Did you know (because I didn't) that there are more than 20.8 million refugees worldwide, and that more than 9 million among them are children? Refugees are legally defined as people who are "outside their countries because of a well-founded fear of persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group".

6.6 million are called Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who are uprooted civilians who have stayed within their countries. Recently the figure for IDPs has risen. 2.4 million people are stateless. 1.7 million have returned home but still need help. 775,566 are asylum seekers who have fled their own country for fear of persecution and are applying to be recognized as refugees. 80, 800 are resettllement cases.
And 29% are in legal limbo without clear status.

Right to Play is an athlete-driven, international humanitarian organization that has started up in order to promote play and learning among disadvantaged children who might not otherwise have the opportunity. Right to play programs are currently implemented in 23 developing countries around the world. Ronaldo, one of the world's top players, has become a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Programme.

The love of play is universal.
All you need is a ball.
A ball designed for refugee camp conditions.
A ball as an icon for the potential of refugee kids.

A ball can change the world.
Help them play, let them learn.

"Sustainable development is the code word for the most important social debate of our time. Is our model of development undoing our very existence or, for that matter, the maintenance of our planetary ecosystem? Under which conditions are economic growth, our consumptive patterns, and our ways of living reproducible over time without damaging the conditions of their reproduction? Is generational solidarity - that is, forwarding a livable planet to the grandchildren of our grandchildren - an achievable goal in the current context of social organization?

This fundamental debate is increasingly urban. For all the talk about the natural environment, it is the living conditions in cities (in fact, in large metropolitan regions) that determine the future of our livelihood. It is in large cities where we generate most of the CO2 emissions that attack the ozone layer. It is our urban model of consumption and transportation that constitutes the main cause of the process of global warming and can irreversibly damage the conditions of livelihood.

The housing crisis, the collapse of transportation, the deterioration of public hygiene, and the contamination of air and water represent the dark side of the urbanization process.

In other words: in the midst of a most extraordinary technological revolution, we are experiencing the largest wave or urbanization in history, often in appalling conditions and, generally speaking, with a high cost in terms of the quality of life, both socially and environmentally.

However, these are structural trends, not historical fatality. What happens in history and in society ultimately depends on human agency...The future of our world will not ultimately depend on technological innovation or on the global economy. It will be the outcome of what we - the people - the urban people - do about it, through our projects and through our conflicts. The missing link between environmental sustainability and social organization, in theory as in practice, is the relationship of urban communities to their environment."
Livable Cities?

"Livable Cities?" as the question mark implies takes a deeper look into whether our current way of occupying the planet and in particular our cities is sustainable. The word "livable" is an interesting choice because it connects the social aspect to the environment, and it is a relationship that has grown increasingly alienated and distanced, perhaps in some part due to increasing urbanization trends which has resulted in the territorial sprawl of urban life onto formerly green spaces. Livable is itself a somewhat ambiguous term and open to interpretation and misinterpretation.

The authors of Livable Cities? argue for a definition of livability that takes into account and must in fact exercise a balance between society (the people) and environment. We are interdependent, and if anything we are more co-dependent on the environment than it is on us. "The coin of livability has two faces. Livelihood is one of them. Ecological sustainability is the other". Citizens should not be forced to choose between green space and breathable air or wages. To be livable a city must put both sides of the "coin" together in a way that provides livelihoods for people and preserves the quality of our environment.

What seems clear today more than ever, and is brought back into the light by books like Livable Cities? and the Al Gore film "An Inconvenient Truth", is that sustainability and livability are intertwined. Citizens cannot afford to imagine themselves living in an urban reality divorced from the hinterland. Urban life has become an expense that the environment cannot afford to carry in its present state and certainly not with the anticipated growth and urbanization of the developing world. We as social agents must become increasingly aware and participate in the creation of sustainable, livable cities. It is no longer just up to the government or turning the finger on the private sector. What becomes evident in Livable Cities? and An Inconvenient Truth is that all three sectors (private/public/civic) have an important role to play in building the framework for a sustainable world.

Ulysses

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vest the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers;
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breath were life. Life piled on life
Were all to little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

A section of Alfred Tennyson's poem, Ulysses

It is slightly ironic that today's baby boomers, a forceful generation that faced many firsts, is standing at the precipice of the past and the future, deliberating how to prolong the benefits of youth into an extended life expectancy. It seems somewhat cruel to have faced up to so many challenges: the demise of Nazi Germany, the civil rights era, women's admission into universities for the first time, and to have time suddenly reward you with old age. This is a generation that lived up to the expectations set for them and by them, and now they are being asked to retire and to pull out of the game they so actively participated in for the majority of their young and adult lives. Where is the justice in that? Don't we have a lot to learn from this group? Don't they have stories to tell us? And more importantly shouldn't we be listening to them, and to each other?

This morning my friend Riccardo and I got into a banter on favourite pieces of literature, Dante, the legend of Lancelot and Guinevere, and Alfred Lord Tennyson's
Ulysses was among them. It was Tennyson's poem that caught my attention. For me, there was really no need to write another book after Ulysses. Don't get me wrong. I love books. I love words. I am very content to curl up in the pages of a new found book. But for me Ulysses captured the human spirit so fully. While you might not agree with Ulysses or Penelope, it is their very flaws, their weaknesses as well as their strengths, that make them so compelling. And so human. They are no better than us. And no worse. They are like each of us; in all our rage and beauty as we face up to life.

Reading Tennyson's Ulysses I cannot help but feel sympathy for this grizzled man that has endured and withstood the tests of time, but finds himself reaching the edge. While his body betrays him with knots and failing strength, his mind and his spirit are very alive and still hunger for the adventures of the past. There is still so much more to discover. The concluded stories were in some ways just an opening of Pandora's box, and it seems premature to have the lid close on your fingers. As Ulysses says, "How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! As tho' to breath were life." (This last line needs no further explanation of the injustices and the lack of imagination we impress upon the ageing population).

Reading passages from the poem, I cannot help but draw parallels between Ulysses and baby boomers. Knowing all that you know makes you want to set forth to do even more. It is part of your lived experience, it is part of your history, and it is even part of your DNA. Truth be told while some parts wane, there is still "And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought" .After all these years of moving forward, how can you possibly retreat, or worse, step back and be told that the world is no longer yours to discover, or to experience. All of these experiences you endured have become a part of you and enable you to see the possibilities. Because despite the passing of time and the quiet slowing down of bodies, what does endure is the strong will and desire to strive, to seek, and to find. Come what may.

As Ulysses says:

Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

"Veterans are those born from 1922-1943. The Great Depression, World War II and Patriotism are the defining events in their life. They value hard work, law and order and respect for authority.

The Baby Boomers are those born between 1943-1960. Defining events include Television, the Civil Rights Movement, and prosperity. they value health and wellness, personal growth, and involvement.

Generation Xers are those born between 1960-1980. Watergate, MTV, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall are defining events for this generation.

They value diversity, global thinking, and pragmatism.

Generation Nexters are those born after 1980. Defining events include school violence, multiculturalism, and TV talk shows. They value civic duty, achievement and diversity."
An excerpt from an online discussion on Millenials

For more glimpses of the ongoing conversations on Millenials and other generations head to Fourth Turning

"I experience myself in the city and the city exists through my embodied experience. The city and my body supplement and define each other. I dwell in the city and the city dwells in me".
Juhani Pallasmaa, 2005

"From all the happenings in the past few years and our continuing urbanization I feel the playground must not be developed as a piece of abstract design but as a natural ground form, with mounds, trees, water, sand and rocks. Children today do not get a chance to feel nature enough and with this philosophy in mind I developed the enclosed design adhering as much as possible to the idea..."
Cornelia Oberlander, Landscape Architect

Over the weekend I went to the Canadian Center for Architecture. They had three installations going on that I really wanted to see. One features a sensory exploration of the city "Sense of the City" and is as playful as it sounds. Another looked at the ecological architectural landscaping work of 87 year-old Cornelia Oberlander - yet another great eco-friendly mind trying to share her positive views with the world. And the last was the Green Benny Farm project which was done by a Montreal architecture group by the name of l'Oeuf, which is an acronym for L'Office de l'eclectisme urbain et fonctionnel, which translates into the office of eclectic and functional urbanism. They took a post-world war two veteran building and converted it into affordable housing for young families and single mothers. The mix was inspiring, and I strongly recommend a visit to anyone near the Montreal area.

Of particular interest was a publication by the Holcium Forum for Sustainable Construction in 2004. It posed the interesting question of whether we were ready for the advent of shrinking cities. Since there is so much talk about the increase of urbanization, it was a surprise to read the opposite trend, but it has been something I have witnessed driving along old country roads past former industrial towns along the Champlain Lakes of Vermont. These formre industrial centers are now ghost towns. As the book noted "city planners must be prepared to deal with the dynamic process that includes simultaneous growth and decline of populations...the decline of former industrial cities...(as an example) the growing number of declining cities like Liverpool and Manchester".

Noted demographer Joel Cohen is quoted so have said that "the demographic future has none of the inevitability that population projections convey because no one knows what people will choose to want".It is very true of our culture and quite unprecedented that in today's culture we have the ability to choose and therefore control certain demographic patterns like fertility, immigration and to some extent extended life expectancy. It is increasingly difficult for demographers to project concretely, and perhaps it always was an imperfect science, population growth.

I must confess a warm spot for Cornelia Oberlander who took a keen interest in creating parks for children where they would mingle with nature and not find themselves playing in an abstract concept of a playground. She felt that children had become increasingly distanced from the earth, and her 1967 Montreal World Expo Park for Children and Air was surely a tribute to that sentiment.

"The big questions that we are going to ask ourselves in this century are "what does it mean to be human?" and not least "what does it mean to be alive?" Technology comes alive through robots and artificial intelligence, and life is made technological through biotechnology, artificial organs and limbs, and the genetic engineering of new life forms.

For this reason life is challenged from two sides and displays an entirely different logic from what we are used to. Life in itself is neither dignified, sacred or fragile. It simply is - a fluid and boundary-breaking entity, which is hard to grasp. As Dr. Malcolm says in Jurassic Park, "life finds a way," and it will do so even more in the future. Life will find its way into products, technologies and phenomena, and it will slip out of our control like sand through our fingers. It will be cloned, engineered and manipulated, and there will no doubt be unexpected consequences. "

I came across this interesting article which is very in line with some of the questions I have in terms of our current . tech orientation. The article was written by the Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies.

I came across this as I was scanning for the lastest insights. A quick read on some of the main trends expected in the coming decade by the Institute for The Future.
It is a fold-out map.

I spent last week in Copenhagen attending two conferences. The IFA 8th Global Ageing conference which focused on the global ageing trend and its impact on policies and cultural realities in the many different regions of the world. With decreased mortality, increase life expectancy, and a declining fertility rate the developed regions of the world are having to confront the impact of a reverse demographic pyramid. But not to be shut out the developing world is also expected to face the same predicament or opportunity in the near future. The active hosts included WHO (World Health Organization and the International Federation on Ageing.

Talks spanned from "Growing Old in a Foreign Country" where I listened to Professor Naina Patel of PRIAE (Policy Research Institute on Ageing & Ethnicity) speak about the very specific challenges faced by the elderly growing older in a foreign country. Often times foreigners face greater challenges due to a lower economic status. A favorite lecture was "Active ageing in age-friendly cities" where the organizer was WHO and Dr. Louise Plouffe described a program WHO will be rolling out in 2007 to encourage cities to create and sustain age-friendly environments.

The second conference Reboot 8.0 was a technological renaissance of sorts. I only managed to make it there for end of day Thursday and all day Friday, but it proved to be an interesting post-bubble look at current waves in the tech industry. One of my favorite scribblers Hugh Macleod was on hand to talk about the ability of any and every blogger to do commerce in the global cultural environment we now live in. He was particularly excited by the marketing effects of blogging, and it is hard to deny he has had success.

Other talks addressed digital ethics and the right of individuals where public digital dissemination is concerned. As Rebecca Blood pointed out, what right will a 3 year-old have in the future as a twenty year-old when her father Nicholas Nova addressed the emergence of objects in light of the networked world that we live in and the new ecology of things. In an interesting twist on reality, they asked whether objects might be able to produce insights of their own in our current hyper-world.

Themes that came out of both conferences were the following:

Reboot - Web 2.0 aka social software, the ability to work and be anywhere as a techpreneur, transparency, collaboration, the content generation, constant easy connectivity, how to turn a buck via your software more than hardware, digital ethics (?).

IFA's 8th Global Ageing Conference: Safety and security of the elderly, elderly friendly, global ageing as an ongoing process, the differences and similarities between ageing in the developed vs developing world, the economic impact and an appraisal of programs and policies for an ageing society.

All in all both conferences spoke about society and culture in the current and emerging context that we occupy in this global village.