City planning: “Dissolving” urban problems insights from an application of management cybernetics

Abstract

Urban development in fast‐growing cities is one of the huge challenges of our time, and several projects of technical cooperation are dedicated to this issue. The aim of this paper is to help project managers to enhance their capability of dealing effectively with the formidable complexities inherent in this kind of project. For this purpose, we explore the potential of Organizational Cybernetics and Social Systems Theory in a relatively new area of application. We have developed a set of conceptual tools that are helpful in coping with dynamic complexity in change and development projects. These tools have in common an inherent logic deriving to a great extent from Stafford Beer's Viable System Model and the St Gall framework for systemic management. The application of the tools is illustrated by a state‐of‐the‐art case study from the realm of Technical Co‐operation – the revision of the Urban Master Plan for the City of Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. However, the toolkit is in principle also applicable to any complex project of change or development.

Citation

Schwaninger, M. and Koerner, M. (2004), "City planning: “Dissolving” urban problems insights from an application of management cybernetics", Kybernetes, Vol. 33 No. 3/4, pp. 557-576. https://doi.org/10.1108/03684920410523571