Conflict resolution and opinion pooling in city planning

There are multiple theoretical, academic and professional perspectives associated with the study of cities. A key distinction is between urban science that reflects the city itself in relation to its physical form and function, in contrast to city planning where the main focus is on reconciling conflicting views about how the quality of life and the sustainability of cities might be improved. The development of networks in each of these domains is very different. In urban science, the concern is for the way the city functions through a multitude of networks that embody urban processes that distribute energy, materials, ideas and social interactions between its many parts. In city planning, however, the concern is largely with ways in which different views about the future of cities can be represented and then reconciled, where the network of connections between various factors that are important in this process of design often remains implicit. That is, networks in urban science are those that define the city and its component parts, whereas networks in city planning define ways in which ideas about the future are related to one another. Most of the chapters in this book are about the former – urban processes that determine how cities function and evolve – whereas in this chapter, the emphasis is on how networks can be used to represent processes associated with the actual planning of the city. These two different approaches to networks are usually developed by different constituencies of researchers and professionals, and there are few attempts at reconciling them (Batty 2013). In city planning, there are many varieties of process that are used to explore the future; from intuitively inspired design to formal policy-making organized through different actors and stakeholders, to mathematical models that seek to find the best locations that optimize the goals and objectives that define more sustainable, equitable and efficient futures. Here we articulate these processes formally, defining various objectives that either support or conflict with one other, and which must be resolved to produce a consensus or compromise. The way in which our model of the planning process works is by defining the key relationships between actors or agents who have a stake in the outcome (the future plan), with this set of relationships represented as a network. The network provides the basis for examining conflicts and concurrences, and then resolving these if this is possible. To demonstrate its use, we define different variants of planning problem to illustrate the process of resolution that the model attempts to achieve and, in this case, we assume that the different objectives can be represented by different physical locations which imply where the best locations are for the future city. As these locations differ, the model enables a rational process of conflict resolution which homes in on the overall best location. This is achieved by altering the location or by resolving the differences in this location as actors in the process become aware of the conflicts involved and the need to compromise between them.