412
Highlights
• Cities are experiencing multiple impacts from global environmental change.
• A systems perspective can lead to innovative designs of new urban infrastructure
and the redesign of existing structures to address complex urban health
challenges.
• The integration of grey, green and blue infrastructure in urban planning through
institutional innovation and structural reorganization of knowledge-action systems may result in large health improvements and increase urban resilience.
18.1 Introduction
Urban health and well-being is an outcome of urban complexity. In this chapter we
argue that cities are complex adaptive social-ecological-technological systems, a
perspective needed in order to untangle this complexity and define the types of
problems we are confronted with (Alberti et al. 2018). By framing complexity conceptually we suggest pathways for urban governance for urban health and wellbeing, pathways that address problems of great scientific and economic complexity
and radical uncertainty, of which climate change is a prime example. One example
of such a pathway is using multiple ecosystem services as a means to create resilience to climate change in cities and thus reduce negative impacts on health and
well-being, or so-called ‘nature-based solutions’ (NBSs) (Secretariat of the
Convention on Biological Diversity 2009), such as the ‘Sponge City’ initiative for
flood water treatment currently taking place in China and the green roof design
thriving across many European cities. Whereas technology can be helpful for solving complicated engineering problems by seeking solutions for optima and equilibria, complex or inexact problems require the recognition of deep uncertainty and
non-linearity.
18.1.1 Urban Systems as Complex Adaptive Systems
A social-technological approach has, up until now, been the traditional way of analyzing urban complexity (e.g. Geels 2011; Hodson and Marvin 2010), and in this
context, many have struggled to define exactly what is meant by a city. Here we
expand on an emerging framework of cities as complex social-ecologicaltechnological systems, as cities include much more than a particular density of people or area covered by human-made structures (Bai et al. 2016; Alberti et al. 2018).
Cities are places where social, ecological and technological systems connect
and integrate; where various types of capital and infrastructures intersect in
multi- dimensional spaces; and where connectivity, interaction, exchange and communication accelerate in time. Urban socio-ecological-technological systems are
T. Elmqvist et al.
Highlights
• Cities are experiencing multiple impacts from global environmental change.
• A systems perspective can lead to innovative designs of new urban infrastructure
and the redesign of existing structures to address complex urban health
challenges.
• The integration of grey, green and blue infrastructure in urban planning through
institutional innovation and structural reorganization of knowledge-action systems may result in large health improvements and increase urban resilience.
18.1 Introduction
Urban health and well-being is an outcome of urban complexity. In this chapter we
argue that cities are complex adaptive social-ecological-technological systems, a
perspective needed in order to untangle this complexity and define the types of
problems we are confronted with (Alberti et al. 2018). By framing complexity conceptually we suggest pathways for urban governance for urban health and wellbeing, pathways that address problems of great scientific and economic complexity
and radical uncertainty, of which climate change is a prime example. One example
of such a pathway is using multiple ecosystem services as a means to create resilience to climate change in cities and thus reduce negative impacts on health and
well-being, or so-called ‘nature-based solutions’ (NBSs) (Secretariat of the
Convention on Biological Diversity 2009), such as the ‘Sponge City’ initiative for
flood water treatment currently taking place in China and the green roof design
thriving across many European cities. Whereas technology can be helpful for solving complicated engineering problems by seeking solutions for optima and equilibria, complex or inexact problems require the recognition of deep uncertainty and
non-linearity.
18.1.1 Urban Systems as Complex Adaptive Systems
A social-technological approach has, up until now, been the traditional way of analyzing urban complexity (e.g. Geels 2011; Hodson and Marvin 2010), and in this
context, many have struggled to define exactly what is meant by a city. Here we
expand on an emerging framework of cities as complex social-ecologicaltechnological systems, as cities include much more than a particular density of people or area covered by human-made structures (Bai et al. 2016; Alberti et al. 2018).
Cities are places where social, ecological and technological systems connect
and integrate; where various types of capital and infrastructures intersect in
multi- dimensional spaces; and where connectivity, interaction, exchange and communication accelerate in time. Urban socio-ecological-technological systems are
T. Elmqvist et al.