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This paper aims to re-examine Tainter’s dismissal of the voluntary simplification strategy. Joseph Tainter argues that “sustainability” is about problem-solving and that problem-solving increases social complexity. But he also argues that social complexity requires energy and resources, and this implies that solving problems, including environmental problems, usually demands increases in energy and resource consumption, not reductions. For this reason Tainter argues that voluntary simplification – the strategy of choosing to reduce consumption – is not an available means of solving the problems of civilisation.

This paper briefly outlines Tainter’s theory of diminishing returns on complexity and lays out his arguments against voluntary simplification. The critical sections of the paper examine those arguments and find certain ambiguities in them that open up space of voluntary simplification.

Part of my disagreement with Tainter turns on differing notions of “sustainability.” Whereas Tainter seems to use sustainability to mean sustaining the existing civilisation, the author uses sustainability to mean changing the form of civilisation through voluntary simplification, insofar as that is required for humanity to operate within the carrying capacity of the planet. By exposing the indeterminate, value-laden nature of what constitutes a “problem” and what constitutes an appropriate “solution,” it becomes clear that some societal problems can be dissolved rather than solved, that problems have various solutions and that a society’s available energy supply can be redistributed to achieve voluntary simplification while still solving existing and ongoing problems.

Given that Tainter seems to accept that his own conception of sustainability will eventually lead to collapse, the author feels he is wrong to be so dismissive of voluntary simplification as a strategy for potentially avoiding collapse. It is, the author argues, our only alternative to collapse, and if that is so, voluntary simplification ought to be given our most rigorous attention and commitment, even if the chances of success do not seem high at all. This paper provides a new analysis of the voluntary simplification strategy and shows that it holds more promise than Tainter appreciates.

The Information Age during the transition from the paper era to the digital one saw the fracturing and fragmenting of the information-based specialisations. More recently, professional norms for governance have been swept aside within new business models based on information based business applications. This paper aims to support an advance towards networked cohesion based on informatics, regenerating professionalism for the complex networked age.

New regulatory approaches will have to manage monistic diversity, connecting the deeper logic of continuum thinking in which information governance exists as part of a simple whole (the monistic component) with a recognition that the parts of information governance are much more complex than the whole (the expanding diversity). A continuum approach of this type involves studying things in motion as part of evolutionary processes.

The production of information is galloping ahead of its authoritative management, and this is at the heart of many of the failings of the post-truth information era. Informatics with its emphasis upon the joint operation of technologies, social processes and knowledge forming and its ability to be an umbrella term for many specialisations can be a cohering force.

The alignment of thought, action and ethical information governance across inter-connected practices for individuals, groups and organisations can be supported by the deeper logic and grounded experience of continuum thinking.

This paper will look to expand the array of sympathisers who wish to get more in touch with studying things in motion, including those trying to cope with the need to develop more adequate ways for managing nanosecond archiving processes.

This study aims to provide students an opportunity to analyze the financial performance of a publicly listed real estate company and estimate its instinct value by applying appropriate financial models and approaches.

Three major valuation models/approaches generated by financial theory and practice to estimate the intrinsic value of a security: discounting cash-flows valuation (DCF and NPV) – valuation through adjusted net asset and liquidation value (NAV) – relative valuation through price and value multiples (valuation multiple analysis and precedent transactions analysis). Wholly owned subsidiaries versus and joint venture ones.

Analyze financial information of all segments in a multiple-business firm, and apply suitable financial models and approaches among net asset value model (NAV), discounted cash flow (DCF) or net present value (NPV) model, valuation multiple analysis and precedent transactions analysis to estimate the intrinsic value of the whole firm.

This decision-based case allows students to explore the business valuation process for a public listed real estate company, Alexander & Baldwin, Inc. (NYSE: ALEX). Based on financial statements analysis and forward-looking financial expectation on ALEX, this case elevates students' understanding and practice of valuating this multiple-business firms by applying appropriate financial models and approaches among NAV, DCF or NPV, valuation multiple analysis and precedent transactions analysis and enable students to make their investment decisions of buying, holding or selling the company’s stocks.

This case is most appropriate for graduate courses such as corporate finance, investments, personal finance, real estate finance and financial markets and institutes.

The discussion about the relative merits of a specialist or non‐specialist education, whether at school or at university, is no new one, though to read some of the contributions to the debate one gets the feeling that many believe this to be a problem peculiar to the 'fifties and 'sixties of the twentieth century. The form of specialisation may have changed, but the nineteenth century was littered with debates about the evils or otherwise of an education given over entirely to a study of classical languages and literature. Even with the introduction of science subjects into the curriculum, specialisation as between the Humanities and the Sciences remained a characteristic feature of grammar school sixth forms, which, depending on whether one follows ‘The Abominable Snowman’ or ‘The Doctor’, may or may not have contributed to a Two‐Culture society.

The purpose of this special issue is first to highlight the need for wider understanding of the “civilisational challenge” facing humanity, as it encounters and then exceeds significant limits to growth. The second is to present material that provides grounds for developing effective responses.

The issue draws on evidence from previous research, economic modelling and a range of other sources to investigate the hypothesis that humanity is heading towards an “overshoot and collapse” future. It further suggests that a useful way of responding is to explore the possibility that the prospect of collapse can be moderated or avoided through a process of “conscious descent.”

The main findings are that a very wide spectrum of policies, actions, strategies and options is available that can and should be used to help us avoid the most disastrous manifestations of “overshoot and collapse.” Yet there are also many barriers and impediments that continue to inhibit effective responses. This means that the process of coming to grips with the “civilisational challenge” will take longer and become increasingly costly. Denialism and short term thinking remain embedded in dominant institutions and mainstream practice. Currently, vastly more is miss-spent on various perverse incentives (e.g. advertising, the funding of denial, fossil fuel subsidies) than on securing the future of civilisation. This can be seen as a consequence of outdated values and inadequate worldviews.

The contributions here represent a sample from within a rapidly expanding field of enquiry and action. They should therefore be seen as indicating the need for further high quality investigation, work and action. The main implication is that this process needs to be taken seriously, properly resourced and eventually transformed into a mainstream social project.

The papers are contributions to an in-depth understanding of a complex and evolving situation. Their value lies in the fact that greater understanding and a commitment to early action are among the most productive investments available to societies vulnerable to the systemic threats outlined here. As such, the special issue evokes a fundamental tenet of foresight work in general. Or to put this in the words of Bertrand de Jouvenel, “the proof of improvidence lies in falling under the empire of necessity.”

In 1948, South Africa's Apartheid legislation imposed modernist spatial planning on its populations and created worlds Black people struggled to connect with. Crime, poverty and unemployment have emerged as legacies of Apartheid that continue to impact the lives of Black people living in the townships. In 1994, the new democratic government identified community engagement (CE) as a critical process that could help restore the values of Black people and the places they live in.

This chapter explores a CE process as storytelling to trace the spatiality of agency. As a researcher-architect living in a township, I examined the voluntary community organisation (VCO), Studiolight's CE process, and an exhibition entitled Who we are Macassar, which was conducted between 2016 and 2018 in the community of Macassar, a township in the Western Cape of South Africa. The VCO worked with local youth to produce story maps and a street photography project that reauthors (retells and rewrites) the stories of life in Macassar to critically engage the spatial legacies of Apartheid. Brazilian theorist Paulo Freire's writings on how neglected population groups can self-organise to create knowledge that can restore social narratives is useful to make sense of the CE process. I highlight the spaces of the CE process and use Freire's concepts of critical action, praxis and co-creation to structure the study. I then reflect on the nomadic and sporadic spatiality that emerges in Macassar to discuss how architects can think about forging places with a sense of community identity and belonging.

This article develops an alternative theoretical approach to the Supreme Court’s controversial electoral redistricting decisions in Shaw v. Reno (1993) and its progeny. Instead of relying on the traditional equal protection interpretation, this paper argues that controversies over electoral redistricting are at base disputes among competing visions of democracy. In the Court’s recent redistricting cases, the majority and the dissent adopted fundamentally different visions of democracy – Individualist Democracy and Democracy as Power. In addition to elaborating these rival understandings of democracy, this article develops the concept of Symbolic Democracy to explain a central paradox in the Court majority’s decision: its simultaneous denial and recognition of the relevance of racial groups in representation.

VIRGINIA WOOLF'S FIRST TWO NOVELS (The Voyage Out and Night and Day) are fairly conventional in form, the characters revealing themselves by their conversation and action. Even her third novel (Jacob's Room) only breaks two conventions—it eliminates plot, and it abolishes the omniscient author, thus Jacob is seen through the eyes of the other characters. This, however, was not an innovation.