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question:how-is-it-possible-to-have-cooperative-communal-decision-making-of-the-kind-needed-to-deal-with-decisions-in-a-town-neighborhood-or-public-building

How is it possible to have cooperative, communal decision-making of the kind needed to deal with decisions in a town, neighborhood, or public building?

The central problem of collective design that Alexander addresses with the incremental question method.

Neighborhood — ranked by edge-count

Claims (1)

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Successful group consensus on complex design is achieved not by choosing among alternatives but by resolving a long sequence of very small, particular questions one at a time in the right order
answered_by
Alexander's solution to the 'elephant designed by a committee' problem.

Related by similarity (8)

cosine ≥ 0.65 · no typed edge

Entities in the same semantic neighborhood but without a typed relation to this one — candidates for new edges or unrecognized duplicates.

To bring life to the neighborhood, it is essential that it can be a place where people live and work.claim0.766
Asserts the necessity of mixed-use for urban vitality.
How can each of them put something of themselves into the building? And how can they together put their deep feeling into the building, so that it comes to life as one whole?question0.763
Question about organizing craftsmen in a large project to achieve collective living structure.
To get it in meaningful fashion, again, as in the Indian village, people need to be in control — in control of their individual space, and in control of the public space.claim0.753
Reiterates that dual control (private and public) is the mechanism behind successful traditional environments
If we were nevertheless trying to get our buildings conceived, designed, and built by the social processes which currently exist - the buildings would still inevitably break life and could not have life.hypothesis0.745
Prediction about the incompatibility of modern processes with life.
We need a city of public places where we can SEE these differences, where we can become engaged with the multitude of human characters.claim0.744
Argues that public space must function as a theater for human variety
For the first time in modern history, ways of thinking are available that make the criteria for 'living' potentially sharable and actually shared.claim0.740
Asserts that the theoretical foundation laid out in the four books provides a public quality standard for sequences.
How can we try to make a living system out of a region, or a city, or a building—even out of a garden—when, according to current scientific orthodoxy, these things are not living systems?question0.739
Rhetorical question highlighting the intellectual obstacle the book must overcome.
Only when we make the personal decisions that go into creating a home or business can that place truly belong to us.claim0.738
Argues that individual owner-building is necessary for genuine belonging.