Urban Land Changes as the Interaction Between Self-Organization and Institutions

Abstract

There is interest among planners in autonomous behaviour and non-linear processes supporting urban development. Self-organization has attracted attention as a potential driver for urban transformations. This paper aims to explore the mechanisms behind urban land use patterns resulting from the interdependence of self-organization and institutions. Our argument is based on an empirical study of two land development cases in urban Beijing. The paper argues that urban land transformations include characteristics of symmetry breaks, self-organizing processes, unintended collective behaviour and spontaneous patterns while simultaneously being institutionally framed. The interdependence between self-organization and institutional rules builds upon a circular causality framework at various spatial levels.

Making the case for self-organisation: understanding how communities make sense of sustainability and climate change through collective action

“…where things are done). Zhang et al (2015) argue that self-organisation and intentional planning are the two sides of the same coin, and position self-organisation between the dynamics of micro-, mesoand macro levels of governance. Self-organisation represents not only a break in the system but also a change in the social institutions and the rules of the game.…”

Ordering Principles in a Dynamic World of Change – On social complexity, transformation and the conditions for balancing purposeful interventions and spontaneous change

“…Van der Leeuw (2009) is not alone in considering human settlements to be an example of non-linear development and the behaviour of complex adaptive systems. Various urban planners (Allen, 1997, who worked with Ilya Prigogine;Batty, 2005Batty, , 2010Byrne, 2003;Portugali, 2000Portugali, , 2009Portugali, , 2011Portugali, , 2012, who also works with Hermann Haken; Rauws, 2015;Verhees, 2013;Winestock, 2010;Zhang et al, 2015) consider cities as complex adaptive systems. These complex adaptive cities have been transformed, from being not much more than nodes on trade routes and river and mountain crossings, into markets, which at some point required protection, leading to defensive walls, and so on, heading towards the industrial revolution with its enabling and constraining conditions, producing the twentiethcentury city, which can variously be characterized as booming, functional, congested, communicative or progressive, or as a centre of knowledge and learning, leisure and entertainment.…”

“…As the system is in an interdependent relationship with its subsystems, as well as with its contextual environment, this means the adapting system and its subsystems will in turn affect the contextual environment. These selforganization processes have been discussed by various scholars both within and beyond the realm of planning (Bak, 1990;Boonstra, 2015;De Roo, 2016a;Portugali, 2000;Rauws, 2015;Zhang et al, 2015). Here, attention is paid particularly to the conditions which 'condition' the system's transformative behaviour with reference to the interdependency between the internal and external: these will be called adaptive transformative conditions.…”

Understanding self-organization and formal institutions in peri-urban transformations: A case study from Beijing

“…The notion of self-organization has become increasingly prominent in the domain of urban studies and planning (Alfasi, 2018;De Roo, 2016;Portugali, 2000;Zhang et al, 2015). Enlightened by the progress made in natural sciences, understanding selforganization in social systems is becoming more explicit and advanced (Collier, 2003).…”