Friday, September 9, 2011

Culture as the defining element


High-performing cities stay high-performing cities, according to Geoffrey B. West, regardless of what industries come and go and what the national economy does. Culture is the most long-lasting of human creations and the hardest to kill. What is resilient culture? If culture is the lynchpin of resilience -- and of well-being -- how do we fortify it, help to create it, or enable it?

1 comment:

Matt said...

Talking to my dad the other day -- cities are unsustainable because they rely on growth. People can live comfortably in close quarters only so long as growth is substituted for space, and hopes for "making it" keep people tame and rule-bound in their competition. Also, John Calhoun's rat populations studies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Calhoun