New Community Paradigms

We live in a world relentlessly pushed forward by the velocity, volatility, uncertainty, disruption, and disequilibrium of constant change.  As the pace of change accelerates, so does the shelf-life of our strategies, processes, frameworks, and systems.  The rapidity of change now requires an expanding and continuously evolving breadth and depth to our repertoire of problem-solving strategies and leadership skill-sets.  Yet, even in the face of this rapidity of change and the disequilibrium it creates, too often, we find ourselves as individuals and organizations siloed in and dedicated to only one way of doing and working.  

"From transforming conditions for low-wage workers to identifying internet security vulnerabilities, from celebrating the African American string band tradition to designing resilient urban habitats, these new MacArthur Fellows bring their exceptional creativity to diverse people, places, and social challenges. Their work gives us reason for optimism and inspires us all."

CUP collaborates with designers, educators, advocates, students, and communities to make educational tools that demystify complex policy and planning issues.

Digital transformation is a multi-disciplinary topic-perhaps one of the most complex and confusing of our time. The purpose of this film is to make digital transformation easier to understand and start a conversation about what kind of digital future we actually want. Is the future complicated and inevitable, or can each of us create the future they envision? Technology is a curse and a blessing, but this depends on each of us thinking about the future in a constructive but critical way. 

Californians know how to innovate, how to be entrepreneurial, and how to use technology to create well-paying jobs. The state's diverse regional economies reflect the nation and world. And our values - including our commitment to sustainability and social inclusion - inspire us to lead and position us to chart a course for parts of the nation paralyzed by economic stagnation and the ensuing political backbiting.

ClimateWizard enables technical and non-technical audiences alike to access leading climate change information and visualize the impacts anywhere on Earth. The first generation of this web-based program allows the user to choose a state or country and both assess how climate has changed over time and to project what future changes are predicted to occur in a given area. ClimateWizard represents the first time ever the full range of climate history and impacts for a landscape have been brought together in a user-friendly format.

Bifurcation Diagram for the Cubic Map

The following is a collection of tools from ABCD faculty members as well as individuals and organizations that embody the principles of ABCD in their work. The addition of the toolkit was made possible by a generous grant from the Alumnae of Northwestern University, the institute's former home.

The Art Genome Project is the classification system and technological framework that powers Artsy. It maps the characteristics (we call them "genes") that connect artists, artworks, architecture, and design objects across history. There are currently over 1,000 characteristics in The Art Genome Project, including art historical movements, subject matter, and formal qualities.

Logistic Equation Comparisons

Logistic Equation Generator

StreetPlan.net is a free web-based drag & drop tool for creating Complete Streets in just minutes. StreetPlan analyzes your design as you make it, giving you Red / Yellow / Green Best Practice guidance from "Designing Walkable Thoroughfares," a joint publication of the Institute of Transportation Engineers and the Congress for New Urbanism (ITE and CNU). You can also start from templates designed by NACTO.

TurboVote helps you vote - nothing more. We're committed to protecting your data, so it's only ever used to provide you with voting information and services. To that end, we encrypt your connection to our site, so your sign-up information stays just between us. We take precautionary measures to restrict access to only those partners and services we need to make TurboVote run. And we deliberately don't collect or store ID numbers. We also don't sell your information, or share any more than is strictly necessary to power the TurboVote services you know and love. And we're happy to answer any questions you have about our data and security practices.

CALmatters is a nonpartisan, nonprofit journalism venture committed to explaining how California's state Capitol works and why it matters.

A potential danger in a systems approach is that there is a risk of overjargonizing and getting lost in complex terminology, maps and paralysis by analysis. One of the key themes that emerged from the discussion is that many people are starting to experiment with systems thinking but that it can be daunting or confusing to explain, operationalize or find common agreement. Does system thinking imply a rigorous and dynamic mapping of key actors, power relationships and other factors in a community (Yes)? But then how does systems thinking differ from a solid context analysis (still needs more explanation)? A potential danger in a systems approach is that there is a risk of overjargonizing and getting lost in complex terminology, maps and paralysis by analysis. One of the key themes that emerged from the discussion is that many people are starting to experiment with systems thinking but that it can be daunting or confusing to explain, operationalize or find common agreement. Does system thinking imply a rigorous and dynamic mapping of key actors, power relationships and other factors in a community (Yes)? But then how does systems thinking differ from a solid context analysis (still needs more explanation)? 

Systems thinking, according to HU, has two important dimensions. One is the establishment of a new paradigm that understands global issues as inherently complex, multi-dimensional, conflictive and open to outside influence and intervention. A problem like slavery, for example, may seem intractable because of the economic interests it serves; in fact, the institutional and organizational linkages-the supply chains-that comprise slavery's power structure are vulnerable. The first step in system thinking is to map those linkages to better understand how they fit together and pinpoint their likely weak points. The next step is to devise a strategy that combines public advocacy, coalition building, insider lobbying, and investigative journalism to target those linkages, forcing those implicated in slavery, wittingly or unwittingly, to reform, and weakening the larger circuit of power over time.