Indicators for Sustainable Communities: A Strategy Building on Complexity Theory and Distributed Intelligence

Complexity theory and public management: a ‘becoming’ field

“…Others have taken aim at how public sector change might be better managed generally by enlisting complexity thinking and concepts to inform processes of designing and generating change (Boulton, Allen, and Bowman 2015;Geyer and Rihani 2010;Innes and Booher 2010). These authors identify common themes such as the impossibility of prediction and therefore the need to adopt more experimental approaches to intervention based on the assumption that there will be new phenomena (unknown unknowns) likely to emerge endogenously.…”

“…Koliba and Zia (2012) talk about the need for complexity friendly methods for modelling the complex governance system. Innes and Booher (2010) built their theory of collaborative rationality for public policy on analysis of the ongoing dialectic interaction between collaboration and praxis as a means for understanding complex change. Cairney and Geyer (2015) have made a substantial contribution to thinking about the contribution of complexity theory to policy studies and how it might add to understanding of particular policy fields, such as health (Tenbensel 2013) or concepts such as power (Room, 2015) as well as complexity friendly methods for research and practice.…”

Measuring U.S. Sustainable Urban Development

“…Extensive consultation, built into the methodology, is a critical ingredient in the research design. Researchers involved in indicator systems worldwide attest to the necessity of consultation at multiple levels (Scerri and James 2009, Holden 2006, Innes and Booher 2000.…”

Measuring the Complexity of Urban Form and Design

“…Human societies and cities are examples of large, complex systems. Principles of complexity have been applied in urban planning and design from collaborative rationality, to cellular automata and agent-based models, to the design of livable neighborhoods (Innes and Booher 2000;Batty 2005;Healey 2007;Sanders 2008;Boeing 2015). Complexity problematizes rationality and certainty in planning, while providing a lens to conceptualize and approach "wicked problems" and incrementalism.…”