This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License. It is free to read, download and share on Elgaronline.com. Offering a novel and interdisciplinary approach, this thought-provoking book critically analyses the notions of fragility and antifragility and addresses their connections and applications in planning theory, urban studies and architecture. It goes beyond the risk and resilience paradigm and proposes methodological and pragmatic strategies to cope with severe forms of uncertainty and socio-spatial inequalities.
Antifragile is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. The other books in the series are Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, Skin in the Game, and The Bed of Procrustes. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the bestselling author of The Black Swan and one of the foremost thinkers of our time, reveals how to thrive in an uncertain world. Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, and rumors or riots intensify when someone tries to repress them, many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What Taleb has identified and calls “antifragile” is that category of things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish. In The Black Swan, Taleb showed us that highly improbable and unpredictable events underlie almost everything about our world. In Antifragile, Taleb stands uncertainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary, and proposes that things be built in an antifragile manner. The antifragile is beyond the resilient or robust. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better and better. Furthermore, the antifragile is immune to prediction errors and protected from adverse events. Why is the city-state better than the nation-state, why is debt bad for you, and why is what we call “efficient” not efficient at all? Why do government responses and social policies protect the strong and hurt the weak? Why should you write your resignation letter before even starting on the job? How did the sinking of the Titanic save lives? The book spans innovation by trial and error, life decisions, politics, urban planning, war, personal finance, economic systems, and medicine. And throughout, in addition to the street wisdom of Fat Tony of Brooklyn, the voices and recipes of ancient wisdom, from Roman, Greek, Semitic, and medieval sources, are loud and clear. Antifragile is a blueprint for living in a Black Swan world. Erudite, witty, and iconoclastic, Taleb’s message is revolutionary: The antifragile, and only the antifragile, will make it. Praise for Antifragile “Ambitious and thought-provoking . . . highly entertaining.”—The Economist “A bold book explaining how and why we should embrace uncertainty, randomness, and error . . . It may just change our lives.”—Newsweek
The concept of self-sufficiency involves the notion of sustainable, circular, and carbon-neutral cities. This book examines how urban planning can lead to greater self-sufficiency. It sheds light on how urban and regional circular and self-sufficiency development can effectively contribute towards the ultimate goals of the United Nations (UN) Agenda 2030 and the European Union (EU) Green Deal. It not only embraces the scientific fields of regional and urban studies but also addresses environmental sustainability-related and regional resilience aspects, such as renewable energy production, sustainable mobility, and the circular economy. This book offers a full toolkit of knowledge on how to effectively implement planning approaches for circular and self-sufficiency development at both urban and regional levels. It begins by presenting a theoretical framework and debate on urban and regional planning approaches that can effectively make cities and regions circular and self-sufficient in certain development domains, such as producing intra-city electric energy, sustainable mobility, and promoting a circular economy. Further, it advances a range of policy development proposals aiming at providing a comprehensive introduction to contemporary thinking about how cities and regions can design innovative planning and governance processes and, where appropriate, build capacity to implement systemic and integrated climate-neutral policies, building on existing place-based territorial capital and experiences developed by local and regional networks. The chapters are written by established authors in their respective domains. This book will thoroughly prepare students and provide knowledge to academics, researchers, and policymakers in the fields of urban and regional planning/development and studies, environmental sustainability, regional resilience, human geography, economic development, and public/EU/UN policies.
This book explores the role of cities and the urban–rural linkages in spurring innovation embedded in spatial planning, strategic and economic planning, and decision support systems. In particular, the contributions examine the complexity of the current transitional phase towards achieving smart, inclusive and sustainable growth, and investigate the post-2020 UE cohesion policy.The main topics include: Innovation dynamics and smart cities; Urban regeneration – community-led and PPP; Inland and urban area development; Mobility, accessibility, infrastructures; Heritage, landscape and Identity; and Risk management, Environment and Energy.The book includes a selection of articles accepted for presentation and discussion at the 3rd International Symposium New Metropolitan Perspectives (ISTH2020), held at the University of Reggio Calabria, Italy on 22–25 May 2018. The symposium, which addressed the challenge of local knowledge and innovation dynamics towards territory attractiveness, hosted the final event of the MAPS-LED project under Horizon2020 – MSCA RISE.
This issue of the 'philosophy of the city' includes articles by scholars on a range of human sciences, from media theory to aesthetics and architectural theory. Philosophy, social ontology, cultural anthropology, aesthetics, digital hermeneutics, media theory, cognitive science: these are just some of the disciplines that contribute to the philosophy of the city. This variety of approaches doesn't necessarily result in a chaotic mix. Many of the included forms of discourse belong to the same episteme, which means there are many connections and overlaps. This is true both in the literatures of reference and in the ways of answering the question of what 'the city' is. Secondly, the texts don't focus on the city itself, but on those who live in, design, imagine and think about it. Thirdly, because these texts create a place where different ideas can live together. This is like a city, where ideas change, are built on and then rebuilt. This is what Wittgenstein wrote about in his Philosophical Investigations.
Discover the essential thinking tools you’ve been missing with The Great Mental Models series by Shane Parrish, New York Times bestselling author and the mind behind the acclaimed Farnam Street blog and “The Knowledge Project” podcast. This first book in the series is your guide to learning the crucial thinking tools nobody ever taught you. Time and time again, great thinkers such as Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett have credited their success to mental models–representations of how something works that can scale onto other fields. Mastering a small number of mental models enables you to rapidly grasp new information, identify patterns others miss, and avoid the common mistakes that hold people back. The Great Mental Models: Volume 1, General Thinking Concepts shows you how making a few tiny changes in the way you think can deliver big results. Drawing on examples from history, business, art, and science, this book details nine of the most versatile, all-purpose mental models you can use right away to improve your decision making and productivity. This book will teach you how to: Avoid blind spots when looking at problems. Find non-obvious solutions. Anticipate and achieve desired outcomes. Play to your strengths, avoid your weaknesses, … and more. The Great Mental Models series demystifies once elusive concepts and illuminates rich knowledge that traditional education overlooks. This series is the most comprehensive and accessible guide on using mental models to better understand our world, solve problems, and gain an advantage.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series is an investigation of luck, uncertainty, probability, opacity, human error, risk, disorder, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand, in nonoverlapping and standalone books. All four volumes—Antifragile, The Black Swan, Fooled by Randomness, and the expanded edition of The Bed of Procrustes, updated with more than 50 percent new material—are now together in one ebook bundle. ANTIFRAGILE “Startling . . . richly crammed with insights, stories, fine phrases and intriguing asides.”—The Wall Street Journal Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, many things in life benefit from disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What Taleb has identified and calls “antifragile” is that category of things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better and better. What is crucial is that the antifragile loves errors, as it incurs small harm and large benefits from them. Spanning politics, urban planning, war, personal finance, economic systems, and medicine in an interdisciplinary and erudite style, Antifragile is a blueprint for living in a Black Swan world. THE BLACK SWAN “[A book] that altered modern thinking.”—The Times (London) A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random and more predictable. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. In this groundbreaking and prophetic book, Taleb shows that black swan events underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives, and yet we—especially the experts—are blind to them. FOOLED BY RANDOMNESS “[Fooled by Randomness] is to conventional Wall Street wisdom approximately what Martin Luther’s ninety-five theses were to the Catholic Church.”—Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker Are we capable of distinguishing the fortunate charlatan from the genuine visionary? Must we always try to uncover nonexistent messages in random events? Fooled by Randomness is about luck: more precisely, about how we perceive luck in our personal and professional experiences. Set against the backdrop of the most conspicuous forum in which luck is mistaken for skill—the markets—Fooled by Randomness is an irreverent, eye-opening, and endlessly entertaining exploration of one of the least understood forces in our lives. THE BED OF PROCRUSTES “Taleb’s crystalline nuggets of thought stand alone like esoteric poems.”—Financial Times This collection of aphorisms and meditations expresses Taleb’s major ideas in ways you least expect. The Bed of Procrustes takes its title from Greek mythology: the story of a man who made his visitors fit his bed to perfection by either stretching them or cutting their limbs. With a rare combination of pointed wit and potent wisdom, Taleb plows through human illusions, contrasting the classical views of courage, elegance, and erudition against the modern diseases of nerdiness, philistinism, and phoniness.
Every day human organisations fail. Building Anti-Fragile Organisations explores a powerful alternative framework for risk in the design and management of human systems. Anti-Fragility is a new way of thinking about mitigating risk that builds on earlier work on the characteristics of biological systems that, being more than just robust, actually improve their resilience through being stressed. Professor Bendell explains how applying this concept to the development and management of organisations, services and products, allows us to identify the characteristics that will not only mitigate against the realisation of hazards, but enable growth in protection, strength and anti-fragility over time. In this context, anti-fragility also encompasses flexibility, agility and the exploitation of opportunities. At the organisational level, anti-fragility (or its absence) is determined by the organisational strategy, structure and systems, its people, relationships and culture. The book focuses on establishing the Anti-Fragile concept of the firm, and explores its application in private and public sector organisations of all types. It identifies characteristics relevant to survival in a turbulent world, and how our approaches to risk and governance need to change in order to create and manage anti-fragile organisations. It provides practical insight into the concept of Anti-Fragility and its deployment within human organisations of all types, and give readers the opportunity to start to make sense to applying the concepts within their own worlds.
This book explores the effects of covid-19 crisis on cities and urban areas and proposes approaches and solutions to invert the pandemic's negative impact. The covid-19 crisis has had significant impacts on public health, on the everyday lives of millions of people, and on the use of urban spaces at all levels. All over the world, cities have been at the forefront of a crisis that have worsened socio-spatial inequalities between regions and inside urban areas. The book examines three aspects of the connection between pandemic and urban issues: the relevance of spatial and territorial variables in the explanation of pandemic dynamics and consequences in fragile cities; the assumption of radical uncertainty as the conceptual framework for a new approach to urban planning, in a phase of raise of public investments; and the design of urban policies aimed at facing the material and symbolic effects of pandemic on the practices of use of spaces and places, in a context characterized by a plurality of populations and forms of life.
