Roads to Regeneration
This is the time to dream up the new realities, and to find the courage to act, experiment, co-create and bring them forth.
Now is the time for dreaming, building, investing and co-creating new forms of civic infrastructure with regenerative potential, to support the emergence of an economy in service to all life.
Like many, I’ve been struggling to make sense of what is going on at this time. But in this unknowing, with everything that has been revealed, I do believe we are being called to dream up new realities, to find the courage to not know, to listen, experiment, unlearn, co-create and bring forth ‘the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.’ This is a long essay about dreams for co-creating different forms of civic infrastructure with regenerative potential, that could support the emergence of an economy in service to all life — designed and built on participation, connections, relationships, love, kindness, not knowing, uncertainty and long time thinking.
’27 billion pounds to be spent on roads.’
That’s the last thing I remember hearing from the UK Government in March, in the Chancellor’s budget announcement about ‘unleashing potential’ in Britain through mass infrastructure investment.
This was shortly before the Covid-19 meltdown and ‘normal’ became a memory.
I remember hearing that figure and feeling this anxious contraction in my gut.
27 billion pounds.
a churning mix of frustration, anger and fear.
I struggled to get it out of my mind.
27 billion pounds on ROADS.
Imagine the transformative potential of that kind of investment .
Nurturing new systems which could begin to regenerate the UK.
Instead of propping up dying degenerative infrastructure, destructive outdated behaviours and beliefs.
Regenerative infrastructure…
Infrastructure with potential to heal, restore and regenerate life — that increases human and planetary wellbeing, that supports the creation of resilient, connected, healthy communities, able to look after themselves and maintain a level of positive wellbeing.
It wasn’t just the amount of money that freaked me out, it was the sadness in the narrowness of the decision making.
The shallowness of the imagination of what is possible.
That those who pull the levers of power still avoid or are unwilling to grasp the ideas of collective intelligence, co-creation, participatory decision making, systems thinking, living systems, that we can dream and build better when we ask better questions, when we dream better dreams, when we invite participation from communities, when we collaborate with nature.
That despite everything we know, with all the science warning us of the urgency for change, of what is destructive to our world, in this specific instance through our addiction to combustion engines — air pollution, climate change, increasing emissions, fossil fuel extraction, nature destruction, poor health, disappearance of community — (the list goes on).
But alas with all the possibility and potential to do things differently and better, the best we can do in the year we host COP26 (now postponed), the vision in 2020 of increasing prosperity in the context of a climate and ecological emergency in the UK is.. wait for it…
Spend £27 billion quid on roads.
The crisis of imagination (again.)
I was planning to write a post about it, just to release and let go of the looping madness in my mind.
And then Covid-19 hit and within a few weeks of a pandemic lockdown everything has changed.
And what doesn’t feel possible now?
I’m curious about what people are learning and sensing through this surreal lockdown experience. And what their hearts are telling them about what next.
I hope we’ve learned that spending 27 billion quid on roads would be insane.
I’ve been listening and reflecting as well as asking people what they’ve noticed during this great pause and what they hope might emerge from it.
The great reveal
By stopping the industrial growth machine in its tracks — this pandemic has revealed much about the insanity, inequality, destructiveness, misery and vulnerability of ‘modern life’, of industrial growth economies, command and control politics , the myth of progress and the interconnectedness of everything.
And as the pause lengthens and the unravelling continues, those of us with privilege ( I’m defining here as anyone who is able to stay at home safely for several weeks) have enormous responsibility, I believe, on what happens next.
We are being called to dream new dreams and midwife them into reality.
Dreams that can lead us away from road building towards cathedral thinking and long time projects ( as Ella Saltmarshe and Beatrice Pembroke frame it)
Long term projects bigger than all of us, building the new operating systems, regenerative and decentralised infrastructures, which must at their heart be designed to serve the most vulnerable, support the wellbeing of all humans, look to future generations and critically optimise the health of ecosystems and the natural world which creates the conditions for all life on this planet.
After all human health and planetary health are intimately interconnected as we just found out.
Build infrastructure and an economy in service to all life.
Built on connections, relationships, participation, love, kindness, not knowing, uncertainty and long time thinking.
Infrastructure that future generations will look back on with deep joy and immense pride and thank their good ancestors for their future love and deep time thinking.
For the collective care and responsibility for life yet to be born.
For the shift in consciousness that the pandemic catalysed.
Where we finally let go of Q1Q2 Q3 pathological short term narratives, and started the shift to circular growth beliefs, in tune with nature’s seasons, rhythms and patterns.
When the spell of infinite industrial growth economics and dominion over nature finally broke.
Where we woke from our confusion, pursuit of novelty, extreme excesses and tech-addled disorientation.
Where we understood finally what Chief Seattle had been saying —
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors we borrow it from our children”
This is the time to dream up new realities, and to find the courage to not know, to listen, to experiment, unlearn, co-create, act and bring them forth.
Working off the design principles of care, responsibility, love, kindness, compassion, creativity, collaboration, generosity.
Principles which are so clearly alive on the ground in every local community around the world right now — radical collaborations which have emerged to serve the multiple issues and challenges that Covid-19 has finally revealed to masses.
A one-off moment/ a ‘never again’ in the human story
“The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think”
― Gregory Bateson
This moment is offering us the opportunity to pivot towards new life-giving ways of seeing, thinking and being in the world, designing and building infrastructure and systems that can support a life sustaining civilisation.
It’s a one off moment to start the shift, not only is it essential, morally required for our future generations wellbeing, but many of the population has experienced a glimpse of what the future could be, has felt some benefit, has had the destructiveness and insanity of ‘normal’ revealed, has started to prototype different ways of living.
At the same time we’ve all witnessed in a much bigger way how so many people on the ‘low paid’ critical frontlines, often working in shocking conditions are not only utterly essential to all our wellbeing, but are also massively undervalued and unsupported in our current culture. Health and care workers, food supply chains, logistics, waste, transport and critical utilities especially.
If we’re really honest with ourselves, the reveal has also shown how pointless and meaningless much ‘professional’ work really is.
The reveal has showed to more folks than ever how many people are marginalised and suffering because of their lack of access to the basics — food, shelter, connection, community.
When so much has been revealed and witnessed by so many, when the scale of suffering in so many places has been seen, how can it be possible to ‘go back to normal’, to pretend none of this mattered enough to change ?
Apparently only 9% of the British public want to return to that, and speaking of ‘normal’ ‘what does ‘normal’ even mean and ‘where did it come from’? (a brilliant post from Justine Boussard)
I recorded a series of 7 podcasts in the last few weeks — capturing reflections from a range of people on what they’ve learned through this pandemic and what they hope will change- Reflections from the Great Pause.
These insights along with my own dreaming and the brilliance of many creative humans have shaped the following themes and dreams for building regenerative and civic infrastructures urgently needed to build a resilient post pandemic economy in service to all life.
An approach which honours all life and gives us a chance at dealing and adapting to the climate and ecological crises coming our way next. That recognises that all these crises are interlinked, and serving and solving them can only be achieved if we view them in systemic, integrated and holistic ways.
Participating and co-creating a ‘new normal’
I’m framing them as ‘roads to regeneration’. Some are big, some are small, many are happening in some form already.
They offer immediate potential to start to experience and behave our way into new ways of being on this earth, because we cannot talk or think ourselves out of this mess.
We have to participate in the messyness, uncertainty, complexity and joy of what’s unfolding. To co-create the emerging future, it will need everyone involved, bottom up and top down. Becoming crew on the SpaceShip Earth.
Bailing out dying outdated degenerative industry and corporate sectors and building quick disaster capitalism infrastructure cannot happen. The planet certainly cannot cope with any more of that, neither can the most vulnerable people, of which there will be many more in the aftermath of Covid-19.
The investment and innovation focus and emphasis must be in supporting ‘the commons’ and ‘the households’, holding the most vulnerable through this transition and building resilient infrastructure from the bottom up, human and ecological, where people and planet can thrive . New models of governance, finance and co-ownership which blend community, private and public participation.
We’re not starting from a standstill, Kate’s Raworth’s Donut Economics offers a stunning model to work and play with and is now being adopted to re-imagine and re-design the city economy of Amsterdam
So here’s 10 dreams, ‘roads to regeneration.’
Because it’s not more new physical roads we need, it’s connections and relationships - to ourselves, to community, to each other and to the more than human world.
A regenerative economy and civilisation will be built on relationships, between people, communities and nature, it will be participative, open, and co-created, networked globally and yet highly local in design.
People first transport principles and hyper-local infrastructure
Connectivity not cars. Most of us do not need to move around in cars most of the time. Key supplies, deliveries and logistics for sure, essential workers yes, but how many of us need to be jumping in cars to go to work and school everyday, how much more could be done remotely and by moving via local people first transport solutions. It feels like this has been a huge discovery from business workers to school children. And how quiet, clean and social have streets become?
Cars have cut through community and destroyed street life for far too long. Lets’s bring them back to people who live on them.
With cycle and pedestrian infrastructure, electric bikes, smart clean local bus and train systems and car sharing — who would want to return to congestion, dirty air, noise pollution and road rage?
With physical distancing to become a key long term behaviour to keep a lid on infections, going back to mass car usage would be a disaster, increasing bikes and walking are key ways to solve that, they increase human and planetary wellbeing — they are regenerative forms of transport — they are life giving.
Oh and it’s already happening in Milan today.
And if you’re interested in how quickly we can start to co-create and build new systems from the bottom up this thread below is fascinating
(In systems change work, it’s sometimes said, if you want to make change, find where there is already energy for change and work from there.)
2. Remote infrastructure that connects everyone for equal access
The idea in 2020 that you continue to destroy nature to build roads, to then congest with masses of carbon intensive, polluting and privately owned vehicles to physically connect everyone everywhere makes absolutely no sense. It’s short-term madness.
With the knowledge we now have, the technologies and solutions we have and the science we know we must be guided by to maintain a life sustaining planet, there can be no justification for this.
What is it to be fully connected — what is the infrastructure that we need to build resilience ?
Well on top of hyper local public transport, people first transport solutions, and civic spaces that encourage connection and interaction — fast accessible broadband infrastructure for everyone has to be a no brainer. Internet access needs to become a utility, and it should be free for those who struggle most to access.
It’s our ideas and connections that need to travel fast — the ability for everyone to have the choice to work, learn, play and connect from wherever they are without the need to get in a car or always go to a physical place.
How many kids and families are struggling right now because they cannot access online resources for learning, connectivity to others, support, health, vital services and entertainment in lockdown ?
It’s this that is going to leave more people behind. Not roads.
What would it cost to provide fast accessible broadband to every household?
Not 27 billion quid surely.
Could we see more experimentation or hybrids of homeschooling, distance learning and part time physical schooling or at least some choice?
This is infrastructure that will regenerate , that provides accessibility, equality and choice in how you want to live.
3. Mass urban re-wilding — green and blue infrastructure
From the one dose of daily walks in the park to the unimaginable frustration of being locked up in a flat with no outside access. From endless stories of mother nature flirting with us through the return of birdsong, the clearing of skies, the bounce back of urban wildlife — it’s clear that our utter dependence on mother earth for health, wellbeing, awe and wonder has been noticed in a big way.
Now is the time to invest massively in nature’s infrastructure — parks, woods, trees, edge-lands, wild spaces, rivers, streams, ponds, coastlines, biodiversity, soil, for human health and wellbeing ( Natural Health Service) for planetary health and wellbeing, for natural climate solutions, for beauty and connection, for community and play, resilience against flooding, heatwaves, pollution and other issues coming our way from climate breakdown.
Nature-rich buildings, cities and civic spaces will also help to soften the blow on people and communities suffering and help soothe us in the difficult times ahead. Why not make it legal for any new development/construction to be regenerative in design, from rooftop solar, circular waste systems, to increasing local biodiversity through the design and build. Why not clad all developments in living plants and trees as standard practice.
(update seems the public really want this)
4. Extraction and distraction or intentional breakdown to breakthrough ?— industrial hospicing infrastructure guided by science
The calls to bail out high carbon polluting industries are getting louder, but why do that? ( this is taxpayer money after all)
Let’s take air-travel — how many business people are going to return to air travel as the default for meetings when remote meetings have become a thing and the costs of flying are insane?
Are vast numbers of people going to want to return to moving through tightly packed airports and planes ?(virus hot spots at the best of times.)
And that’s before we remember that we’re living in the context of a climate and ecological emergency. Ecology owns economy. We simply have to reduce our impacts on this planet urgently and at scale. High carbon travel has to become unusual and the cost must reflect the impacts it creates. We cannot be distracted from this reality when making these next critical infrastructure decisions.
With Covid-19 we’ve seen with breathtaking speed governments and those in power putting science front and centre in decision making. This has been quite extraordinary to witness. Scientists being wheeled out in front of TV cameras, leaders directing media questions to scientists and dropping well crafted mantra’s like ‘guided by science’.
Uniting behind science must remain as a core principle in governing and decision making nationally and globally, we must unite behind the climate and ecological science now as we re-make the world. You cannot pick and choose which science you support and which you ignore when the evidence and opinion is overwhelmingly clear.
So as in natural science everything needs to die at some point. It’s inevitable in a living world. And through intentional and strategic breakdown of the old systems and structures that no longer serve the majority of life and threaten the future of life, new breakthroughs will emerge.
Airlines and fossil fuels are the obvious ones , when do you turn off the life support ?
So a better question might be, ‘what stuff do we really care about protecting and what are we ready and willing to let go of ?’
Then we can begin to support transitions through the dying process, or in the Berkana two loops language of system change — what do we begin to hospice?
And in that process we must ensure there is dignity, grace and transition for employees and owners.
How to ensure we celebrate a sector for its achievements, how do we surface the learnings, intelligence and wisdom of a dying sector/industry so that it becomes compost and fertiliser for what is wanting to be born next ?
And what do we midwife into the world — what could emerge from old sectors, systems, beliefs, industries and breathe life into new stories, behaviours, innovations, structures, governance and ownership models?
How could subsidies that prop up toxic industries be intelligently deployed to support these processes, bringing radical collaborations of private, state, citizen, culture and science to guide the process based on participatory decision making.
Cassie Robinson’s excellent post on ‘How do we help things die’ is super interesting I find.
I’m amusingly reminded of a remote business conferencing concept I pitched to Virgin Atlantic ten years ago — Virtual Atlantic.
And again that the stone-age didn’t end because we ran out of stones.
5. Slowness = wealth and health — slow living infrastructure
Why have we been going so fast? And where are we going anyway?
The biggest takeout from my podcast series is that no-one wants to return to the speed of ‘normal life’ before Covid-19 — literally a life destroying pace — a system operating at speed by combusting cheap fossil fuels and extractivism ( of nature and the human spirit). Burning up the future, burning out our health — distracted, over stimulated with little sense of direction, purpose and long term vision, with stress and anxiety levels pumping.
Which also makes me think of HS2 — (High Speed 2) — (ok quick mid post rant)
I mean this plan was highly polarising pre-coronavirus — but now, seriously what is this need for speed all about, and can £100 billion investment still be justified in this new post coronavirus context?
The UK government has pushed on with the ongoing destruction of ancient woodland and communities in the UK to clear the path for HS2 — a monster high carbon infrastructure project, costing £100 billion, wiping out biodiversity, rare species and ecosystems(even as we learn more about the relationships between pandemics and the destruction of natural ecosystems for ‘human development’).
All of this destruction and investment because… wait for it….
To make moving humans from one place to another place a bit faster than is currently possible — ( which is apparently good for the economy) This with the hindsight of the last few weeks where we now know that most meetings are usually fairly pointless, most things can be done remotely and that future economies need to become more distributed and regional to be resilient.
Do we really care about this need for speed, is this really want we want?
It seems that in slowing down many people (those who have had the opportunity) have witnessed a deep joy, of presence and noticing life, noticing where they actually live, appreciating the everyday moments, having more time to cook food and eat together, to play, and walk, to really listen to their children and family members.
And they feel much better for it.
As John Ruskin said — ‘What is wealth but life?’
Our life on this planet is so short.
Why are we racing around?
Why the speed ?
What is the purpose of it all ?
It’s literally killing life.
I find it useful to go back to nature here, rivers do not run fast all the time, there is not pumping swell every day in the ocean, things don’t grow all the time, it cannot be summer all year long.
Will we be able to resist going back to that speed?
6. The future’s local we can network for the rest — local resilience infrastructure
The reboot/reset needs to be locally flavoured— supporting real people in real places, honouring these places — community and co-operative businesses, social enterprise, civic spaces, infrastructure that allows distributed and decentralised living and working, that is bio-regional, designed to optimise the characteristics, beliefs, cultures and energies of a place.
The economy as we knew it is tanking ( it was long before the pandemic), for a ‘networked gig economy’ to thrive, building resilient communities with decentralised systems and infrastructure which can support the essential foundations of life will be critical.
Providing new forms of accessible child care, health and social care delivered by workers who are supported and looked after the way corporate professionals are today will be essential and could be transformational as a signal for a new way of valuing what really matters.
Affordable homes designed with more community minded living could be explored immediately through converting empty office and commercial spaces (no longer needed due to remote working and shared co-working spaces).
Community owned clean energy projects needs to be rolling out everywhere to make energy affordable, clean and resilient for everyone. Create the infrastructure which unlocks community connection, sustainable living practices and new forms of ownership models.
Local gifting and sharing platforms and practices will blend as part of a diverse new economic system about supporting life not just making money.
I’m curious about local education innovation, hybrid schools, mixing remote and distance learning part-time with physical place based learning (and better sharing of assets, facilities and resources) homeschooling, skillshares, community learning, self organised learning environments and outdoor learning. Or exploring more choice at least. Recognising with honesty and responsibility the enormous challenge of how to support our children to learn their way out of a world that no longer exists, into a radically new emerging world and how to thrive in the context of continuous uncertainty. It would be great to ask them how they feel about it at least.
With retail, imagine opening up the dying monolithic corporate retail high street into accessible skillshare hubs, creative and arts spaces, youth spaces, health and wellbeing spaces, sports clubs, maker spaces, cafes, music rehearsal studios, civic gathering spaces. Accelerating the shift from consumerism to participation and co-creation culture and the rise of the citizen. Jon Alexander’s citizen shift work is essential reading here.
Internet connectivity everywhere means we can share, learn, trade, collaborate and support each other across the planet, we just stay local as we do it.
After all, nature doesn’t commute, it never did.
7. Local food production infrastructure as a gateway to a regenerative future
Our vulnerable just in time food system has been exposed through this pandemic, as climate and ecological issues put pressure on the countries we depend on for so much of our food that we import, food security will become a huge issue to our survival.
We need massive investment in community greenhouses, growing spaces, regenerative farming capacity building ( surely a new school curriculum subject!) and local food distribution systems and co-ownership models supporting local communities, schools and the most vulnerable.
Growing good food, preparing good food and eating good food, connects people, it creates community, it increases wellbeing, it connects us to nature, it’s good for our health, it repairs soil, it brings back bio-diversity, it protects us from climate change. It could offer purposeful and meaningful work for huge numbers of people at a local level, it offers hope and possibility in light of so much uncertainty and suffering.
It is quite possibly the most important infrastructure to invest in now for a resilient future. Again there is vast expertise, innovation, energy and momentum already building in every community.
8. National mentoring/buddying services — human connection infrastructure.
What if we all were required/encouraged to buddy up with someone in our community locally or nationally — using technology to offer support and listening for each other, to check in on a regular basis? To build on the empathy and expanded view of community which has emerged through the pandemic — human connection infrastructure to accelerate a culture of human connection. What is the value of real human connection ?
9. Participatory decision making infrastructure
Imagine if we could be asked more often how we feel about stuff, what we care about, what matters to us in the places we live.
You know, more regular participation in co-creating the future vs one vote every 4 years.
They’ve been doing it in Reykjavik for some time
We’re all walking around with super computers in our pockets why not make it a thing, at city or regional levels.
Even more so post Covid-19, after a traumatic experience the best thing you can do is to talk about it and be heard, this pandemic has been a huge trauma to many many people.
How about starting by asking people about what they’ve experienced?
What really matters to them now ?
What do they care about?
How do they want to live?
Whatever happens, those that never benefitted from ‘normal life’ need to be deeply in the mix when it comes to re-imagining and co-creating the emerging future.
(updates: its happening here in south london and in Leeds)
10. Kindness and serving community as a design principle — generosity infrastructure
The pandemic has seen extraordinary actions of generosity and kindness, our sense and scale of compassion, care, empathy and community has been expanded. Why not build out from that ? Generosity infrastructure — ideas, experiments and systems that prioritise the gifting of time, energy, ideas, support and attention to those who need it.
When we give and participate in helping others, when we’re able to gift what we’re good at we connect to who we really are, we often start to transform ourselves as we support others. If we are to grow a compassionate culture, in service to life we need to practice it and through it we learn, grow and build connection and community.
Why not make it a regular habit. That we give time and energy to collective social and environmental change. For kids, business and everyone.
How about every friday ?
“In order to find our way we must get lost”
Bayo Akomolafe
So, as we hear the noises getting louder in the media, from politicians and corporations of ‘getting back to normal,’ ‘rebooting the economy’, ‘firing up the engines of the economy’ we should hold tightly and front of mind this new knowledge that we all have.
Knowledge that the pandemic has given us — that most of our social, economic and political systems and beliefs are really, really broken.
And remembering, as uncomfortable as it is, that climate and ecological breakdown is the context through which everything must now be viewed, it’s an era that we are living in, not an issue.
This is the time for imagining new realities and co-creating the emerging future. What we believe to be ‘normal’ today is after all only what has been shaped by the stories of our past.
Now is a time for shaping new stories, having the courage to get lost, to not know, to listen to others, to experiment, to fail often, to learn together, to share and support each other and to act and bring forth the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.
Is it our cultural fear of ‘not knowing’ that is perhaps the biggest challenge now, the real crisis we face?
These edges of uncertainty we are now facing into, offer enormous opportunities for ‘aliveness’, possibility and human potential, if we can just learn to let go of the illusion of ‘certainty and ‘normality’, to see clearly now that they were’nt what we thought they were and embrace the adventure that lies ahead working towards truly regenerative cultures and being good ancestors.
#BuildBackBetter
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