In 1992, while presenting at the World Futures Studies Federation course on International Development, I shifted my lecture from the typical rehearsed presentation on factors explaining maldevelopment to a real time unpacking/deconstruction of transportation futures. As I, we, worked through the analysis, alternatives organically emerged. The four levels were: first, the problem or the litany - congestion and pollution. Second the causes: too many cars and desire for more cars, rising incomes, traditional infrastructure that was not car flow friendly, among other factors. Third, the Big City outlook, westernization, and the "Los Angelization" of the planet. And fourth, West is best with cars as freedom, as individuality. We understood that the government would take a technical approach of creating flyovers and not the deeper required to rethink centre-periphery relations - to decentralize - to reimagine Bangkok as a walkable and green city. This led to a discussion on not just infrastructure redesign but stories around rural areas and the symbol of the car as a symbol of Western power. CLA shifted the discussion from conventional strategies on transport toward alternative futures of mobility, identity, and sustainability. After a few more attempts at presenting on communication, on disability, on ways knowing the method was born. Theoretically, of course, I was standing on the works of the greats: P.R. Sarkar, Johan Galtung, William Irwin Thompson, Joseph Campbell and from insights from professors and colleagues such as James Dator, Michael Shapiro, and Richard Slaughter.
In the CLA Reader published in 2004, we compiled articles on the method to gain academic respectability. Doctoral students would email me and say, they wanted to write their thesis on CLA but their professors were suspicious. By 2015, when CLA 2.0 was released, we had documented hundreds of additional case studies. Professor were no longer suspicious, indeed, many enthusiastic. The method by th