This chapter contains a selection of publications and initiatives where public values and risks in the ecosystem city meet. It is organised as a canon over the period 1962-2023 with perspectives, ideas and images related to stewardship and governance throughout the years of the ecosystem city. It is also a bibliographical collection of publications referred to in this book and which, in my view, bring public values and their risk close to the beating heart of the ecosystem city as a metaphor for the living community of citizen, society and nature.

This canon is about public values and feelings and experiences of losing them. It has no ambition to be complete, but it contains a personal selection of key points where insight, hindsight and foresight were tested, shattered or reset. It represents moments of growth and enrichment, which influenced and encouraged me in my personal development to find the road towards good governance throughout the years.

The myriad of existing wisdom is impressively and incredibly wide. It is, in fact, an ocean full of information. I always believed that they should not be floating around but somehow be interlinked across the boundaries of sciences and craftsmanships and be brought together and compressed into one contract between government, banks, businesses and NGOs on the one hand and the citizen, society and nature on the other hand: the annual strategy/budget plan. It is the place where the clockwork of our society is running.