Healing Cities
Tags: balance, Gaining Ground, Health, integration
Cities should help people to reach the highest stage of development. Thanks to Lenbo for this wonderful Creative Commons photo from Beverly, MA.
The final day of the 2010 Gaining Ground Summit was dedicated to Healing Cities, referring both to the act of healing cities and cities that heal. The speakers included urbanists and health professionals that presented a holistic framework that can be applied to individuals and cities.
Nicole Moen, part of the Healing Cities Working Group, encouraged us to think of the city as an entity like the human body; something that is able to heal itself. Rather than being the opposite of sickness, healing is a fluid state of wholeness. She left us with the following quote by Martin Buber:
I don’t exist alone without you. You don’t exist alone without me. We exist together in the space between.
Cities are the space between us.
Mark Sherman, a founding member of the Victoria Community Health Cooperative, focused on the connection between mind, body and spirit. He is a holistic healer but many people start to define healing within the body. Next comes mind, or the thoughts and feelings that underlie behaviors. Finally comes the spirit, accessing the collective conscious and finding a connection with something greater.
Trevor Hancock, a health futurist, went back to the roots of health. In addition to health, hael is also the root of whole, heal, holy and hello. Therefore, he advocates a return to hael-th. Hancock also discussed another version of mind-body-spirit, which comes from the work of James Robertson. Health is equated with seeking balance:
- Balance within ourselves = health and sanity (body)
- Balance between ourselves and others = humanity (mind)
- Balance between people and nature = ecology (spirit)
Cities are the space between us. Thanks to flatworldsedge on Flickr for this breathtaking Creative Commons photo from London, UK.
The purpose of cities is ideally to aid people in reaching the highest stage of development. Sherman connected these intangible concepts to physical manifestations in cities:
- Body: Parks, streets, urban form
- Mind: Culture, beliefs, values
- Spirit: How we live together
The combination of body, mind and spirit are required for healthy people and cities. As summarized by Rob Abbott, “we can only fully realize ourselves by living as part of nature.” The integration of body, mind and spirit in cities would lead to healing, a continuous process resulting in vitality. This is akin to resilience, the goal that has superseded sustainability. As cities increasingly support the healing of people, we can intensify our efforts to heal our environment.
