Science of Cities: the future for urban Indigenous communities...

Will Allen (who has an excellent website, 'Learning for Sustainability') flicks on dozens of great snippets including this on a blog by Michale Batty on 'The Science of Cities'. Love the graphics...



I always do a quick search for 'indigenous' on new sites and, shame but no surprises ...

This lack does open up considerable challenges and opportunities for Indigenous research in the area of urbanising indigenous communities. 84% of Maori now live in urban areas - it was only 26% at the end of WW2...

Source: Te Ara

How are we to live? An age old question perhaps, but in Christchurch we are faced with framing a future urban existence not from a blank slate exactly, more like a rubble-state. I'm now a convert to Michael Gunder's thesis in seeing the whole concept and practice of 'planning' as an empty signifier. Let's admit that for all the planners we've produced, fat lot of good it did for the citizens of Otautahi/Christchurch.

I'm only up to chapter four of his and Hillier's 'Planning in Ten Words or Less' but it gives some meaty material for my courses this year as I work in the implications for Maori planning and development.

There is some good stuff coming out of my old workplace, Manaaki Whenua, and Kepa Morgan has published on the Mauri model...

Source: A Tangata Whenua Perspective on Sustainability using the Mauri Model


Readings:  
Urban Maori as ‘New Citizens’: The Quest for Recognition and Resources by Paul Meredith 

The role of Māori values in Low-impact Urban Design and Development (LIUDD) by Garth Harmsworth