Appreciating the Wicked Problem: A Systems Approach to Sustainable Cities

Abstract Sustainable city place-making is a complex process and can deliver systemic unintended or undesirable development paths such as poverty, health inequality, or environmental degradation over generations. The application of socio-technical and socio-ecological systems thinking is applied to this critical challenge of how to create sustainable cities. Creating sustainable cities demands a different process of inquiry by decision-makers, policy-makers, and practitioners to support sustainable holistic thinking and transformational outcomes (Lonsdale et al. 2015. Transformative adaptation: What is it, why it matters and what is needed. UK Climate Impacts Programme, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK). The application of complex systems theory (Santa Fe Institute Bulletin, summer fall 2(1):8–10, 1987; Daedalus 121(1):17–30, 1992; Journal of Systems Science and Complexity 19(1):1–8, 2006), and socio-technical systems thinking, such as “appreciative systems” theories (The art of judgement, London, 1965; American Behavioral Scientist 38(1):75–91, 1994) and “systemic learning cycles” from soft systems methodologies (HRDI 3(3):377– 383, 2000, pp. 380–381) are explored as mechanisms to support this new dynamic of skills, behaviour and mindset to foster transformational leadership of place. A new conceptual model and alternative reference frames are proposed as a way to understand and influence transformative action necessary to realise sustainable cities.