livingcities.earth

Living Cities Earth is a global bottom-up movement based on integral approach and dedicated to creating conditions for people in 10.000 cities worldwide to live healthier happier lives in harmony with each other and with nature. The power of LCE lies in people and communication, wisdom and practical knowledge, partnerships and cooperation — and in our ability to create impact by combining all these. We aim at growing a global impact-community of 1 million change leaders from 10.000 cities who in turn influence lives of 8 billion people as well as all life on Earth.

As many wonderful organizations worldwide LCE is a force for good. Even more, it is a force for conscious evolution of humanity. There are 7 distinct features to consider: 1. Big Dream and Unshakeable Intent. 2. Bottom-up. 3. Scale. 4. Impact. 5. Integral approach. 6. Interconnected living systems. 7. Infinite source of power, energy and inspiration. 1. Big Dream: we believe that the future is bright and beautiful and as we build our thriving future together each person and each city can be fully alive despite various challenges that we may face on personal, local, regional and global scale. The purpose of humanity is to support evolution of consciousness and life on Earth and on cosmic scale. We believe that each person’s life has a meaning and all of humanity’s existence has a purpose - to co-create, to love and to evolve. So we take all life’s circumstances as a way to wake up, clean up, grow up and show up - to take care of ourselves, our communities, our places, all people and all life on Earth. We live in cities and villages around the world, but united as one human family we feel that Earth is our precious home and we intend to use our power to create positive change on a planetary scale. Change that leads to thriving civilization conducive to evolution of life. 2. Bottom-up: LCE is a self-organized bottom-up values-based and purpose-centered movement open to cooperation with all likeminded people, organizations and evolutionary communities. We are free in our actions and have no hidden agendas, do not depend on election cycles and have no-one to report to except our conscience and inner truth. This provides us with inner drive and unshakeable intent to do our best in realizing our Big Dream. We bring together dreamers and doers, scientists and city managers, entrepreneurs and educators, activators and communicators, people with life-long experience and young people who together lead LCE into the bright future we all envision. 3. Scale: from the very beginning LCE is aiming at supporting 10.000 cities worldwide in their conscious transition to a sustainable and regenerative development, flourishing of human potential and thriving ecosystems. To reach this scale we rely on partnership with global, regional and local organizations and communities, networks and movements with similar values and objectives. And on building and nurturing a global community of about 1 million change leaders who could complement, inspire and reinforce each other in building the thriving future for 8 billion people and all life on Earth. 4. Impact. Our approach is to connect Sky and Earth, strategic and tactical, grand schemes and practical steps. We rely on CAPI (coalescing authority, power and influence) to create results. We develop integral metrics for measuring impact of our actions on both current life conditions in the cities and on the planet and we also look for ways to consider our impact on the next 7 generations. Through our thoughts, speech and actions we aim at creating a positive lasting measurable impact on lives of people, places, ecosystems and all life on Earth. 5. Integral approach: to find most effective ways to reach our goals we use integral approach to analyze situations and design our strategies and actions. We use the power of science, insights and tools from the systems theory, integral theory, theory of functional systems, chaos theory and other bodies of knowledge to build comprehensive solutions and to unlock the power that lies within all complex living systems. 6. Interconnected living systems: we see cities as complex living systems intricately connected with living systems on a smaller and larger scales. Quality of life in a city depends on quality of people and communities who inhabit, design and lead city development. Each person, family and community are, in turn, also complex living systems. On the other side of a spectrum, a city is connected with its bio-region as well as other cities and macro-regions and ultimately with the planet as a whole. We see all these as fractals and to improve life on a city scale we need to work with all living systems connected to it. For example, in supporting city evolution we deal with individual’s awareness, believes, education, lifestyle, behaviors, as well as with collective agreements, social norms, traditions and cultures, and also with systems, processes and infrastructure. Each living system has several key layers - physical form, subtle energy, identity, intelligence, soul and spirit. To help each living system be fully alive we need to work with all these layers. And we know how to do it. As you dive deeper into this world you could also discover and unlock infinite power to change things for the better. And, perhaps, to establish a direct connection with Earth itself as a living planet and home to all life forms. 7. Infinite source of energy, inspiration and power: at LCE we are lucky to have a trusted strategic partner - Life itself. Life is a combination and interplay of energy and consciousness. So having a direct awareness and access to Life’s energy provides us with infinite source of energy, inspiration and power for our activities. This is real, precious and available to all of us.

Currently LCE Founding Circle includes about 95 co-founders from 5 continents and the circle is fast growing to include in a year about 100 world-class change leaders and outstanding experts united by one vision. Among co-founders are integral thinkers and architects, citmakers and educators, UN experts and advisors to national and local governments, eco-activists and representatives of indigenous people, social entrepreneurs and investors, global community leaders and media producers as well as other leaders from all walks of life. We are very different in or skills and experience, yet all share common values, can-do attitude and unshakeable believe in the power of humanity to build thriving future for all life in Earth.

If you feel like you should be among us please explore our Manifesto, Unitive Narrative, consider what contribution you’d like to make and then contact us to discuss your interest! As a standard rule, to ensure the quality of our core team, a candidate needs recommendations from two current co-founders to join the circle. Then you would go through an onboarding process to best integrate and become a productive member of our growing community.

In simple terms, a Living City is a place where you feel free to create and fully alive, full of love and energy, where you want to belong and where you feel drawn to when being away. A Living City has a vibrant community of citizens, a clear shared vision of its future, empowering identity, effective systems and creates conditions conducive to life for its citizens, guests and to larger ecosystems where it belongs.

According to statistics, today there are 10.000 cities on our planet. This is a natural network of people, communities and places that span the globe and could cooperate and evolve together. We are currently collecting a database of local leaders and city administrators in 10.000 cities to organize information exchange, networking, education, to run network projects and facilitate resource sharing and positive change in all cities on Earth. Let us know if you could help!

Integral or systems or holistic approach is a way to see phenomena from all possible perspectives and to deal with any situation in the most effective way possible. In simple terms integral approach suggests that in analyzing and dealing with any issue we should take into consideration its various aspects to have a complete understanding of it. This also helps in finding most effective ways to achieve goals and realize systemic change. Integral approach to city development, for example, suggests that we see city as a complex living ecosystem that includes multiple dimensions: people, communities, culture, communications, administration, technologies, infrastructure, resources, bio-region, etc. To improve the quality of life in a city we would need to consider and work on various levels of complexity - personal, collective, systemic and eco-systemic.

Considering and influencing all aspects of life in the cities provides access to more resources, creates more awareness, more leverage, more synergy and more impact. Visionary and effective change leaders of all times intuitively used integral approach of some sort to create most positive impact in the societies and eco-systems they served. Using the science and the art of integral action you could develop your integral leadership capacity - as a person, as an organization, as a community, as a city - to achieve most sustainable, regenerative and profound impact. You could read more about Integral approach in general through books and articles of Ken Wilber, Sri Aurobindo, a well as other leaders of integral community including Marilyn Hamilton in her series of books “Integral City”.

Among key concepts related to LCE are: integral city development, sustainable development, regenerative economy, circular economy, doughnut economy, ESG, social entrepreneurship, human rights, animal rights, eco-movements, holistic education, lifelong education, integral personal development, adult development, humanistic psychology, system science, whole-systems design.

LCE is a decentralized self-organized global community of change leaders, experts and activators from all continents active 24/24 — around the clock and around the globe. For legal purposes Living Cities Earth Association is registered as a non-for-profit organization in Switzerland. To reflect our focus on supporting integral development in human habitats of various types we plan to have several HQ’s around the globe — including: - HQ in Amsterdam (The Netherlands) — a global innovative city that sets the standard in many areas of human life, social, ecosystemic and city development, - HQ in Findhorn (Scotland, UK) — an oldest intentional community and eco-village in Europe exploring ways to live in harmony with nature and with one another, - HQ in Nuanu (Bali, Indonesia) — a brand new values-driven community committed to facilitating transformation on a global scale.