Making the Connections: Systems Thinking and Urban Dynamics

From COSNet

CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Gungahlin, 13-14 May 2008

back to Complex Dynamics of Urban Systems

Aims

In this workshop we wanted to encourage systems thinking to identify and understand the complex interactions between urban systems such as transport, housing infrastructure, water and energy supply, governance and planning. In Workshop 1, participants discussed major urban issues that could be addressed with complex systems science. Now we wanted to literally and metaphorically join these identified "dot point" issues and chart the connections and feedbacks between the urban systems. Particular aims were to:

• Develop a common mental model of interconnected urban systems and to map out the connections and feedbacks that affect urban function and development.
• Develop understanding about systems thinking and complex dynamics in the urban context.
• Identify opportunities for application of this systems thinking and other complex systems approaches.

Pre-Workshop Discussions

It seems to me that the following three interconnected questions should be asked during the design phase of any modelling project (including collaborative mental modelling projects). The answers given are idiosyncratic in at least two senses—(a) they reflect my current biases, and (b) they are intended to reflect the focus of the present workshop.

Question 1: What is the aim of the modelling exercise?

Question 2: What type of models are needed?

Question 3: How can models of the required type be built?

Workshop Report

Academics, urban researchers, practitioners of complex system science and representatives from ACTPLA, the local planning agency attended a two day workshop using systems thinking approaches to develop a better understanding of complex urban issues and systems. The ACTPLA participants were instrumental in presenting a real-world case of an urban renewal project which provided rich ground for testing our ideas and understanding with numerate scenarios. The workshop also included presentations by Barry Newell from ANU and Roger Bradbury and Bohdan Durnotta from Tjurunga about applying complex systems analyses to problems of urban water supply and natural resource management (respectively).

Over the course of the workshop we developed a system picture or map of the connections and interactions between components of an urban system. We started with four pictures from break out groups that focussed on particular sectors: Energy and Transport, Water, Housing and Land Use, and Public Spaces and Natural Infrastrucutre. With a bigger workshop it might have been possible to have more of a breakdown of the issues and/or sectors.

This map is the product of discussions, priorities and knowledge of participants and is not intended to be a model for general application

The various sectoral influence diagrams were condensed into a single "urban system" diagram that has of the order of about 10 components (see picture). The word 'component' is used carefully because in the sectoral diagrams we put down all the drivers, controls, issues, variables ...whatever we could think of as being releveant to a given sector. So, "component" is a deliberately vague term. To draw upon these and pull out the relatively simple map was something that took quite a bit of discussion and testing with scenarios.

One hypothetical scenario was that of de-population and how that has an iterative effect on the wealth and amenity of a city. Apparently this is being experienced in some German cities and we are seeing it even in the larger country towns in Australia. The point was to challenge our map and say: "OK, so can it represent this issue?"

Participants noted was that not every component had to be connected to everything else DIRECTLY inorder to have a broad influence. For example urban form has a direct influence on the characteristics of energy use but the way people and industry use energy feeds back and influences urban form more INDIRECTLY through transport options.

We tested out a local urban renewal scenario and found that there are some iterative considerations. For example, generating housing solely in the upper price bracket while encouraging local, non-professional employment might enlarge the transport task i.e. very few of the people who work at the planned retail and restaurant area of the renewed urban space could afford to live there and vice versa, people who lived there would have to have an income and an occupation that might not be locally available. Hence several thousand people might have to be transported in and out every day. This in turn has some influence back on the urban design and also the energy use by people in the wider metro area.

All the sustainable design and good intentions might be realised within the physical bounds of the renewal site but it is important to be aware of the external influences e.g. if the average shop assistant is unlikely to live there nor in the surrounding suburbs then implicitly are we asking them to travel further to work? These are all possibilities to be subtly distinguished from probabilities - the maps and diagrams were useful for following indirect and iterative influences not calculating expected outcomes.

Outcomes

A couple of clear things have come out of the workshop:

1. A process: while we gained insights from generating and using the map, the process itself was an outcome.
2. A urban system map: what we created was very much a product of the people present, their knowledge, experience and their questions about urban function. The result is something that *may* have generic properties and it was very satisfying to be able to test the map with a couple of different scenarios of an urban renewal project.
3. Understanding. The process and the resulting dynamical picture of the urban system were able to elighten people on (some of) the causal paths that underlie difficult systemic issues. This insight is to be coupled with the caveat that this is an exercise in understanding, not prediction.