Context Determines Content: Quantum Physics as a Framework for `Wholeness' in Urban Transformation

Abstract

We live in a divided world dominated by a fragmentary worldview that treats the wholeness of the human family, urban environments and social reality as inherently discrete, distanced and disconnected. This fragmentary perspective, emerging from Greek dualism and fuelled by the Newtonian mechanical view of the world with its Cartesian split of either/or understanding of reality, does not lead to wholeness. Almost all discussion of urban social policies emerges from a context of fragmented thinking. Drawing from quantum physics, this paper presents a theoretical framework, a new `context' for understanding urban environments and the implementing of programmes of urban transformation, including faith-based programmes. The paper examines examples of effective change agents who have made a difference in people's lives. It culminates with an analysis of the broken window theory and how the differences in approaches—fragmentation or wholeness—generate different results. The critical point is in recognising the energy patterns and operative attractor fields from which emerge negative or positive patterns of behaviour.