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Summary
In Sacred Civics: Building Seven Generation Cities, Jayne Engle and Tanya Chung-Tiam-Fook assemble visions for how spirituality and sacred values are essential for reimagining how we live, organize and govern ourselves, determine and distribute wealth, inhabit and design cities, and construct relationships with others and nature. Join us for a discussion with Jayne and Tanya on what it looks like to design for the next seven generations. Optional: read Sacred Civics: Building Seven Generation Cities in print or open access!
Key Insights
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Sacred civics calls for radical imagination and transformational change centered on cities as key sites of societal transformation.
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The seventh generation principle urges long-term planning accountable to descendants seven generations into the future.
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Cities today are organized in silos that fail to address interconnected systemic challenges holistically.
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Hybrid governance models combining official government structures with civic innovation labs and assemblies can bridge traditional and visionary approaches.
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Social and civic innovation empower residents, especially historically marginalized people, to reshape urban governance from the bottom up.
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Major urban investments often reflect outdated short-term priorities and jurisdictions, illustrating the need for systemic change.
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Networks of cities offer political cover and learning spaces needed to pilot and scale sustainable and equitable innovations.
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Practices like micro treaties with the Earth reimagine relationships with land as self-sovereign rather than mere property.
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Embedded Indigenous teachings such as the seven grandfathers provide foundational ethical values to reorient urban governance and planning.
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Legal frameworks like Wales’s Wellbeing of Future Generations Act illustrate how sustainability principles can be institutionalized.
Notable Quotes
"We are called to higher order responsibilities and accountabilities to future generations and ecosystems."
"Cities are the largest systems of systems that we actually build as humanity, and we cannot separate housing from everything else."
"The seventh generation principle speaks to long-term decision making and provisioning for the common good."
"Hybrid forms of governance could include a civic assembly with representatives for future generations led by a mayor for the future."
"Social innovation strengthens collective agency and power of residents to shift decision making from governments and corporations."
"Proofs of possibility—deep demonstration projects—show what transformation in cities can actually look like."
"Networks of cities provide political cover and co-learning spaces necessary for transformational urban change."
"We need to reclaim sacred values like love, respect, bravery, and humility to embed them in our institutions and practices."
"Most urban investments today steal from future generations rather than sustaining them."
"Participatory and systemic social infrastructure enables marginalized communities to transform their neighborhoods and cities."
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