as negative leverage. Hallsmith stresses that finding leverage points may be relatively intuitive, especially for those who are intimately familiar with the system(s) they are trying to change. However, she cautions that precisely because these points often represent the confluence of many groups or perspectives, and because the issues tend the be somewhat sensitive, applying pressure to the points to effect change should be done intelligently and sensitively.

I would agree with this assessment; it’s clear that issues such as land development, school budgets, and other community matters can just as easily (and probably more often than not) divide as they can unite. But, because they tend to be subjects that elicit strong feelings among stakeholders, a positive outcome can have truly transcendent results.

Key to Sustainable Cities-Hallsmith

One key concept Hallsmith presents is the belief that people need other people in the form of a society or community, and that in order to meet individual physical and material needs the community's needs must be met. These needs being physical well-being, economic security, governance, and social well-being. All of which must be met also to achieve "whole human lives". This leaves the question of who is to determine what is to be considered a "whole" life. Some individuals would be happy to rid themselves of the ties that seemingly bind us to society. This brings me to question whether, just because the world we live in now ties us together, this is the best way to live. Dependent.

Another interesting point Hallsmith discusses are her 5 key variables for sustainable economic development. 1. trust, cooperation, and leadership in a community leading to collective action towards improved local economy. 2. equitable distribution of economic resources. 3. new products and services created or have value added to them within the community. 4. income in a community spent and invested locally. 5. way in which products and services are manufactured, cultivated, or created has to be sustainable and environmentally sound due to carrying capacity. I question the attainability of some of these pursuits. In particular the 'goodness' of people to be equitable in this country. I feel people think they work for and earn their luxuries, and the fact that some people are born disadvantaged does not mean they should be given a level playing field.

Throughout Hallsmith points out that power should be spread amongst individuals in the community, in this way avoiding the vicious governance cycle of overworked decision-makers making bad choices. She proposed instead that the community form committees to make some of these decisions. I agree that this may lead to better decisions, I do wonder whether this can be done in an efficient matter.

The most imporant concept Hallsmith reiterates is "the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts." She shows this through the various systems of feedback loops. This point also emphasizes the need not only to see problems and find solutions, but analyze and make links between problems in order to realize and solve the true problem. I think this is a good method. I'm only left wondering exactly how far out must we look in order to avoid making our solution the problem.

The reading has relevance to our course in that Hallsmith repeats the need to form relationships with each other in order to make positive change. In this course I feel we will be doing just that, individually, amongst each other in class, and with the community as we work to see change realized through our projects. At the same time we will build trust in the community and gain power in the decision-making process of this town.

Hallsmith: Key to Sustaiable Cities Response

In the Hallsmith reading, there were a few key concepts that should be noted. Her first is the concepts surrounding community. Community, to the author, is central to building a strong and sustainable society. She holds that there are four premises that define community. These are: communities were created to meet peoples needs, communities are systems and can be studied using a systems approach, community systems exist to meet all our needs, and the community system can be looked at holistically revealing the way the community interacts with its surroundings. This definition is critical to the rest of the reading as Hallsmith writes in depth of the various aspects of community. These premises are logical and follow each other. Communities were started to spread the workload around making life easier and more prosperous. This led to interactions explained in the systems approach. As this community grew, its needs expanded so to support these needs, the community also grew. Finally, by taking all of the parts of the community and looking at how they interact with other communities, a basic understanding of how prosperous and effective a community is.

The second key concept is how community is a whole system made up of many smaller parts. These parts include the three main actors in a community; individuals and households, organizations and businesses, and the government. These three branches work together to thrive and hopefully improve the community. She goes on to discuss how the three branches interact in very complicated ways and how by being helpful and cooperative, the three branches can live happier and more prosperous lives. This system can be studied using a system dynamics approach. This means of community study shows how complex a community interaction can be. It also shows how by expanding the parties involved, a system can spiral out of control very quickly and any slight feedback from an unintended party can quickly change the rest of the system yielding an unintended result. This is of importance when considering interactions with large parties such as in business situations.

The third key concept is one that is critical to a community’s longevity and that is sustainable development. She defines it as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” (34) This concept is crucial for the ongoing prosperity of a community because if the people can no longer live and prosper the way it used to, and can no longer find new ways to prosper, the community will wither and die. It also relates to the way communities use their natural resources. Issues such as drought and water shortages can result from not planning sustainably. These issues are of serious concern and can lead to large scale destruction and abandonment of towns and cities. This is also important when looking at a global community. Current trends lean towards overuse and waste. Within the not too distant future, these luxuries may run out and our way of life will collapse. Threats like these are very real and should be seen as a motivation to find new and revolutionary ways to go about our daily lives with less impact on the earth. Hopefully enough attention will be paid to sustainability that it becomes an industry standard and our environmental footprint will be reduced.

Reflection #1:Key to sustainable cities

A)

Hallsmith uses simple language to explain the complicated interactions of human nature. I would imagine that when she looks at the varied conflicts humans get into, her solution would be an increased level of community. Community actors include 1)individuals/households 2)organizations and 3)governments. These actors create an interconnected web of interactions (community) that demand and supply its various and interrelated needs ( physical, economic, governmental and social ). Communities are thus made up of cyclical dynamics that satisfy the needs of the community members involved on a number of levels. Hallsmith discusses the many explanations for the various needs of human beings, citing Maslow, Manfred Max-Neef and Jurgen Habermas. After explaining the communities are made up of the various interactions that fulfill the needs of the individual, she then applies this concept to common community issues. Her chapter “Community capacity and sustainability” describes multiple scenarios in which the dynamic cycles of a community are not seen in whole and how this can lead to inefficient solutions. Inefficient solutions compound upon themselves, creating a negative feedback loop. If the problem which exists in the community which is causing it to not provide for the needs of the people in one area of their level of needs, this has an effect on the over levels of need. is seen as a whole. However, if the issue was seen as dysfunctional part of the whole which is effecting the provision of other needs, then the solution can be created that treats the problem and not its symptoms. In order to clearly think about a community as a whole system, systems thinking is necessary. Systems thinking allows us to analyze the causes and effects of a particular feedback loop so that we can appropriately react.

B) & C)

While Hallsmith’s explanations of communities as whole systems seemed to be repetitive and simplistic, her examples are issues commonly faced by all of us—which allows for practical application of the information she is sharing. I found it fascinating that the reading connects with so many of my life experiences and that I was able to personally relate to her arguments. Planning books often seem over analytical, repetitive and simplistic to many readers because these books organize thoughts that we all have about the communities we live in. Because we ourselves have pondered these issues, we find what is written to be beneath us, or somehow not adding to our intelligence. I would argue that we should resist the impulse and give ourselves and the authors a bit more credit. We have thought about the cause and effect of various community issues, but we most likely didn’t take the time and effort to share our insights with others. Hallsmith mentioned that communities suffer when people do not take the time to care for others, despite numerous innovations to increase efficiency. She takes this a step farther by pointing out that we try to reduce wasted time by falling into habits. This decreases the thought processes we use to judge the importance of each action we take in our day, so we end up brainlessly working at the job we hate to provide for the strangers that live in our homes who we call family.

Hallsmith introduces the phrase “critical mass” as the proportion of assets to the amount of need being met. Can critical mass exist outside of material resources? If so, then why doesn’t she use this word throughout the chapter?

Key to Sustainable Cities, Ch 2-4

By looking at the community as a whole, rather than just the government or just the economy, we can see how systems interact, either eroding or enhancing their capacity to meet future needs (their sustainability).
In decision making, it is necessary to consider the parts in relation to their effect on the system, rather than just problem-solving in isolation. Systems also affect one another; they are dynamic.
One of the determining factors of a community’s sustainability is its ability to satisfy the needs of all of its members (actors) – governance, businesses and organizations, as well as individuals and households.
Both equilibrium and entropy exist within a given system. Systems will at some level self-organize, and the more freedom the actors in a system have, the greater the possibilities for positive change.


From a design perspective, the large impact is something we strive to consider for any project or idea, but often only in a social and environmental sense—perhaps because landscape architecture often views the environment as something that needs to be preserved and protected, and the social effect, whether a design is for a park or a backyard, is often what is most apparent. The reading points out that the governmental impacts and the economic impacts should also be considered. If they aren’t taken into account, they will still happen, and the end result could be something that is in turn detrimental in another area of the cycle.



It seems as if the ‘environmental’ aspect of the systems was considered primarily in the sense that the environment provides resources. I feel that it could have been explored further, perhaps through additional scenarios, but even just in terms of the changes that would occur in an environmental system. There seemed to be a greater sociopolitical tone to the reading than there was a full exploration of the impacts upon the natural systems, and in turn, their impacts upon the social, economic, and political systems. I feel that the last connection was left out a bit.
I also found it interesting when it was pointed out that the social health had the greatest beneficial impacts; perhaps this could have been explored as well.