Bioregioning: Pathways to Urban-Rural Reconnection

There is a metabolic rift running through our economy and culture, and it is distracting our attention from care for the biosphere. To heal this rift, the diverse groups of people that make up humankind need a shared purpose that everyone can relate to and support. A strong candidate for that shared purpose is care for the bioregion—bioregioning—as an activity that creates value. In this article, I present a number of design actions and case studies that demonstrate how design can contribute to system change, for example via the reconnection of urban and rural ecosystems, the design of social infrastructures that enable the emergence of new enterprises, and the deployment of technology. Keywords: Bioregion, Urban-rural reconnection, Civic ecology, Social infrastructure, Smart villages, System change, Knowledge ecologie