Government and Social Restructuring Project
Compendium Architecture Map
25 Primary Areas — Cluster Organization and Cross-Reference Connections
Page One
The 25 Primary Areas by Cluster
The 25 primary areas are organized into nine clusters that reflect their functional relationships within American institutional and social life. These clusters are analytical groupings, not administrative boundaries — every primary area has significant connections to areas in other clusters, and those connections are among the project's most important analytical contributions.
- I Government Forms, levels, accountability
- XIX Law, Judiciary & Legal System Courts, access, rule of law
- XXIV The Carceral System Policing, prosecution, incarceration
- XIII Military & International Relations Defense, foreign policy, diplomacy
- II Education Early childhood through adult learning
- V Health & Mental Health System structure, coverage, equity
- III Art & Culture Cultural ecosystem, public value, equity
- XVI Science & Research Knowledge production, public benefit
- XXI Sport & Recreation Sport as cultural institution, public health
- IV Economy Corporate governance, labor, inequality
- XVII Housing & Urban Development Affordability, land use, race
- XII Energy, Infrastructure & Built Environment Energy transition, transportation, resilience
- XX Food Systems & Agriculture Production, access, sovereignty, labor
- VI Community & Social Cohesion Belonging, civic associations, pluralism
- XV Civic Life & Information Integrity Civic participation, epistemic skills, disinformation resilience
- XVIII Immigration & Demographic Change Policy, pathways, demographic representation
- XIV Social Services & the Care Economy Safety net, elder care, disability, poverty
- XI Religion & Public Life Governance, pluralism, social cohesion
- VII Technology, AI & Data Governance AI systems, data ownership, platform governance
- VIII Media, Journalism & Information Ecosystems Press, disinformation, media ownership
- X Reparations & Historical Justice Historical injustices, present effects, mechanisms of repair — embedded in the structure of every domain
- IX Environment, Climate & Natural Systems Climate change, ecosystems, environmental justice — the environmental foundation for every domain with a physical footprint
- XXII Animal Welfare & Non-Human Life Animal agriculture, legal standing, human-animal ethics
- XXIII Biotechnology & Human Enhancement Genetic engineering, neurotechnology, bioethics
- XXV Governance of the GSRP Process Accountability, adaptation, participant rights, anti-capture
- — Document Zero This document — foundational guide to the Compendium and deliberative process
Page Two
Cross-Reference Connections
The most architecturally significant connections between primary areas — the places where findings in one domain directly shape what is possible in another, and where Joint Working Groups are most likely to produce the project's most important integrated analysis.
Every primary area document identifies its most significant connections to other domains in its Section 7 (Cross-References and Connections). The connections shown here are those where the analytical interdependence is so fundamental that working in isolation would produce incomplete or misleading findings. Critical connections indicate domains where Joint Working Groups are recommended. Important connections indicate where sustained cross-area coordination is needed but full joint governance may not be required.
Critical Connection — Joint Working Group Recommended
Economic Structure, Housing, and Material Inequality
The economy, housing, and social services domains share a fundamental analytical problem: the distribution of economic outcomes shapes housing access, which shapes the demand for social services, which shapes labor market participation. No domain can reach adequate conclusions about systemic design without the others. A housing working group that does not engage the Economy domain's analysis of wealth distribution will misdiagnose what drives unaffordability. An Economy working group that does not engage Housing will underestimate the material stakes of economic design choices.
This is also the connection most directly implicated by the Reparations & Historical Justice domain (X): the documented history of racially discriminatory housing and economic policy is the foundation of present-day material inequality, and any analysis of economic or housing systems that does not engage that history will be analytically incomplete.
IV · Economy
XVII · Housing
XIV · Social Services
X · Reparations (cross-cutting)
Critical Connection — Joint Working Group Recommended
Governance, Law, and the Carceral System
The carceral system operates through the legal and governmental architecture; reforms to any one domain necessarily implicate the others. Mass incarceration is simultaneously a governance failure, a legal system failure, and a social policy failure — and the analysis of each cannot be completed without the others. The Law domain (XIX) provides the constitutional and statutory framework; the Government domain (I) addresses the institutional design questions; the Carceral domain (XXIV) addresses what that framework has produced at the level of human experience.
XXIV · Carceral System
I · Government
XIX · Law & Judiciary
Critical Connection — Joint Working Group Recommended
Education, Economic Opportunity, and Community
Educational outcomes are among the strongest predictors of economic participation; economic conditions shape what education systems can accomplish; both are shaped by and shape community and social cohesion. A working group on education that treats its domain as separable from economic structure will systematically underestimate why educational reform has so often failed to produce the economic mobility it promised. The Community domain (VI) addresses how the social fabric of communities shapes educational participation and outcomes in ways that neither curriculum design nor funding formulas capture.
II · Education
IV · Economy
VI · Community & Social Cohesion
Critical Connection — Joint Working Group Recommended
Environmental Systems, Energy, Food, and Infrastructure
Climate change is simultaneously an environmental, economic, infrastructure, and food systems crisis. The Energy domain (XII) addresses the transition away from fossil fuels; the Food Systems domain (XX) addresses agricultural land use and supply chains; the Infrastructure domain (XII) addresses built environment resilience; the Environment domain (IX) provides the ecological foundation and the environmental justice framework that each of the others requires. These four domains share so many analytical elements that their separation into distinct working groups risks producing findings that conflict or that miss the system-level dynamics that only integrated analysis can reveal.
The environmental justice dimension — who bears the costs of environmental degradation and of environmental transition — connects all four domains to the Reparations & Historical Justice domain (X) and to the Immigration domain (XVIII), where climate-driven displacement is already a significant driver of demographic change.
IX · Environment & Climate
XII · Energy & Infrastructure
XX · Food Systems
XVIII · Immigration (climate displacement)
Important Connection — Sustained Coordination Needed
Technology, Information, and Democratic Self-Governance
The Technology & AI domain (VII) and the Media & Journalism domain (VIII) together constitute the information environment within which democratic self-governance either functions or fails. The Civic Life & Information Integrity domain (XV) addresses the demand side of information: what citizens need to participate meaningfully in democratic processes. These three domains are examining the same underlying problem from different angles — the conditions for informed democratic participation — and their findings need to be integrated rather than siloed.
VII · Technology & AI
VIII · Media & Journalism
XV · Civic Life & Information
I · Government
Important Connection — Sustained Coordination Needed
Health, Economic Security, and Care Infrastructure
Health outcomes are powerfully shaped by economic conditions and social determinants that no healthcare system design can fully address on its own. The Social Services domain (XIV) addresses the care economy and the safety net within which health is supported or undermined; the Economy domain (IV) addresses how economic structure shapes health through employment, income, housing, and stress. A health working group that examines the healthcare system in isolation from these determinants will propose solutions that address symptoms rather than causes.
V · Health & Mental Health
IV · Economy
XIV · Social Services
XVII · Housing (social determinants)
Critical connection — Joint Working Group recommended
Important connection — Sustained coordination needed
These connections are among the most significant identified in the Compendium documents' Section 7 cross-references. Full connection maps for each primary area are available in the individual Compendium documents.