tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-807288854433283036.post1138362556883265374..comments2023-10-12T06:12:54.998-07:00Comments on A L I C E ...through the ..LOOKING ..G L A S S..: Finnish children role play in miniature cityAlice Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05381422778632377553noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-807288854433283036.post-81310300471042776612016-09-09T23:22:36.832-07:002016-09-09T23:22:36.832-07:00ON THE ROAD TO ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT ?
From Benjam...ON THE ROAD TO ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT ?<br /><br />From Benjamin Barber, Citiscope, September 5, 2016<br /><br />"It is a world of terrorism without borders, climate change without frontiers, immigration without documentation and inequality without precedent — and given that the 400-year-old idea of the nation state is in trouble, the challenge is daunting indeed. For with its stubborn commitment to an archaic idea of sovereign independence rooted in zero-sum international relations, the nation state has become increasingly dysfunctional."<br /><br />"In my 2014 book `If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities`, I proposed that cities may be to the future what nations were to the past — efficient and pragmatic problem-solving governance bodies that can address sustainability and security without surrendering liberty or equality. If, that is, they can work together across the old and obsolete national borders. And if they can assume some of the prerogatives of sovereignty necessary to collaboration."<br /><br />"In fact, cities are doing just this. A few years ago, the United Nations announced that a majority of the world’s population lives in cities, while economists recognize that 80 percent or more of global gross domestic product is being produced in cities. From the United Kingdom and China to the United States and Italy, authority is being devolved to cities."<br /><br />"Out of these developments has come the call for a Global Parliament of Mayors, a new body by, for and of cities to address the crisis in democratic governance. As I suggested in the book, it’s time to think about cities rather than nations, mayors rather than prime ministers. After all, their pragmatic capacity to solve problems and their inclination to transactional cooperation across borders makes cities more successful politically than any other extant political body. And their defining diversity makes them far more like the world to which they belong than the mono-cultural states through which they are governed."<br /><br />http://citiscope.org/habitatIII/commentary/2016/09/global-parliament-mayors-can-lead-devolution-revolution<br />Alice Moorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05381422778632377553noreply@blogger.com