[Ailist] Inclusive, participatory official community planning

[Lionel Boxer]

As has been demonstrated by the situation created by Mr Madoff in NYC,
there is a lot of unappreciative behaviour going on at the core of some
enormous financial decisions that have impact on us all.  These people
sit isolated from the rest of humanity making decisions that maximise
their personal financial fortunes, but harm the rest of humanity in a
triple-bottom-line (environment, society and economic) sort of way.  The
big corporation that has decided to construct a big box building in your
small community is behaving in that sort of way.  Corporations, while
being entities, are not human beings.  They are entities created for the
sole purpose of building financial wealth (of course, certain
constraints can be build into the corporate charters, but they do not
exist for the purpose to improve society or the environment).  So, they
do not have an ability to feel guilt from doing "bad" things to society
or the environment - financial profit alone is what motivates
corporations (environmental and social issues are obligatory and
externally imposed annoyances that they will do their best to ignore).

Have a look at:
http://intergon.net/tsw/sustainableceos.pdf

Not exactly AI, but it is a framework that I developed, which (like AI)
is a based social constructionist theory.  In one sentence, to fix your
problem you need to align the underlying mood of the decision makers
with your underlying mood.

My framework can be appreciative.  That is:
1. In a appreciative sort of way, it is necessary to help people realise
that the rights (to do unsustainable things) that they think they have
are inappropriate.  
2. Likewise, in an appreciative sort of way, it is necessary to help
people assume appropriate duties (very closely connected with rights).  
3. This forms the basis for, in an appreciative sort of way, to create a
moral order (limit rights to do bad things and impose duties to do good
things).  
4. All this, in an appreciative sort of way becomes the foundation for
action, which all members of the community need to engage in (do good
things while preventing bad things from being done).

The framework is simple.

You see your challenge as being appreciative.

The greater challenge is being heard in the first place, which is why so
many radical approaches are taken by activitists.  Why? At the heart of
all the unsustainable behaviour we see in the world today there is an
incentive system that rewards decisionmakers for unsustainable behaviour
(a decision maker can be appreciative about that if they are sitting at
corporate headquarters) - look at what Madoff did (he took more and more
money from people to pay more and more dividends to other people - that
as we discovered is not sustainable).  Your town is treated as a
marginalised colony of some enormous corporation that does not care
about your local triple-bottom-line / sustainability issues.  With that
in mind, I am not sure how anyone at a local level is going to harness
AI to truly deal with a local situation that is being created by a
central power unless you get to that central place where the decisions
are being made and intercede with AI approaches there.  Why?  Because
(in the sense of the big box building development that you want to stop)
your community is simply a colony of this big corporation.

Consider (from http://intergon.net/phd/phdch2.doc page 30):

"Radical thought realizes the ability of ‘governmentality’ to be
achieved from a distance.  Combining Latour’s (1987, p. 219-232) idea of
‘action at a distance’ and Foucault’s (1979) idea of ‘governmentality’,
Rose (1989, 1996) and Kendall (1997) write about ‘government at a
distance’.  Kendall (1997, p. 90) specifically refers to the ‘efficacy’
with which Australia was governed as a colony without ‘physical
presence’.  Banerjee (1999, p. 12) raises concerns that non-Western
societies and their forms of knowledge have been marginalized.  For
example, ‘based on British common law, Australia became a colony of
England because it was settled as terra nullis or land belonging to no
one’.  He goes on to call for change to this ‘government at a distance’
and other inequalities.  Perhaps a decrease in governmentality may
increase a societies tendency to be influenced by activism."

So, apply that governmentality idea to how corporations behave (many
corporations are bigger than some countries).  Don't forget that the
British Empire was largely a corporate machine to build wealth for
corporate HQ in London (not that this is a bad thing if tempered with
the ideals of the consort of Queen Victoria - as explained on pages 16
and 17 of my thesis).

You are trying to take control of the local situation, but no one is
listening to you.  Each decisionmaker is listening to the incentive
system that maximises their personal takehome pay.  If you want to solve
your problem deal with the incentive system, which is the root cause of
the local situation that you want to change.  That could be dealt with
using AI.  Can you get access to the people who design the incentive
system?

I do not mean to discourage you.  Rather, I suggest you focus your and
those of your community, the BC government, the local developer who is
being paid to do the work, the architects, and other stakeholders -
focus the efforts of all these stakeholders - in an appreciative sort of
way on the corporation that has decided they want a big box store in
your community.  However, those stakeholders all are part of the
incentive system and are unlikely going to kill the goose that lays
their golden eggs.

Lionel Boxer CD PhD MBA BTech(IndEng) - +1-416-482-3203
Associate of RMIT University - lionel.boxer at rmit.edu.au
Graduate School of Business
my "Assessment of Quality Systems with Positioning Theory" 
now in a googe book - see link at http://intergon.net
>>> Neils Christiansen <nchristn at sunwave.net> 18/12/08 7:18 AM >>>
Hi Everyone,

I live  in a small town in British Columbia, pop.15,000, which has, a 
Provincially mandated Official Community Plan (OCP) complete  with 
vision, policies, and procedures.  Recently, a developer (Smart!Centres,

which I believe is an arm of WalMart) submitted a development proposal 
for a large commercial development  on the edge of town with a big box 
store orientation.  The proposal required amendments in the OCP and 
zoning bylaw.  After a year of arguments for and against, which split 
the community into waring camps, the matter came to a public hearing, 
held over four nights with hundreds of passionate presentations, at 
which the city council narrowly voted against the amendments.  The 
developer can reapply in six months and will almost certainly do so.  

 From the presentations at the hearing, I distilled 31 different, though

often related, social, economic, and environmental goals held by various

community members.  It happens that a review of the OCP is required and 
so, since the hearing, I have been advocating a change from the win-lose

of a yes or no on the specific proposal to an inclusive, participatory, 
win-win revision of the OCP in which all 31 goals, and others, could be 
built into the OCP. 

I would very much appreciate any references or examples of the 
application of AI to community planning where the final element of the 
delivery phase is something like an OCP.

Many thanks,
Neils Christiansen