Cities: A Practice of Mutual Agency
Our cities are full of problems with no easy solutions. And when we think we know how to fix something, we find ourselves in conflict about what to do.
Pick your challenge:
We disagree about how to best move around the city
We don’t all feel like we belong in the city
We are facing the challenges that come with a warming climate
We don’t all have homes we can afford
We make running a business challenging
We don’t look after everyone
We have people who are losing their jobs
We make neighbourhoods that foster social isolation
We struggle with so much more
Our cities need improvement. And no matter how hard we work on these things, the problems remain. I propose that if we think about—and talk about cities differently, we will have a different relationship with them. We make better cities when we explore our city-citizen relationship, rather than ignore it or fight it.
Who do we need to be?
I co-hosted a series of conversations in January 2021 with my colleague Marilyn Hamilton. We called it “Cities Rising for a Regenerative Future.” We pulled in 23 people with varied expertise working with cities and communities from 18 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America.
Instead of asking them to be the sage on the stage and display their expertise, we asked them to play the role of reflective practitioners. We allowed them to think and feel their way through the work they do to improve their communities and cities—and do so in a public way that allowed the audience to reimagine who they need to be to take action to improve the life conditions for many in our cities.
Cities are messy, full of conflict, and always demanding improvement. Tension in our city reflects how the city does not meet our needs. It could be the need for safety and security: housing, access to food, violence and abuse. Or it could be the need for connection, feeling like we belong to the place we call home, even if only for a while.
“When people bubble up (or blast up) in protest, they tell us that something is not working.”
When people bubble up (or blast up) in protest, they tell us that something is not working. There are needs not met. The events tell us that there is work to be done to make improvements, so these cities we make for ourselves to live in work well for more than just a few of us. In the end, I am required to notice improvements I need and allow improvements for others.
The 25 of us that gathered to reflect on our work in our respective cities and communities, our practice, were exploring two questions:
Who do our cities need to be to serve us well?
Who do we need to be to serve our cities well?
Below are some threads of the week, some hints at who we need to be as citizens to make cities that serve us well.
Agency in the city
Let’s start with a definition of the word “agency,” found at Lexico.com:
Action or intervention producing a particular effect
A thing or person that acts to produce a particular result
Here’s a bit more, from Wikipedia: “In social science, agency is defined as the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices.”
“Agency: an individual’s capacity to act to produce a desired result.”
In principle, I use the word agency to mean an individual’s capacity to act to produce a desired result. There are limitations on one’s agency depending on the political regimes we live in and the social agreements we make through our laws. What I’m getting at is the capacity we each possess, within ourselves, to exercise when the conditions are right. (I do not mean the right to do whatever we want when we want, rather the capacity act when we see needed improvements.)
Who do we need to be? People who act to improve our lives.
Scale in the city
The scale at which we act can vary greatly. And all scales are relevant. So, when you see an opportunity to improve how things work at home, on your block or in your neighbourhood, in organizations large and small, those scales matter. We might also see improvements needed in how we shop, how our food grows and is made and transported, or the ecological impacts of how we live, or economic inequities.
The work we do as dentists, custodians, cashiers or nanotechnology researchers contributes to how well our cities serve us. Whatever it is or the scale at which we do the work, our work contributes to how others experience the city.
Who do we need to be? Citizens who collectively work at all scales.
Marilyn Hamilton’s Integral City Holarchy
Cities are living systems
Cities are living systems that embody paradox. On the ground in our cities, we avoid conflict, yet conflict is the disturbance we need to take the initiative to improve quality of life. In the city, we find peace and chaos, stillness and movement, nature and concrete, connection and separation, beauty and ugliness. We consider a bird’s nest natural, or a beehive or ant colony, so why not a city, the habitat we make for ourselves?
Who do we need to be? Citizens who work to make cities that nourish the natural world.
Beth Sanders’ Habitats of the City (Nest City)
Mutual trust in the city
Cities are the embodiment of an agreement we make to trust each other, to trust people we know and people we do not know. This agreement, and our trust, is regularly tested.
We each contribute to city life with our paid and unpaid work. Sometimes the service we provide to others in the city is clear and tangible: childcare, grocery delivery to our homes, teaching people how to read, cleaning up a stream. Other times we do not know who benefits from our work or who has made the contributions that make the city work. We don’t often meet the people who design and build our buildings, roads and bridges we use.
We regularly see what is wrong in our cities, but what if we changed our stance and looked at our cities as a never-ending quest for improvement, a constant learning journey to grow and develop who we are? What if we considered conflict an opportunity for citizens to have their needs met? What if we organized ourselves in ways that allowed us, by exploring our conflicts, to rely on each other, trust each other?
We make our culture of distrust--in the form of taking and consuming, rather than sharing and giving. And the city asks us to trust, whether we do or not.
“In the simplest forms, we trust that our basic needs will be met in the city.”
In the simplest of forms, we trust that our basic needs will be met in the city: food, home, education, work and safety. After these basic needs, we look to experience connections with other people, feel belonging, and make meaningful contributions.
Our governments exemplify the agreements we have with each other. We trust that pedestrians will stay on the sidewalk. We trust that cars will move forward on the right (or left) side of the road. We pool our resources to make swimming pools or bike lanes, or community halls and gathering spaces. Different cities have different expectations of each other about education or health care. In cities worldwide, we are hearing about needed improvements to policing.
When we experience or notice conflict in the city, we are wise to pause and see the unmet needs at the root of the conflict. Conflict is where we find broken trust, and the big question: are we able to rely on each other?
Who do we need to be? Citizens who are willing and able to explore conflict to understand unmet needs.
Work as mutual agency
Cities are places to practice mutual trust. When we are willing and able to explore conflict to understand our own and others’ unmet needs, we are ready to trust others’ experiences to guide how to improve the city. With trust in the validity of another’s experience, we can hear what action is needed. And this is where agency comes in.
If agency is my capacity to act to produce a desired result, mutual agency is our capacity to act together to produce shared desired results. My neighbour and I want the same thing—easy travel routes to the grocery store—but we have different ways of moving around the city that appear to conflict. I want a safe way to ride my bike to the grocery store to get some exercise while running errands, so I ask for a bike path. My neighbour needs to take his car because of health issues, so he asks for minimal disruption of his route by car.
“Mutual agency: our capacity to act together to produce shared desired results.”
The people in cars and on bicycles are often in conflict. Car drivers want to move freely without worrying about being inconvenienced by bicycles or harming or killing bicycle riders. People on bicycles wish to move freely without the threat of being hurt or killed by people driving cars. Mutual agency: find a way for both modes of transportation to move together.
Or how about people with White bodies in my city who are protected by the police service and the Indigenous and Black bodies who are disproportionately harassed and killed by the same police service?
Or how about people with White bodies who find it easy to find an apartment to rent in my city and the Indigenous and Black bodies rejected by landlords when they see the colour of their skin?
What landed for me during our Cities Rising for a Regenerative Future: work as mutual agency means actively looking to work with others who have different views. Whether it is bicycle lanes or racism in the police service, the city, to serve us well, asks us to figure out how to meet diverse needs simultaneously. Our needs probably are quite the same, but we have different ideas about meeting those needs.
Mutual agency fosters sovereignty in self and others, the kind that supports healthy self and others because it considers others to be worthy of our contributions. Even if I don’t trust them. Mutual agency enables a sense of care and giving, of generosity. It seeds a regenerative future.
Reflection
What improvements do you see are needed in your city?
How are you working to make those improvements?
Who are you working with who is quite different from you?