(I need help to get the best points of this chapter and summarise it.)What causes a place to have potential?

How can you tell if a place has regenerative potential?

Beyond Problem Solving

The Nestedness of Potential In order to make projects regenerative, it is important to think in terms of at least three levels of system: the potential of a project, the potential of place, the contribution to a larger whole. This nestedness of potential is part of the reason for the ripple effect that regenerative projects can have. Many projects fail to achieve a regenerative effect because the potential they target is too limited, focused on an element or a problem without seeing its systemic connections. A client of Regenesis had purchased a retreat center in northern California on a splendid site in a beautiful river valley. The river, which ran through the center of the property, was threatened by development for tourism. This client wanted to protect the ecosystem, but was challenged by the need to attract a clientele in order to keep the retreat center open and viable as a business. Rather than working on this as a marketing problem, the client worked on it by thinking in concrete images about the life of the river and the valley. The river had once supported major salmon runs. The salmon fed the valley, even as the valley enabled them to thrive . But the annual run had diminished every year and the salmon were at risk of dying out.

So she asked herself, What contribution could my small business make to the regeneration of the river and the salmon that it once supported? Little by little she began to envision ways that the retreat center could bring together stakeholders from up and down the valley in a unified effort to restore the river. Suddenly she was able to see her business with new eyes. As a member of a community of local river keepers, the center could help create an increasingly vital place to live and work. At the same time, it could attract, inspire, and educate guests from outside the valley