We need to regenerate the space we live in. This is necessary because modernity, and particularly neoliberalist hypermodernity, is turning it into a desert, not just physically, but also socially. We can do this because in spite of the prevailing tendency towards desertification, new regenerative practices and cultures are emerging, based on the shared reconstruction of places and communities. In this context, connectivity is a force pulling in opposite directions, encouraging desertification while at the same time supporting regeneration. It’s up to us to develop the necessary planning abilities to point it in the latter direction. To do so we need (also) a new culture which – taking an expression introduced years ago by Wolfgang Sachs – we can call cosmopolitan localism: the localism which is possible and necessary in a densely populated and highly connected world.
Photo by: Chris Tolworthy
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