Cities as Complex Ecosystems: Mother Nature Knows Best

In Pulse, Frenay takes a view that nature has far more experience at organizing complexity than does man, as sophisticated as we think we are. It's hard to imagine more complex ecosystems than what we see outside our window. Whether we refer to weather, the interactions of predators and prey, symbiosis between animals and plants, the work of insects (most notably, ants), the tropical rain forest ecology, polar bears/seals/fish/icebergs - pick it, these are all complex systems that have figured out how to get along in balanced, closed ecosystems in harmony, without the help of man and his/her big brains.

So, Frenay proposes that man's organizational efforts, while they've come a long way since the first plows moved dirt around in Mesopotamia 20,000 years ago, have a lot to learn from nature's organizational methods. Frenay argues that linear "machine age" thinking has served us well since the dawn of the Industrial Age a short 200 years ago, and that the corporation has accomplished wonders in a short 100 years, but our world systems are flawed because they do not adequately account for externalities like pollution and negative environmental impact.

We're now reaching the limits of where we can go as a civilization with those tried and true models. He uses the metaphor of an animal species reaching the limits of its habitat and the consequences that nature imposes. To suspect that man is somehow immune to consequences is naive when you look at what happens to other species that outgrow their habitat's ability to support them. Frenay highlights how we're hitting limits, from the permanent damages man is causing to his island home by pumping waste into the air (CO2), to stripping away forests that take centuries to regenerate for short-term gains, to eliminating species from overconsumption. Connecting the dots is illuminating. Wheww. Nothing like a cold dose of reality.

If it's a glum worldview Frenay presents, it's not without hope. Frenay offers us hope in technological innovation, which changes the rules of the game and reshuffles the pieces on the gameboard, even enables a new paradigm. We're seeing convergence of different technological platforms, from IT to telecom to entertainment. The changes of digital technology and the Internet, combined with globalization and environmental impacts like global warming beg the question - is it time to consider a new paradigm to replace our "machine age" model?

Frenay thinks so and makes a credible argument. I would urge anyone in the city management business to take a look at this perspective. If anything, I believe that cities are complex ecosystems and they're best managed wholistically, by thinking with a nature paradigm about how all the parts work together in harmony.

Change is more easily accomplished at the local level, which gives relevance to this train of thought. Thinking about the future of your city wholistically, you are bound to consider a network project at some point, because any complex ecosystem needs a communication medium, and metropolitan broadband offers that medium.

So, start the new year off by opening up to a new perspective. Subscribe to the RSS feed by going to Frenay's website: Pulse The Book by Robert Frenay and read the emails for a week or two.

With this potential facing you, I see three primary outcomes: 1) You subscribe, enjoy the notes, read them, and it opens your mind to new perspectives; 2) You subscribe, read some, but are too busy / not interested enough to continue, and they fade away; or 3) You're not moved to subscribe, and continue down your current path. The new year offers us an annual opportunity to re-examine our paths, adjust and realign, and /or try on new paths. I urge you to add this RSS feed to your daily email routine - well written notes that will offer you a break from your routine, and just may open you up to new perspectives.

Gaining 80 points of IQ? Not a bad way to start off the new year!