Globalization and local identity: Introductory statement by the WSE President

The author, President of the World Society for Ekistics, has served as Professor of Sociology at Princeton University for more than three decades, specializing in the study of Elites and Leadership, Urbanism,and Social Architecture (for the School of Architecture). An early Ekistician, she taught architects and planners at the Athens Center of Ekistics and was part of the overall research program. The goal to have a sociologist play such a central role during those formative years of ekistics was to expand the perspective of architects, planners, and builders to include sociological and psychological concepts and ideas. The recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, she is the author of a leading textbook in Sociology, The Urban Neighborhood (Random House,1968) actually begun in Athens, and most recently, Community, Pursuing the Dream, Living the Reality (Princeton University Press,2004) which received the Amalfi Prize of 2005. She is currently at work on Adult, that is Retirement Communities. The text that follows is an introductory statement to the international symposion on Globalizationand Local Identity, organized jointly by the World Society for Ekisticsand the University of Shiga Prefecture in Hikone, Japan, 19-24 September, 2005.