Structural Adaptivity, Before and After Thoughts

As a means of concluding these writings on Structural Adaptivity and Resilience, following are some of the background thoughts, with recent revision, that led me to my proposals. Originally, my writings were directed at city and regional planning. However now I realize they are also about resilience.  I hope my submittals will be helpful.  I will try to write more soon.

Time.  Planners, resilience makers, and all other leaders and professionals dealing with the built environment must focus on long time spans.  In order to have significant impact on the future of our world, we must recognize that only by looking at big chunks of history and big chunks of future time can we really see the reality of what is going on.  Likewise, we need to do so in order to see the reality of what needs to be done.

Typical urban or regional plans target a future some 20 years ahead.  Moreover, they typically are based on past trends of 20 years or so.  However, our world does not change in 20-year cycles.  Twenty years is a very short time period in the flow of transformation.

Planning in only 20-year increments almost completely precludes the possibility of deliberately changing directions, initiating new strategies.  If it is determined that the old patterns for development are not functioning any more, it easily could take more than 20 years to plan for and establish new patterns. 

Likewise, planners that typically think in 20-year cycles do not like to believe they might have been mistaken during the previous 20 years.  Therefore, they are more likely to deny any errors in judgment.  Longer cycles allow for sizeable changeover periods within the plans that planners can more readily accept.

Many historians look at transformation as coming in much longer cycles than 20 years.  The War forIndependence, the Revolutionary War and the Big War (WWII) were each approximately 80-90 years apart.  In addition, some of the major social/economic “turning points” also are measured as emanating about 80-90 years apart. 

A recent book reported on extensive findings about American generations going back to the early settlers of our land.  It portrayed a cycle of 4 generations and then repeated itself over and over.  Each progression lasted something like 80-100 years. 

The Native Americans, it is said, made no important decisions without consideration of the next seven generations.  That conceivably means about 100 years. 

Further, we can never be certain if we are at the beginning of a trend “story,” the middle, or the end.  Has the Industrial Age already ended or are we still in its middle?  Are we really, now, in the first segment of the information age, or the space age, or the robotics age?  On the other hand, are we now in the beginning stages of a new era that that will contain so many new technologies and new trends that we cannot even yet identify it?

Most likely, in my opinion, we are in the early stages of an Age of Transition.  Transition Ages can be expected to include considerable discord, frustration, and lack of direction.  These seem characteristic of our current circumstance. 

In addition, this Age likely will last longer than we expect.  The Industrial Revolution did not start or come together in just a few decades.  Moreover, the next future age will require even more physical, social, cultural, financial, management, market system and related re-combinations, reconfigurations, trials and errors, etc., than the past age, to emerge fully.  In this Age of Transition, we do not know what is coming next so we must be ready for many possibilities.  In addition, what is coming next is likely to be even far more complex and dramatic than the Industrial Revolution.

Rapid Change.  Rapid change is leaving our leaders and planners behind.  We need to get out ahead of it.  We need to learn how to think and plan in a world where dramatic, unpredictable change is more to-be-expected than it is to-be-unexpected.

Dramatic, unpredictable change came briskly during the past century.  During the Twentieth Century, transformations included the invention (a little before 1900) of the automobile, the airplane, the jet airplane, and the helicopter.  They also included central sewage treatment plants and collection systems, skyscrapers, shopping centers, supermarkets, the Great Depression, WWI and II, the invention and deployment of the atomic bomb and nuclear power, trips to the moon, artificial satellites, reinforced concrete, interstate highways, turbine-driven ships, stainless steel, plastics, synthetic fibers, the TV, the computer and cell phone, modern medicines and medical equipment, and synthetic fertilizers and insecticides.  We also experienced awesome new discoveries about our universe, the functioning’s of our brains, and other monumental shifts in our world of knowledge. 

In the present century, change is coming even faster.  We are now facing global terrorism, global climate alteration, and the ever-increasing incidences of hurricanes, drought and other weather events.  There are increasing worries about possibilities of pandemics, economic collapse, collapse of the Internet, millions of new immigrants in a short period of time, long-term breakdown of electric power grid, or even such possibilities as civil war, world war, asteroids slamming into the earth, or extraterrestrial contacts.  We are facing life spans increasing dramatically, autonomous robots, superconductivity, artificial intelligence, nanostructures, shifts in spiritual/religious belief systems, etc.

Change is not coming at the same steady rate each decade.  It comes in fits and starts.  During some decades we may think that not much is happening.  In others, it seems overwhelming. 

Why is change continuing to occur faster and faster?  Here some of the reasons that occur to me:

• ·         The emergence of a worldwide economy and corresponding competition have greatly transformed our business strategies and structures and will do so even more in the future.
• ·         The diversity of the population in anyone country or region has increased considerably and as it does it leads to an upsurge of new ideas and techniques.  Diversity and the interactions of diverse peoples generate increasingly rapid innovation.
• ·         Total world population is rapidly increasing and generating more contentiousness for economic success, food, minerals, potable water, clean air, energy sources, developable land, and many other important elements for a decent quality of life while at the same time bringing many stresses.
• ·         “Physical and biological earth” is also changing, some changes occurring naturally, and some caused by the activities of mankind or other species, including permutations in our waters, our land/soils/geology, our air, and our systems of life - some such transitions occurring very slowly and some much quicker.  Changes are also occurring due to activities beyond our planet.
• ·         Rapid, mass, user-friendly communication among all peoples also leads to a flood of new ideas and techniques – which in turn lead to bigger surges of new ideas and techniques.  The same is true of transportation modes and vehicles.
• ·         Changes in all categories of technology lead to exponential changes in all varieties of future technology.  Each new technology “unit” produces multiple new technology units and each of them produces multiple, more new technology units.
• ·         With the creation of beginning levels of artificial intelligence, we can and are leveraging all of the above increases even more and quicker.  The potential future transformations brought about by AI are beyond most people’s comprehension.
• ·         Further, the above forces for change are not just working within their own elements.  They are interacting with each other and the interactions are sensational.

Some researchers and writers are thinking all of this will lead to a so-called “technological singularity,” a merging of human intelligence and machine intelligence.  While maybe only hypothetical, the singularity concept illustrates the degree that transformation could occur.  In addition, it further illustrates the futility of thinking that the future is foreseeable. 

Optimism.  Leaders and planners need to have abundant optimism.  It is our responsibility to do so.  We must embrace the many positive potentials of our future.

There are many possible changes to be worried about for the future and there are many changes that have happened in the recent past which were problematic.  Current leadership also does not lend itself to much positive thinking.  However, every generation looks at its world as having more problems than ever before.

City and regional planners and resilience practitioners, as well as others dealing with the future, must generate optimism.  It is a responsibility of our profession to be generally optimistic.  Yes, we also need to be realistic about our problems, look for the mistakes we have made, and not try to create any myths about the probabilities for success.  Nevertheless, there are many reasons for optimism and to do our jobs well we must embrace them. 

A whole new generation of young people are moving into leadership positions, people with great awareness of the advancing possibilities of engineering and technology, management and leadership strategies, environmental sustainability, education reform, outer space resources, and many others. 

The “human animal” has succeeded many times because it was programmed, through the natural selection process of biological evolution, to be optimistic.  Of our most direct animal ancestors, the strands that had optimism were the ones that produced the most children that lived to have children of their own, and so on.  Most of us are the result of that process.  Most of us are the ones that continue to believe the human animal is near the beginning of our story, not near the end.  Those who warn us otherwise are leading us away from our natal characteristics.  We innately choose resilience as a fundamental principle for humankind. 

Likewise, when we look at all of our present problems, we forget to look also at all the enormous gains and benefits we have received from recent changes.  Some which occur to me:

• ·         Public and private health care curing many diseases and raising our life expectancies dramatically.
• ·         De-coding the human genome and all its future potential benefits.
• ·         People now sincerely being concerned and taking action about our natural environment.
• ·         Artificial intelligence being on the brink of yielding enormous new capacities of analysis and problem solving. 
• ·         Worldwide communications and social, economic and cultural interactions with potentials for great strides in tolerance, understanding and information sharing.
• ·         Huge gains in food production, potential food production resources of the oceans, and opportunities for yet more food production increases.
• ·         Manned space travel to the moon, artificial satellites, future exploration and resource discovery and utilization.
• ·         Major national political/social accomplishments in the area of racial minority rights, accessibility of the disabled, women’s rights and other civil rights and more/better economic stability and health care for the elderly.
• ·         Leapfrogging that is coming from technology improvements for the benefit of third world peoples.
• ·         The freshness and imagination of our youth having grown up with so much technology.
•  

The Human Factor.  People as individuals sometimes may have difficulty adapting to rapid change and to changes that we cannot even yet imagine.  However, people as a whole, as they succeed each other from generation to generation, most likely are capable of much more rapid rates of change than we project. 

Many of us normally take the view that, even if there are many unpredictable rapid changes in the next 50 to 100 years, people will remain the same.  The US citizens will stick to the same beliefs, lifestyles, and other characteristics that have served us well for many years.  However, with a long-term perspective, that may not be as likely as we believe.

One hundred years ago, who would ever have predicted:

 ·         That life expectancy would increase from about 50 years to about 75 years?

• ·         Fertility rates would drop to only about two children per woman from almost four children per woman?
• ·         Women would participate in the labor force approximately equal to that of men?
• ·         People would be able to connect electronically to their place of employment so that many of them would not even have to leave their homes to conduct their work activities?
• ·         Millions of people would learn the skills to drive a personal gas power vehicle over concrete highways at speeds of 70 or more miles per hour and learn how to operate a complicated electronic device that would connect them to libraries of information all over the world?
• ·         Millions of people would work only 40 hours per week and take 4-weeks per year of vacation?
• ·         People would choose to live in warmer climates close to the oceans rather than in the American heartlands?
• ·         People would be more interested in going to the mall and buying large amounts of clothes, furniture, cosmetics, music playing devices, and so on than in having picnics and visiting with their neighbors at churches and neighborhood social functions?
• ·         People would change their thinking patterns to focus on short term results rather than “steady as you go,” on nurturing children rather than on commanding them, on the ability to multi-task rather than to take one thing at a time?
• ·         People would build work skills and experience in a succession of jobs and places of employment rather than on one job and one place of employment for their work lifetime? and
• ·         People would favor using their government institutions to take on responsibilities for income maintenance, environmental protection, health care, disaster mitigation, freedom and democracy for all other counties not just for us, and much more?

Obviously, the people 100 years ago were living different lives than we do now and had significantly different interests, values, and aspirations.  There is no reason to expect any different for the next 100 years.

Changes within the populations most likely did not happen within each individual.  The changes were more likely the result of each new (succeeding) generation absorbing many changes that the preceding generation did not fully absorb.  Children born during an age when automobiles already existed had much less difficulty in accepting and managing a lifestyle in which automobiles were common, to the extent that they probably could hardly imagine what it would be like to not drive an automobile.

In the same manner, children being born now, or in the 50-year future, are not likely to have difficulty accepting space travel and learning to make trips into space.  Likewise, they are not likely to have difficulty in accepting and learning to deal with life spans of 100-150 years, or receiving most of their education and health care in their own homes (by interactive telecommunications), or having their close relatives living all over the world and still having strong family ties with them.  They even probably will come to accept risk management as a guide to their life choices more than the factors of income and comfort. 

It is even possible that in the next 50-100 years people will be faced with changes in the basic spiritual perspectives we have now.  They may be faced with new understandings of our environment and ourselves (growth of new life forms, preventing species extinction, totally changed climate conditions, how our brains work, etc.), the existence of life on other planets, and the existence of other universes and cosmic dimensions. 

The challenge, if there will be one, is that people may not be willing to help each succeeding generation to accept and deal with the changes as they come.  They have often resisted doing so in the past and could do so even more in the more rapidly changing future. 

Therefore, our challenge is likely to be to start paying more attention to the possibilities of the future and to opening up our own minds and helping our youth open up their minds to major changes in thinking and acting.  It is not that old ways of thinking and acting were wrong; it is that new ways may be even better suited to new conditions.

Some Conclusions for Now.  Following are some of the thoughts I hope readers will garner:

1.      1.          A long-term perspective of time is necessary to make good plans and decisions, now.  Plans and decisions made on a short-term perspective result in our continuing to fall further behind.  Many problems need to be resolved very soon and our best efforts must be applied; nevertheless, we must apply solutions that even more are directed at the even greater problems that are probably coming down the road.
 
2.      We are now seemingly in an Age of Transition.  It may be many decades before we enter fully into a new age that has the stability that we seek.
 
3.      Change is coming so fast we must learn and adopt a completely new paradigm for planning and management.  Rapid change cannot be avoided.  History shows us so.  Rapid change is not the problem; our old ways of planning for future change are the problem.  We need to learn how to think and plan in a world where dramatic, unpredictable change is more to-be-expected than it is to-be-unexpected, at least until we enter a new age of stability.
 
4.      Taking an overly pessimistic view of our future is contrary to the best interests of our country and world.  Of course, we also need to be realistic about our problems, look for the mistakes we have made, and not try to create any myths about the probabilities for success   But people have succeeded in the past by being optimistic.  Optimism has been one of the most important attributes in human evolution.  Without it, we might still be monkeys.
 
5.      People as individuals may have difficulty adapting to rapid change and to changes that we can’t even yet imagine but people as a whole, as they succeed each other from generation to generation, most likely are capable of much more rapid rates of change than we project.  The problem is that many people may not be willing to help each succeeding generation to accept and deal with the changes as they arise.  They want to grasp on to the present-day. 

Much more needs to be achieved in order to stimulate positive thinking and planning for the rapid changes of an indefinite future.  We are fully capable of doing so.

William Schnaufer