A systemic approach on rising complexities in urban environments

Abstract

The paper highlights the need for an integrated approach in urban sciences. Overall, economical, political, societal, and many more issues have to be dealt with in the urban decision processes. It is evident to handle both, various influential factors and the interrelations between these factors. Urban stakeholders politicians, city planners, managers, institutions/organisations are especially affected by these conditions. Appropriate methods and tools would support urban stakeholders in their strategical work. This paper presents the sensitivity analysis as a tool that enables the integration of qualitative and quantitative data, the derivation of alternative scenarios, and the development of consistent and plausible implications. Thus, the sensitivity analysis works like a decision-support-tool, ie. tool findings provide a structured and deeper understanding of system dynamics. Furthermore, the tool enables to recognise (weak) signals in a complex surrounding by means of a relevant set of influential fields and factors. 1 The need for integrated urban management In an urban environment and its constituting mobility system, decisions of today are quite diverse from those that have to be dealt with in the past. Speaking of decisions means to choose and to realise one option from a given number of alternatives that will supposedly lead to the aspired goal. In an urban environment, the sphere of alternatives for urban decision-makers, i.e. politicians, entrepreneurs/managers, city planners, and/or citizens is determined by a significant change. The change in the field of alternatives sets the context of this paper, however, it is more than the mere quantity of alternatives that have to be taken into account, since these have not changed significantly. Moreover, the Urban Transport VI, C.A. Brebbia & L.J. Sucharov (Editors) © 2000 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISBN 1-85312-823-6