LAS COLlNAS PROTOTYPE COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT CONCEPT

ANTHROPOPOLIS

Planning Committee Members

Alexander N. Christakis, Research Leader, Futures and Policy Research, Batelle;
Max Kaplan, Author, Lecturer, Consultant, Leisure Science, Art, Music;
Kenneth K. Mabuchi, Investment Advisor, Former Assistant Secretary, HUD,
under the Administration of JFK;
Gerardo Navas, Director, Graduate School of Planning, University of Puerto Rico;
Santiago Polanco Abreu, Attorney, Former Resident Commissioner for Puerto Rico,
under the Administration of Luis Muñoz Marin, US House of Representatives;
Cruz A. Matos, Director, Office of Environmental Education,
Western Hemisphere Division, United Nations;
Amador Cobas, Executive Director, Institute of Social Technology,
Former President, University of Puerto Rico;
Vigdor Schreibman, President, Las Colinas Development Corporation, et al.

Quest for a Humanistic Response

to Growing World-wide

Complexities and Interdependencies

Summer 1975

I. INTRODUCTION

The Las Colinas organization is in the process of conceptualizing and exploring the feasibility of building a prototype human settlement on a prime 800-acre ocean front estate located at the mouth of Demajagua Bay at Fajardo and Ceiba, the east coast of Puerto Rico.

The conceptual plan for the settlement, which will support both a permanent and transient population, will be based on the ethic of self-realization which holds that the proper end of all individual experience is the further evolutionary development of the emergent self and of the human species, and that the appropriate function of all social institutions should be to create an environment which will support and encourage this process. To achieve this goal the anticipated settlement should be built around Education/ Social/Re-Creation opportunities focusing on such interests as Inter American socio-economic relations; an enhancement of the sensitivity of the residents and visitors to the community to cultural diversity through the study of the creative and performing arts of different cultural origins; transformation of post-industrial society; and the contemporary notion of leisure.

In short, the prototype community will function as an "instrument" for enriching the lives of its residents and visitors through a futures-creative-learning-and-planning model. Learning, in the broadest sense which includes what we usually mean by education, research, exploration, and human development, plus planning which implies participating in the community of concerned citizens to make a better world. Global thinking, attention to future consequences of our choices, concern for fellow man and future generations will be some of the basic principles that will engage the residents and induce them to contribute their best efforts toward the achievement of such objectives as: (a) aesthetic gratification, (b) sense of ecological responsibility, (c) the search for truth, and (d) identification with the common welfare.

A wide variety of institutional innovations need to be designed in order to foster this kind of commitment and participation by the residents. It follows that central to the process of accomplishing the above humanistic objectives is the invention of an "enabling entity" capable of conceptualizing and actualizing both the physical and humanistic development programs to be embedded in the Las Colinas community.

There exists plentiful empiricat evidence to demonstrate that this is no simple task. The dominance of the economic incentives and market mechanisms, over and above all other incentives and principles that are capable of mobilizing humanity, has led to settlement configurations that do not seem to satisfy aesthetic and ethical criteria, or to contribute to human fulfillment and social betterment. The appropriate mix of economic and humanistic incentives for the building of the City for Human Development -- the Anthropopolts of C.A. Doxiadis* -- will be the subject of investigation by a transdisciplinary task force organized under the auspices of the Las Colinas effort. The purpose of this preliminary document is to initiate a meaningful focus for discourse, and to establish the platform for the transdisciplinary task force. The task force will study the multi-faceted dimensions necessary for building Anthropopolis, including market and economic feasibility testing, and will generate the appropriate action recommendations.

II. THE SITUATION

A.   Global/Societal Trends

In developing a conceptual plan for the implementation of Anthropopolis, it is essential that we embed the plan within the context of the contemporary global/societal situation. The purpose of the transdtsctpltnary task force will not be to learn about the past, but to use the experience and knowledge from the past in order to understand and invent a human future. Futures-creative thinking should not be limited by the imagery of past or present thinking, no matter how experienced, successful or dominant, but should generate images of the future (both probable and desirable) so as to promote a more responsive expression of existing human potential.

It will be instructive to attempt to map the principal future trends of say, the next quarter century, with which "global leadership", however conceived, probably would have to cope. A plausible map will include such expectations as the following:

• The continuation of conditions of turbulent change in many different dlrectlons;
  
  
• Shrinking resources -energy, food, and other things -combined with R&D efforts to generate compensatory substitutes;
  
  
• A rapidly burgeoning population, combined with efforts to limit its rate of growth, to redistribute it in ways to facilitate survival, and to meet its intensifying demands for goods and services: for example, food, jobs, housing, health, education, transport, recreation, and cultural enrichment;
  
  
• A vastly improved societal and global (intercultural) multimedia communications and information system that will facilitate both greater control of individuals and greater individual autonomy than at any time in history. Such communications will also facilitate diffusion of innovations and awareness of material and spiritual inequities with hitherto unequalled rapidity and intensity;
  
  
• Conflicting demands for overall societal vision and management (expresed in calls for global government and "planning" at all levels) combined with greater insistence upon recognition of value and culture pluralism and local perspectives (as in demands for local autonomy, national sovereignty, and appreciation of ethno-cultural diversity within the global polis, i.e., the Ecumenopolis);
  
  
• Increase in inequalities within and among nations that may make vio- lence attractive as a mode of compensatory adjustment. This will occur within the context of the invention and rapid diffusion of extremely destructive technologies;
  
  
• The confrontation of technological development and transfer with basic human needs and values in an evolutionary time perspective; so rapid is the acceleration in the pace of life that conventional education is incapable of preparing people for fulfilling roles in a super-industrial society.
  
  

As we look foward towards the probable future, based on the extrapolation of trends, perhaps many of us would think of "anticipations" such as the following:

• Peaceful modes of conflict resolution across ideological and geograph- ical boundaries (e.g. , East-West, North-South); there seems to be a dominant psychological predisposition to operate from a "reality base" that centers on escalating the conflict instead of elevating the discourse;
  
  
• Improved quality of life for all people; a return to the "self-realization" ethic is the most satisfactory answer to the contemporary alienation and apathy and our inability to manage our human destiny; for example, seeking the simple satisfactions of life through return to arts and crafts and home gardening may be a more fulfilling life-style than a work life dominated by economic incentive and rewards.
  
  
• Reduction of intolerable and eradicable socio-economic inequities by restructuring the economic incentives in order to encourage and reward socially desirable bet"-avior; for example, a "forgiven tax', on corporations is a measure that can encourage corporations to initiate activities such as: (a) job creation for social benefit; (b) restructuring work to increase job satisfaction; etc.
  
  
• Recognition and tolerance of individual, group, organizational, national, and international differences, and pride in cooperative inter-dependence;
  
  
• And finally, to achieve all of the above anticipations, we must strive to create at all levels appropriate political, economic, and cultural institutions that will facilitate the expression of needs by participants and be responsive to them.
  
  

It is in the light of this last point that the Las Colinas Prototype Community Development concept should be seen. The development concept should be perceived as a social invention particularly suitable for closing the gap between our "anticipations" and our "expectations". In fact, this gap is a representation of the global p r o b I e m a t i q u e as envisioned in the initial Club of Rome proposal. A list of Continuous Critical Problems that are particularly relevant to the Las Colinas Prototypt Community will include, (but not be limited to):

• Expanding mechanization and bureaucratization of almost all human activity;
  
  
• Insufficient and irrationally organized medical care;
  
  
• Hardening prejudices against differing cultures;
  
  
• Affluence and increasing amounts of free time of unknown consequences;
  
  
• Anachronistic and irrelevant education;
  
  
• Generalized lack of agreed-on alternatives to present trends;
  
  
• Widespread failure to stimulate man's creative capacity to invent the future;
  
  
• Growing irrelevance of traditional values and continuing failure to evolve new value systems;
  
  
• Generally inadequate and obsolete institutional arrangements;
  
  
• Limited understanding of what is "feasible" in the way of corrective measures;
  
  
• Ideological fragmentation and semantic barriers to communication between individuals, groups, and nations;
  
  
• Increasing a-social and anti-social behavior and consequent rise in criminality;
  
  
• preading "discontent" throughout most classes of society;
  
  
• Growing technological gaps and lags between developed and developing regions;
  
  
• Inadequate participation of people at large in public decisions;
  
  
• Growing tendency to be satisfied with technological solutions for every kind of problem;
  
  
• Ill-conceived use of international agencies for national or sectoral ends.

It should be evident that the illustrative Continuous Critical Problems listed above are meant merely to serve as general labels under which clusters of issues that appear analogous can be classified. Further, neither their rate of occLrrence nor their intensity is uniform throughout the world . Therefore, the causality structure that underlies such a listing is obviously of extreme complexity and can only be understood and explained within an explicit interpretive context or paradigm. It is the extreme complexity of the task and the absence of an interpretive context for human settlement development that necessitates the establishment of a specially devised system for the invention of an appropriate methodology for problem resolution and clustering.

B.   The Humanistic Capitalism Paradigm

Ever since Kuhn wrote his Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) social theorists have been using the concept of alternative paradigms to juxtapose the different interpretive contexts of reality which lead to alternative policy-option configurations.

A paradigm consists of particular theories, techniques, beliefs, and values shared by the practitioners of a science. Paradigms are more than models. Different models may be contained within a paradigm. Paradigms reflect more of a spirit of inquiry~ a kind of world view through which beliefs and reality experiences are generalized into theory.

Unfortunately, no widely accepted paradigm for inquiry on human settlement development has yet emerged.* Lacking any acceptable theory which is more than a convenient and simplistic integration of perspectives borrowed from sociology, political science, architecture, and other disciplines the developer, be he a scholar or a builder, is left at odds on how to formulate the settlement "problematique" and how to invent and select "solutions" or "strategies" for action. In the absence of a contemporary paradigm for inquiry into the complexity of settlement development, they resort to the classical rationality and the ethic of profitability.

However, the ability of this rationality to bring about a truly h u m a n e settlement is held increasingly in question. Willis W. Harman, poses this question very eloquently: *

Is it too idealistic to consider moving toward a society, guided by the ecological and self-realization ethic, in which the institutions serve the human needs of those whose lives they touch, and in which the inherent incentive structure produces a synergism that in pursuing his own self-interst the individual also promotes the inte,rest of the whole? At this particular moment in history it seems it may be more practicle than ever before.

In other words, it appears that at this juncture of the evolutionary process there is an interesting confluence of the self-realization ethic and the requirements to manage and secure the continued habitability of the planet. What needs to be done is to operationalize the humanistic capitalism paradigm through the invention of appropriate institutions and instrumentalities. The necessary institutional changes, according to Harman, briefly are:

1. Operative goals of large private sector organizations need to become aligned with overall societal goals.
   
   
2. Every citizen must be assured the opportunity to be a full and valued participant in the society.
   
   
3. All organizations, public and private, need to be structured in such a way that they enhance, not diminish, man.
   
   
4. There has to be a more effective mechanism by which individual microdecisions aggregate to more satisfactory macrodecisions.
   
   
5. Widespread citizen participation in "designing the future" needs to be encouraged.
6. 
   
   
7. Continuance of adult and career education needs to be fostered and institutionalized.
   
   

The Las Colinas Community Development concept represents an attempt to invent an institutional mechanism for operationalizing the principles of humanistic capitalism enumerated above. When this concept is elaborated and made more specific, through the establishment of a transdisciplinary task force, proposed here, what might emerge is a "general-benefit corporation" that combines synergistically the vitality-promoting competitiveness of the profit-making corporation, the social responsiveness of the non-profit institution, and the personal growth aims of the university.*

C.   Summary

The discussion presented in Section II is fundamentally based on the following perception of our contemporary situation:

Proposition 1:  The world is becoming increasingly more interdependent and intersensitive. One way of visualizing this phenomenon is through the "image of the future" represented by the Ecumenopolis of C .A .Doxiadis.

Proposition 2:  The global problematique manifested by such continuous critical problems as, e.g., world-wide inflation, the ideological schisms, the energy crunch, and the looming food shortages, may correspond to insurmountable barriers to the emergence of a self-realization ethic complementary to the establishment of a global symbiotic and heterogeneous human settlement.

Proposition 3:  To surmount the barriers and to secure the habitability of our planet, we need to design the Anthropopolis. For the emergence of the Anthropopolis we need to invent new models, new methods, and new institutions. We need, in short, a new paradigm that will make possible the transition from an era dominated by economic growth rationality, wasteful consumption, and meaningless affluence, to an era of self-realization, cooperation, and restraint.

The next Section develops the main elements of the proposal for the Anthropopolis model through the establishment of transdisciplinary and interinstitutional task forces.

III.   THE PROPOSAL

The situation described in Section II, warrants the establishment of a transdisciplinary task force ("TTF"), and a process for investigating the dimentions of the humanistic capitalism paradigm as it applies to the Las Colinas Prototype Community Development. The TTF is being formed gradually on the basis of selection criteria that includes: a. interest, b. commitment, c. experience, d. willingness and ability to contribute to community planning, development, or operations, and e. balance between divergent-convergent thinkers, and theoretic-action values. The proposed investigation will be based on the following methodological propositions:

1. Human settlements are fundamentally different entities (or systems) than the physical or mechanical systems with which traditioal science and engineering has largely concerned itself.
   
   
2. The methodology for human settlement development must differ substantially from the methodologies applicable in more conventional disciplines such as economics, architecture, law, etc. In fact, the methodology should transcend disciplinary boundaries, and must be based on a process of public participation coupled with a capability for explicating and integrating diverse rea1ity perceptions.
   
   
3. The development of human settlements entails the need of institutions encompassing human resources across the spectrum of interests and disciplines which deal with the entirety of what humanity is all about. This requires team bui Iding for the necessary institutions, with a strong need for individual commit- ment to the task, with sensitivity learned through on the job feedback and effective responsibility; mindful as well, of the need for constant organizational change both consistent with the task and resources available, and the dynamics of changing conditions affecting the individuals involved, particularly over long periods of time. The suggested institutional prototypes required, therefore include:
   
   
   1. A Human Settlement Institute dedicated to the continuous creation of models for human settlement development as well as to carrying out the planning, development and operational guidance systems.
      
      
   2. An Institutional Consortium able to mobilize the required funds, and cause the construction and marketing of the necessary facilities, in harmony with the humanist purpose of the settlement.
      
      
   3. An Institutional learning network-guidance system, responsive to community residents and visitors, to provide, during the life of the community, opportunity, encouragement, and sanction, for the furtherance of community goals and purposes.
      
      

The last indicated Institution, (or system), must be in form, separate from, although responsive to, the conventional home owners association or political body, which are derived out of the ever changing community residents who come together at random without the experience and knowledge necessary to formulate community values, purposes and goals and operating processes required to carry these out, but with the need present for a full involvement in the community experience, and the human capability to provide essential feedback with which to perfect the proposed systems.

Because of the complexity of the subject matter, and the fact that different participants can, and most probably wil1, perceive the system under investigation in significantly different ways, the process depicted in Figure I will be used in the planning and execution of the settlement development from its inception through the life of the community. In other words, in our effort to develop a methodology for understanding the nature of settlements and building a community that conforms with the principles of humanistic capitalism as briefly described in Section II, we must start by trying to resolve any critical dissonances regarding alternative perspectives applicable to human settlements. The best way to resolve any conflicts is through a process depicted in Figure 1, that will help the group of participants explicate, share, and assess their disparate perceptions of reality through their participation in properly designed meetings, (workshops).

Figure 1.  Las Colinas Development Process
                   as a Paradigm for Inquiry

The overall effort would be divided into three distinct phases:

Phase 1: The lTF effort as described herein, dealing with the conceptual aspects of the situation, its morphologyand the interrelationships that operate among its alternative perspectives, will lead to the rough plan for development, operations, and action toward funding and commencement of actual work.

Phase 2: An implementation planning, development and construct- ion phase, that will refine and actualize the rough plan.

Phase 3: An operational phase that will refine the rough draft of operationaal plans, for humanist activities, and implement their operation, commencing with the initial planning activity of the TTF, to be carried out at the Symposium Center located in Old San Juan.

A.   Scope

At the present juncture, the scope of the project (Phase 1) is seen as follows:

• To define the objectives of the Las Colinas Prototype Community, within the humanistic capitalism paradigm.
  
  
• To establish through the paradigm of inquiry, Figure 1, a tentative morphology of disciplinary interfaces and perspectives;
  
  
• To outline and elaborate on programs, initial methods of approach, tasks, and responsibilities pertaining to the overall project implementation;
  
  
• To identify and evaluate the main trends of research currently being undertaken with reference to the overall global/societal situation, and to determine the extent to which such research and efforts can contribute to the resolution of the global prob- lematique;
  
  
• To refine the development and market concept, including the design of a "Delphi" questionaire to explore alternative images of the future by potential residents and visitors;
  
  
• To create a sketch master plan for the entire community) together with proposed staging schedule, and final plans for the initial development and construction area to be completed;
  
  
• To identify and obtain multinational Institutional sanction for the undertaking, including potential contributors to policy options, humanistic program operators, development management and investment, and as an aid to market reinforcement;
  
  
• To test the market acceptabtility of the humanistic alternatives and Las Colinas community dwellings and facilities, when properly presented;
  
  
• To create the Institutional prototypes identified as necessary to facilitate the human settlement development process;
  
  
• To develope a preliminary Las Colinas Economic Model for use as a guide in planning for implementation of the project, including mobilization of required resources and funding.

B.   Program

The governing idea concerning the overall effort is that its aim is not research in the traditional sense, but "invention" and application, around an actual proposed prototype. What is expected from Phase 1, are new insights and approaches rather than the further and deeper elaboration of known facts. The latter will only be used as the background substantive material upon which the work will bear, but the prime emphasis of the project is to understand the meaning of the existing facts as they relate to the purpose of human settlements.

Human settlements are purposeful systerns. The purpose of a settlement is to enhance the prospects of its inhabitants to be safe and happy, and to encourage their human development. There are all kinds of settlements, varying in size, history, design characteristics, etc. What unites human settlemets into forming class of similar entities is the common purpose that the residents share. Accordingly, the present Las Colinas objective is not that of a collection or aggregation of residents from which there might arise common interests to be served, but the reverse: a constellation of carefully selected interests (or human needs and purposes) from which a functional community emerges as a unique configuration of residents and visitors. Among the interests to be served at Las Colinas, are those which arise out of the reality of Puerto Rico, its culture, geopolitical character, and natural condition, as integrated with the unique Las Colinas site and hemispheric geographic base. These would include the following:

1. A Hemispheric Center for the Study of Intercultural Social and Economic relations, to promote international and cross-cultural understanding between all of the American nations, by:
   
   
   1. Organizing and conducting symposia and lectures at the center for professional, occupational, and student groups from various countries through which they can establish personal relations, compare existing perceptions of reality, and exchange information and insights on a variety of socio- economic topics, including, man and the sea, technologyassess- ment, peace research, and cross-culture values, purposes and goals
      
      
   2. Organizing and conducting professional, occupational, and student field trips to various sites in the Americas.
      
      
   3. Organizing and conducting orientation programs for agencies, companies, and professional-occupational-student groups from North America interested in engaging in activ- ities in Latin America and vice-versa.
      
      
   4. Conducting a research, publications, and consulting program.
   
   
   
2. A Hemispheric Center for Re-Creation Studies, to enhance the sensitivity of residents and visitors to the community, to the cultural diversity of the Americas, through study of and personal involvement in the accumulative creative activities of the different cultural regions, emphasizing such matters as the transformation of post-industrial society, the develop- ment of developing societies, continuing education, the arts, recrretion, and preventative medicine.

The pressure of a creative environment in Las Colinas for a preponderance of analytical and aesthetic activity would be assured by the presence of its unique population. Five different layers for mapping the programs are displayed in Table 1, in order to identify ftve posstble contexts of analysts, wtth the human group, human needs,* social systems,** and settlement objectives;*** although, it should be recognized that rigorous assignment of one activity to one or another layer is precluded by the permeability of the conceptual boundaries between them.

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* The Third Force, Frank G. Goble, Pocket Books, New York, 1971

** Leisure, Theory and Policy, Max Kaplan, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1975, pp.175-183

*** A Systematic Approach to Human Settlement Planning, Alexander N. Christakis, and David W. Malone, Academy for Contemporary Problems, 1974

Table 1.  The Humanistic Activity Programs

Human Group	Human Needs	Social Systems	Settlement Objectives	DESCRIPTION OF HUMANIST ACTIVITY PROGRAMS
Hemispheric	Physiological	Physical	Ecological	Hemispheric Center Socio-Economic Symposiums Man and the Sea American Studies Technology Assessment Peace Research Cross-Culture Values Perception
Regional	Safety	Intellectual	Land use
Community	Social	Artistic	Communications	Center for Re-Creation Studies Transformation of Post-Industrial Society Development in Developing Society Continuing Education Leisure Studies Performing Arts Creative Arts Men, Women and Family Recreation Preventative Medicine Interactive Communications Psychology Studies & Program Assessment Management, (Food, Park, Farm) Services & Security
Family	Ego	Sociable	Transportation
Individual	Fulfillment	Practical	Socio Economic

The main goal of these programs is to build a community that will help the individual to be safe and happy, and so that he may develope to his full potential. The investigatory part of the proposed work will have to explicate and refine, through group meetings, and consumer research, the purpose of the Las Colinas community and the cluster of activities that will need to be pursued in order to fulfill that purpose.

C.   Organization

The overall organization of the project is shown in Figure 2, in terms of an evolutionary framework:

Figure 2.  An Evolutionary Organization

1. The Planning Committee of the Las Colinas Prototype Community elaborates on the pre-planning intellectual and operational aspects of the endeavor according to the objectives described previously.
   
   
2. The Transdisciplinary "Task Force ("TTF") engages in the production of a series of reports dealing with the various aspects of the development and operational aspects, leading to a rough plan of action and basis of funding.
   
   
3. The TTF work group coordinates the work of the TTF.
   
   
4. The Human Settlement Institute provides the institutional framework for the ITF, initiates the necessary process for the planning, organization, and actualization of the development and humanist operation programs, through the establishment of a Symposium Center located in Old San Juan.
   
   
5. The Institutional Consortium provides the basts for mobil- ization of the required resources, funding, development, construction and marketing of the necessary facilities, in in a manner consistent with the humanist purpose of the entire undertaking.
   
   
6. The Anthropopolis model, consisting of the permanent resi- dents and visitors of the Las Colinas Prototype Community, as supported by the Institutional learning network-guidance system, emerges as a reality representing the culmination of the intellectual and creative processes of the other organizational entities.

Once this aim is attained it is the hope of the Las Colinas organization, and the Human Settlement Institute, that this example might prove to be a significant model for other similar efforts initiated in other parts of the world.