 Welcome. Our built environment is a reflection and manifestation of our spiritual reality. If we observe our surroundings, every road, every sidewalk, bench, building, and open space is a physical manifestation of humanity's conscientious decision to give form and meaning to the spaces that we inhabit. A group of practitioners whose disciplines affect the built environment, including Mercia, Leah, and myself, came together to explore how within this sphere of human endeavor and more specifically with decisions on urban form and housing in North America, how individuals, how groups of individuals, formal and informal institutions, and the many overlapping communities have influenced and presently continue to influence the evolution of our cities, our neighborhoods, towns, and regions. So in this light, we decided to learn more about these protagonists by centering our conversations around two themes. The first is the discourse around housing and affordability, which is described as a crisis in most of the major North American cities and in most global cities as well. And the second theme that we explored was around the patterns of urbanism over the past century that have led to what's turned the dispersed city. And now the consensus among present-day urbanists is that the car-centric, low-density dispersed land use of North America's geography exacerbates unsustainable living conditions and has led to a deterioration in individual and community well-being. So having inherited these urban forms, how are these protagonists today building capacity to further evolve our housing and urban form that might better reflect and manifest our spiritual reality? When we considered how the discourse around housing and urban design characterized the protagonists of the civilization-building process, we felt the need to also understand how the individual, the community, and the institutions are viewed in light of Baha'i revelation and the quality of their relationships. As described in one of the messages from the Universal House of Justice, the Baha'is in Iran in 2013, protagonists of this collective endeavor strengthen the spiritual foundation of villages and neighborhoods to address certain of their social and economic needs and to contribute to the discourse's prevalent society, all while maintaining the necessary coherence and methods and approaches. This concise statement illustrates that there needs to be a consistent set of principles and values which guide the individuals, the communities, and the institutions' efforts to set a solid spiritual foundation, address social and economic needs, and engage in an ongoing discourse that advances civilization. Furthermore, even the attitudes, capabilities, and characteristics of the protagonist require further exploration. Paul Lample in his book, Creating a New Mind outlines a number of questions that guide this exploration. He says that if the Baha'i world is to fulfill its obligation in this critical period, the nature of each of these three protagonists must be carefully examined. What are the attributes of this individual, this community, and these institutions that are to play so crucial a role in the destiny of the human race? What capabilities must they develop in order to advance the process of intubate troops? What characteristics will enable them to extend their exertion towards the building of a new civilization? Thankfully, the global Baha'i community has created a learning process around these areas of inquiry. The Universal House of Justice explains that at the heart of these questions is the nature of the relationship that bind the individual, the community, and the institutions of society. Actors on the stage of history who have been locked in the struggle for power throughout time. In this context, this assumption that relations among them will inevitably conform to the dictates of competition a notion that ignores the extraordinary potential of the human race has been set aside in favor of the more likely premise that their harmonious interactions can foster a civilization befitting and mature humanity. We explored several books in our reading group together. These books are listed in the description of this presentation and they include Golden Gates on the housing crisis in the Bay Area, Happy City on how urban design can foster health and well-being outcomes, and Creating a New Mind by Paul Lample on these three protagonists. We'll share a bit about our conversation on each of these three protagonists starting with the individual. The book highlights several stories of individuals. These are individuals who took initiative to impact their built environment either by pushing government policies towards more just outcomes or by physically transforming their neighborhood. One of the books, for example, highlights a junior youth-aged girl who challenges a 40% rent increase in her neighborhood in the Bay Area. She's living in a low-income neighborhood that's seen acute injustices from extreme wealth and poverty and she's watched her community slowly be displaced by the cost of living. With the support of a mentor, she rallies together family, neighbors, and the church to take action to save her building and secure rents. Another story features a man in Portland who transforms the street intersection of his neighborhood into a community plaza space. Neighbors slowly add to his vision and create a lively space where people meet regularly to share tea. The city recognizes the community building efforts of his technically illegal project and scrambles to support and permit the space. These individual narratives are tied together by several defining characteristics. Individuals are inspired with a vision, they are determined and demonstrate commitment to their efforts and they are strategic in their method. Individuals are spurred on by a firm belief and vision to better their environment. They gave time, resources, and unique skills to improve their reality and not just for themselves but for their communities as well. Individual efforts inspired others to support their work, turning a single action into a wave of momentum. And in many cases, capacity was built very strategically, creating tools, sharing knowledge, inviting new individuals to take similar action. From Paul Lample's book, we've read about how the individual protagonist is the initiator of systematic action. And the Baha'i perspective aligns very closely with these stories that we read. Mr. Lample wrote that when opportunities for action are seized, individual effort is characterized by courage, creativity, lofty aims, and enthusiasm. Mr. Lample describes the individual as a quickener of humanity who works to awaken others and transform our social reality. Abdu'l-Baha said, so important is determined and creative initiative that it should be taught from childhood. Of course, individuals on their own are limited and individual relationships cannot be separated from the community and the institutions that also shape our urban realities. In all of these cases of individual initiative, community was deepened as an outcome and most often working towards a shared goal. A similar relationship exists between the individual and our civic institutions. Some individuals in these stories aim to work through the institutions for change, such as joining a government body while other individuals challenged the institutions. Through both ways, individuals pushed for more just and equitable outcomes. So regarding institutions as protagonists, we first ask, well, what is the nature of the institutions in our neighborhoods and cities? Throughout our discussions, we look not only at the role that government at various levels plays in directing the growth and development of neighborhoods and cities or their role in the provision of housing, deciding where buildings and homes go, how many can be built, at what scale and size and what infrastructure connects them, but also at the role that other civic organizations and policies played as institutions of our urban fabric. So from there, we can further ask, well, how can we characterize the relationship between these institutions and the individuals and communities they are entrusted to lead and govern? Paul Ample in his book asks, does the individual exist to serve the aims of the state? Does the state exist to guarantee maximum individual freedom? Attention arises because the needs and objectives of the individual and institutions are perceived to stand in opposition to one another. We perceive this tension throughout our exploration of the neighborhoods that are undergoing change. Groups of individuals often formed around ideological lines. One group that might protest new housing and any change to urban infrastructure are often called NIMBs or not in my backyard. There are other self-organized groups of individuals that advocate for drastic growth and development and these are described as YIMBs, yes, in my backyard. So government authority to appease one or the other side often led to this perceived opposition between the rights of individuals on one hand and the responsibility of institutions on the other. Do individuals have the right to preserve the character of their neighborhood? Do individuals have the right to protest change in order to minimize the potential harmful effects of displacement in minority neighborhoods that are undergoing rapid change, for example? Or do institutions and policies carry the responsibility to contribute to alleviating the poor accessibility of dispersed urban form and of a city's housing shortages? But in light of the Baha'i experience, what nascent qualities and capacities might some of these institutions manifest to alleviate this tension? Paul Ample states, the system created by Baha'u'llah resolves this dilemma. In his order, their aims and aspirations become one. Both compromise their unrestricted latitude of action to ensure the wellbeing of the other. Individual needs are subordinated to those of society while the institutions are confined to leadership that finds expression not in control, but in servitude. Can we perceive glimpses of a leadership that finds expression in servitude in any of the institutions that we consider? One of the many questions we asked earlier on was, well, what should the role of professional planners and designers be? Whether as individuals or as more specifically as a professional body or institution that serves to facilitate growth and development of our cities and regions. Many planners and designers, they see themselves as facilitators of community engagement. But the nature of planning departments within city government often muddies this perception to one of partiality or indifference towards some communities versus others, some groups versus others. Are planning and design professionals engaging the community to merely negotiate and compromise between the different interest groups? Alternatively, could an independent institution of trained planners and designers guide urban processes within neighborhoods and villages? And what role might they have not to monopolize the knowledge about the benefits of certain built environment living patterns, but rather to draw out and to draw forth the knowledge that's being generated by the communities under their guidance and direction? A parallel occurred to us when we considered the complementary branches of the Bahá'í administrative structure where we have the rulers and the learned. In our neighborhoods and cities, we could envision complementary yet distinct roles between elective legislative bodies and on the one side and potentially learned planners and designers who are facilitating servants to the community. So much like the counselors and the auxiliary board members, the planning and design professions might cultivate a relationship with community members that are founded on love, on unity, understanding and encouragement. And they might therefore be better equipped with the qualities to direct resources in organic and just ways. We continue to explore how institutions grow in capacity to direct the physical changes in our built environment. Our aim as we further this exploration is to identify more examples where institutions create, as Paul Ambel explains, an environment conducive to raising up capable souls, ensuring that each person has a part to play, harmonizing the initiative of many individuals and directing collective effort. And the third protagonist explored in this context is the community. And some could even argue that the role of this protagonist is not as easily understood in Western societies. As described in creating in your mind the universal justice, the community is more than the sum of its component parts. It is a comprehensive unit of civilization and composed of individuals, families, institutions that are originators and encouragers of systems, agencies and organizations working together with a common purpose for the welfare of people both within and beyond its own borders. It further goes on to explain that a community is a composition of diverse interacting participants that are achieving unity in an unremitting quest for spiritual and social progress. To set back for a moment and examine the core characteristics of urbanism, there was a shift from rural settings to urban centers which made urbanism much more appealing. For example, some of the prominent characteristics of urbanism are increased population size that allowed for the critical mass needed for enhanced social life, anonymity, heterogeneity, specialization of labor, information exchange and knowledge spillover among others. While urban development is not inherently bad if it is fostered through an individualistic culture, it can lead to enemy or loss of sense of belonging, common values and community, which I would argue is what inhibits Western societies from understanding the role of this protagonist. However, in contrast, as the earlier quote from creating a new mind describes, in order for a community to find its multiplicative society building powers, it needs to have a defined sense of purpose, hold a harmonious effort amongst individual parts for the well-friended well-being of all and to nurture the desire for progress. Our group hasn't yet attempted to define a community but our discussion has led to describing a community through two perspectives, particularly Mr. Lample offers two perspectives on this protagonist and the context of the Baha'i community, which have been helpful. Generally speaking, a community can be viewed as a form of a congregation or a social movement. And as mentioned in creating a new mind, one group of believers, they envision the local community as a congregation, another as a chapter of progressive social movement. Yet each perception gives rise to a specific pattern of activity. Each community evolves differently manifesting distinct powers and exerting particular influences. Yet inevitably each reaches a limitation inherent in its perspective since both fail to truly reflect what it means to be at the high community. In the urbanism groups reading this far, the statement was reinforced, drawing on some of the examples from the books we studied, we can begin to understand the limitations and strengths of each of these perspectives. We found examples of a community based on social movement and formation of EMB and NIMBY groups which were just described, which holds contradicting ideologies that have been inherently pinned against each other. NIMBY and NIMBY groups are not based on a particular location. NIMBY groups are politically organized, spread across the region, but their core common beliefs hold them together. Ideologies held at a distance from the reality of a neighborhood has its own limitations as it does not allow for the reading of a common reality with a group of people. On the other hand, a community based on congregation could be seen in one of the examples shared earlier in the book Golden Gates, where a community rallied around affordable housing and shortage of it and increased rent costs. This type of community is based on a geographic location, but it's also centered around a particular challenge that the community faced. But once the challenge was not able to be overcome, the sense of community was dissipated and this congregation sense of community was also framed as resisting institutions and predatory landlords. In both of these perspectives, understanding of the inherent oneness of community was absent and the community is not viewed as a builder of unity. In this discourse, we're still hoping to learn more about the dynamic of the community that is arising together, consulting, reflecting and reading reality together and everyone is invited to take action under a consistent set of values and principles guiding their action. Thinking back earlier comment around urbanization and some of the strengths in terms of population density, exchange of knowledge and divisional labor, we still need to learn about this concept of a community in this context. What does it look like for a community as a unit of civilization composed of individuals, families, institutions to see themselves as originators and encouragers of systems working together with the common sense of purpose for the welfare of all. And finally, we need to continue learning about how the community is a context within which the spirit of service to one another can be fostered. While the books we studied pointed out the system's failures to fulfill residents' rights to happiness and housing, we yet it also drew examples from individual leaders and institutions to solve these issues. So we still need to learn more about this role of protagonist. However, we recognize that these system failures are signs of a disintegrating social order and it is precisely in the context of the community building process that individual members' institutions can find the means to solve their problems. It's clear that the relationship between the three protagonists is complex and intertwined. On the one hand, we see that institutions at the stage for individual action and community life. On the other, individuals impact their communities and hold institutions to new standards. Through our conversations, we were struck by how difficult it was to define the community as a protagonist. As Marisa mentioned in our work, the term can often be defined in different ways. It can bring people together or draw divisive lines. It may be geographic, but just as often it may not be. And similarly, as Baha'is in the North American context, we're still learning about what community means, how a community can be inclusive, welcoming, and how we carry forward the Baha'i vision together. Another topic that surfaced through our conversations was the parallel between our work in the field and the Baha'i community building activities or the core activities that are underway in urban centers across the continent. For example, junior youth groups are working to empower individuals through training and accompaniment. They lead to collective action. They transform local contexts, including the built environment around them with service projects. In the focused neighborhood here in Vancouver, we recently had our global Baha'i conference. And at the conference, a parent of a JY in the program shared that they've lived in the area for over a decade. They'd never before been asked or invited to consider how the area might change for the better. They were surprised and also empowered by being considered a protagonist in the neighborhood. As a Baha'i, I was pleased to hear this, but as an urban planner, I was really thrilled. And that's the outcome that we strive for at work in policy planning or placemaking or through physical design. And in many ways, our hands-on Baha'i experience with these three protagonists offer guidance for city planners and urbanists. Our reading group first came together to explore topics of housing affordability and wellbeing through the built environment. We had questions that we hoped to answer together. How are these protagonists characterizing current discourses? What limitations or assumptions are made about them? We're still answering these questions. And now we have new questions to explore as well, especially around understanding the role of the community. We plan to continue to explore topics together, knowing that there's much to learn and to relearn. We'll leave you with a few words written by Shoghi Effendi in a letter to a believer. He says, we cannot segregate the human heart from the environment outside us and say that once one of these is performed, everything will be improved. Man is organic with the world. His inner life molds the environment and is itself also deeply affected by it. The one acts upon the other and every abiding change in the life of man is the result of these mutual reactions. Thank you.