on ranking

can we define "livable and lovable" cities?
That's the nice slogan from a new Phillips Corporation initiative praised today in the Atlantic by NRDC's Kaid Benfield. The Phillips think tank suggests that we can gather all the qualities of a "livable and lovable" city into three virtues:

Resilience, which replaces the more bureaucratic and depressing word sustainability, but means roughly the same thing. Some great work has already been done on the concept of resilience. There's already a Resilient Cities movement, and an excellent book on Resilience Thinking.

Inclusiveness, which is about "social integration and cohesion," demonstrated for example in the lack of discrimination or social exclusion based on race, religion, age, and all the other usual categories.

Authenticity, which means "the ability to maintain the local character of the city," including "heritage, culture, and environment."
Below is their graphic summary. (The PDF [Download] is much sharper!) Below that is a bit of affectionate heckling from me.

and

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/dd9bba18-769c-11e0-bd5d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1NS4tOZPr