The Neighborhood Project
Using Evolution to Improve My City, One Block at a Time
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
After decades studying creatures great and small, evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson had an epiphany: Darwin's theory won't fully prove itself until it improves the quality of human life in a practical sense. And what better place to begin than his hometown of Binghamton, New York? Making a difference in his own city would provide a model for cities everywhere, which have become the habitat for over half of the people on earth.
Inspired to become an agent of change, Wilson descended on Binghamton with a scientist's eye and looked at its toughest questions, such as how to empower neighborhoods and how best to teach our children. He combined the latest research methods from experimental economics with studies of holiday decorations and garage sales. Drawing upon examples from nature as diverse as water striders, wasps, and crows, Wilson's scientific odyssey took him around the world, from a cave in southern Africa that preserved the dawn of human culture to the Vatican in Rome. Along the way, he spoke with dozens of fellow scientists, whose stories he relates along with his own.
Wilson's remarkable findings help us to understand how we must become wise managers of evolutionary processes to accomplish positive change at all scales, from effective therapies for individuals, to empowering neighborhoods, to regulating the worldwide economy.
With an ambitious scope that spans biology, sociology, religion, and economics, The Neighborhood Project is a memoir, a practical handbook for improving the quality of life, and an exploration of the big questions long pondered by religious sages, philosophers, and storytellers. Approaching the same questions from an evolutionary perspective shows, as never before, how places define us.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Wilson (Evolution for Everyone), an evolutionary biologist at the University of Binghamton, explains how Charles Darwin's concept of the "tangled bank," which describes how species are influenced by their surroundings, can be used to understand human psychology in order to build healthier societies. Arguing that the "Ivory Archipelago" of disparate disciplines psychology, anthropology, sociology, urban planning, economics, even theology should be united under the umbrella of evolutionary studies, Wilson brings various methodologies to his investigation of the city as a living, evolving organism much like a coral reef. The Neighborhood Project, an organization Wilson founded to rejuvenate his hometown of Binghamton, N.Y., provides a test case it uses evolutionary theories to analyze behavioral data and improve quality of life through a more holistic approach. Wilson searches for how our habitats can influence our propensity for civic engagement and environmental awareness, and our physical and financial health. Although the book meanders Wilson gives a vivid, in-depth description of several scientific studies, and offers a biography for each scientist he cites the tangents are mostly pleasurable and provide more evidence for how lives, like ideas, intersect in fascinating ways.