Marilyn Hamilton has written an important book on the city, INTEGRAL CITY, which promotes a whole-systems view of the PLACE where 60% of the peoples of the world live today.

This book provides a comprehensive overview, not only of the application of systems-theory and practice as it is being applied to the analysis and design of cities, but also of who is doing what and where. It is well reverenced and provides a useful up to date reading list [1].

As the title indicates, the book builds on Ken Wilber’s Integral Vision, and other’s work of like kind.

This systemic approach to the city has been long needed. To me if there is a missing aspect of the book it is in the realm of architecture itself. While Alexander [2] and McDonough [3] are noted, there are many who, in prior generations, built works and proposed specific city concepts - perhaps with a lessor vocabulary - with the same advocacy for human-nature integration and recursive design from community to city, region and globe as is argued for in this book. It is overlooked that FLlw used the concept of integral over 80 years ago in the same way as it is presently employed today. Perhaps, the prior design state-of-the-art is a subject of another book.