What makes a great place to live?

The human race has yet to build a habitat where people can grow best, where all children receive an excellent education and health care, understand the natural environment, eat locally-grown delicious food, walk safely in their neighbourhoods, breathe pure air, feel the warmth of a united community life, have a world-embracing vision, serve others selflessly, and develop fully their intellectual, artistic and spiritual capacities. We know the environmental needs of dolphins, mountain lions and bees, the ideal habitats of nearly all flora and fauna. What, though, is the ideal habitat for human beings?

M. L. Perry draws on the experience, knowledge, information, wisdom and vision of people working with and concerned about human habitat – sociologists, artists, scientists, indigenous peoples, thinkers, practitioners, academics, historians  – to explore this question.

With the planet at a critical juncture in its history – the perfect storm of climate change, political upheaval, economic uncertainty, the rise of racism and xenophobia, and a lack of answers to profound crises of poverty, pestilence and conflict – Perry reflects on an intriguing statement made by a 19th century figure, the founder of the Bahá’í Faith, Bahá’u’lláh: that humanity has been 'created to carry forward an ever‑advancing civilization'.

Perry's is a wide‑ranging and thought-provoking consideration of how the elements of an ever‑advancing civilization might unfold in the life of cities and the planet in the coming decades. He looks at how spirituality and the developing science of sustainability might converge to produce communities that are moderate and beautiful, local but interconnected globally and technologically, spiritually based, progressive, sustainable – and great places to live.