From the Global Longhouse
to a Network of Global Arcologies

Cocreative leadership requires everyone to be able to tune into the skills, talents, and the genius of themselves and others. A key to doing this is letting go of the local self and listening to the inner guidance that allows us to follow the highest path of creative genius. The highest path of our collective genius is to build sustainable cities that take care of generations to come.

In Jean Houston’s book Time Jump, there is a chapter called “Peacemaking and the Global Longhouse.” The Longhouse was the metaphor use by the great Iroquois peacemaker, Deganawidah, to bring five warring tribes into a peaceful confederation. They were called Longhouses because they were longer than they were wide. At both ends of the house were door openings that were covered by skins in wintertime. The walls of the Longhouses had no windows. In the center of the house was a fire pit. There was a hole in the roof to let out the smoke. But not all the smoke escaped which made the interior environment smoky at times. Several families lived in a Longhouse—the five tribes living and working together to make the Longhouse function created an image of peace.

It’s interesting to me that the metaphor Deganawidah used to create peace among the tribal nations was an architectural structure. Architecture is important to the conceptualization of peace because it gives us a structure or framework or cosmic order in which to build new harmonious relationships. However, we would do better to think in terms of a new architectural foundation rather than the Longhouse as a way to work on a practical level for everyone. My suggestion is to visualize ecological architecture—arcology, a car-free city--as a way to bring about a sustainable ecological peace. Isn’t this the great work of our time requiring cocreative action in all fields of human endeavor?

After writing the above paragraphs, I wondered how I could illustrate the connection between peace and architecture more clearly. Then Hurricane Katrina appeared on every weather channel and a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans was declared. People with means to leave before the hurricane hit land left, but poor people who were living pay check to pay check couldn’t afford to leave. Also those who were elderly and infirmed were unable to get out of the city. Perhaps as many as 600,000 people were stuck in a city filling up with toxic water. Now, more than anytime in history, we need to find this cocreative spirit and rebuild our world with ecocity principles.

On the Today Show President Bush said that once the situation in New Orleans has been stabilized then they can start to think about rebuilding the city, a task that could take years. But many ask, “Why repeat the mistakes of the past?” Isn’t it time to heed the words of Benjamin Franklin, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?” We have a million refugees from the hurricane. Scientists tell us that we can expect more violent hurricanes in the future because of the warming up of the Earth’s atmosphere due to the effects to CO2 emissions, one of the results of our fossil fuel addiction.

If New Orleans is built in the same fashion that it was built previously, with the same class divisions and inequalities in place, the same need for fossil fuels, the same lack of public transportation, the same domination of ecosystems rather than working wisely with nature, the same dirty industrial and chemical plants discharging toxic wastes into the river and the sea, do you think that will that lead us to a better world? We are simply repeating the mistakes of the past industrial civilization. This rebuilding of the old civilization that is dependent on fossil fuel and nuclear power for its energy needs, and private automobile used for its transportation needs is not progress, it is devolution; it is anti-human rights. It isn’t learning from mistakes and moving on to a new pattern of development that works in harmony with nature to enhance our quality of life, one that saves us and the other threatened species from extinction.

Albert Einstein wrote, "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction." In this time of major global crisis created by decades of denial by our elected officials of scientific evidence about the effects of global warming, we need this touch of courageous genius in each one of us to embrace a new way of life and a new city design, arcology, to replace the old civilization that started on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia, a place that has become a hell on Earth thanks to the American Operation Iraqi Freedom!

With millions of refugees throughout the world in search of a good city, now Americans have their own refugee problem created through our war on nature and our dependency on fossil fuels. This challenge to us could be seen as what Barbara Hubbard calls an evolutionary driver, problems that “stimulate innovation and transformation.”

To move us beyond the quagmire of the war in Iraq, the threat of nuclear terrorism, and dead zones (hypoxic zone) in the Gulf of Mexico, (an area the size of Connecticut caused by toxic fertilizers and other industrial pollutants that destroy the oxygen in the water running into the Mississippi delta), we must move in an opposite direction. Rebuilding New Orleans and Baghdad with the same developmental and thought patterns that created the problems in the first place will not be the way we will be able to overcome our critical problems that are all connected to the downfall of our present sinking civilization.

We have a million displaced American citizens in need of a new city, one that is safe from natural disasters, wars, terrorism, starvation, poverty and global warming, an ecocity that allows people the freedom to pursue their vocations that bring out the best in a human being for the good of all humanity. We need to build the city where everyone has equal opportunities to develop their innate gifts without having to join the military and fight, kill and be killed, in an unjust, immoral war in order to get an education.

If we learn the lessons of history and begin to listen to our scientific experts and social visionaries, we will start to see what the noble cause is for our time. We come to problems using our intuition, scientific knowledge, and wisdom with a future orientation. We design arcologies using our most advanced technologies and ageless wisdom to bring us to a global culture of peace. Years ago inventor of the geodesic dome, Bucky Fuller, said that we have the know-how, technological inventions, and resources to make this world %100 physically successful. What it takes is intention and political/social will to do so. So, where is this will and intention now?

President Bush remarked on the Today Show that America can do both: fight the war on terrorism in Iraq and save the people in New Orleans. But it has been clear from reports on TV news that rescuing people trapped in New Orleans hasn’t been easy, as winning the war in Iraq has not been easy. People who are desperate for water, food, and rescue from the distressed city wonder why it has taken so long to get help. When the government was able to mobilize for war in Iraq within days setting up tents and making permanent military bases in Iraq, why haven’t they done that to the people of New Orleans? What hope do the poor and homeless refugees of the former New Orleans have when President Bush says they will rebuild New Orleans when the city wasn’t working for most of them anyway?

To give hope is to give a new image, arcology, where basic human needs are met. If we can afford to pay 200 billion dollars to invade Iraq, we can find the money to build an arcology for millions of people using renewal energies, creating millions of jobs that support a new ecocity economy founded on the principles of sustainability. Architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart have outlined such an economy in their book Cradle to Cradle.

Shouldn’t we carefully look at the delicate Mississippi delta bioregion, do an environmental assessment in order to see if this area is sound for human habitat rather than accept the President simply saying that we will use the money to start to pump the water out of the city and rebuild there? If scientists agree that it isn’t a sound location, then where is the best place to build a new city? A vision of arcology would give great hope to refugees that by working with nature, using our expert knowledge, and liberating technologies, a new New Orleans could be transformed into a new kind of city for the 21st Century world, a model of world peace, social justice, and human rights.

But alas, on another radio news show, I heard President Bush in Mobile, Alabama saying that he can’t wait for the day when he is sitting on the porch of Senator Tent Lott’s new beachfront house. His Pascagoula house was lost in Hurricane Katrina. But it wasn’t his only house. His wife sat out the storm in their house in Jackson. So it is with many rich, famous, and powerful. Not only do they own one house, but a number of vacation houses. They are not like the majority of homeowners in New Orleans who owned one home that was not covered by home owner’s insurance. If a revolution in consciousness doesn’t occur, the rich will have the power to rebuild while the poor who were able to escape the toxic waters in New Orleans and find their way to a temporary shelter will not be given any insurance money to rebuild. But if we were to try something new, pooling relief and insurance money together using it in a collective way to build a whole-systems architectural design by using Barbara Hubbard’s Wheel of Cocreation as a democratic guide to a social architectural plan, we have a chance of making arcology real. Such an idea means thinking in a new way, not for one’s self or family, but for all people who are in need of sustainable ecocity.

To create peace means to create arcology. We need the troops home now so that they can help us do the noble task of building the world’s first arcology that finally breaks us free from our oil addiction. Isn’t the crisis of our time calling us to create arcologies rather than to destroy cities? How can we rebuild Baghdad if we don’t even know how to successfully rebuild New Orleans?

I am realistic about what it might take to actually change the hearts of the greedy and people who are scared of change. The rich have had generations and generations of social conditioning that their way is superior. To pool money and knowledge together in order to build something greater than Trent Lott’s beach house isn’t seen as the American dream. Such a vision transforms the American dream (or nightmare if you live in poverty in America or if you are caught in the war in Iraq,) into a universal dream of something fresh, beautiful, and peaceful, an ecocity that could be a model for the entire world, a model that transcends the horrible problems created by urban sprawl, urban decay, and ecosystem destruction.If we can comprehend that we are all on a sinking ship that is on a lake of radioactive waste and the only way we are going to survive is by working together in a new way that brings happiness to all, are we going to be able to sail away from the past and explore new frontiers that are based in conscious evolution.