Governing Harmonious Human Engagement with the Spatial Capital

• Main Authors: Shukui Tan, Haipeng Song, Ghulam Akhmat, Javeed Hussain
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2014-03-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: spatial capital; human abode; domestication of spatial capital; institutionalisation; spatial governance; spatial literacy; harmonious human engagement with the spatial capital
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/6/3/1203

The unprecedented rate and scale of activities, simulated by human abode in its entirety, is having large and accelerating effects on the integrity of biophysical elements of spatial capital, at local, regional, and global scales. Real appreciation of these effects demands a dramatic change in human manipulation of the spatial capital. Spatial capital can be viewed as processes or a complex matrix, in which not only our spatial but social, economic, and intellectual needs are embedded. Through an extensive synthesis of literature, this study strives to situate as well as manage human abode in context of spatial capital. It focuses on the need of crafting spatial governance, which secures today’s needs without compromising the needs of abode for our future generations. For harmonious human engagement with the spatial capital, we focused on following major requisites: (i) filling gaps in the understanding of processes of the respective spatial capital; (ii) integration of this intellectual capital; (iii) and spatial government supported by seamless institutionalisation, and governance processes in a global context. All modes of human abode are unique when analysed in the milieu of their social, economic, cultural, and intellectual yield, and their respective ecological footprint on spatial capital. An essential component of the sustainability of spatial capital is fundamental knowledge of the relevant biophysical processes, which yield the respective social, economic, cultural, and intellectual services we obtain from it. Action-oriented and integrated intellectual capital will yield the required awareness about the spatial capital, which when crystallised into proper institutions their processes will certainly produce promising outcomes for spatial management. Sustainable spatial constructs can only be produced through horizontal and vertical harmonization in governance institutions from the local to global level. It will not only help in the rehabilitation of the spatial capital but can also enhance it.