Source：Shuhai Zhang & Gert de Roo, 2016, Interdependency of self-organisation and planning: evidence from Nanluoguxiang, Beijing, Town Planning Review, 87(3): 253-274.

Zhang Hai-Shu Teacher of dept. of land use of SPAP of Renmin University of China

Perspective and opinion

City is a typical complex adaptive system, showing a "non-linear evolution" characterized in its evolution process. This determines the top-down planning control only work under certain conditions, and more often urban development will show a spontaneous, adaptive, even unconscious adjustment and change. Such a complex spontaneous evolution mechanism is referred to as "self-organization" by science. In this paper, borrowed from organization theory, take Beijing Nanluoguxiang as an example, to explore the self-organization mechanism in urban development and changes, focusing on three questions: How did self-organization happen in the urban change? How social effects of self-organization of urban change brought about?  And what is the relationship between pipe-controlled planning from top to bottom and system design and self-organization?

In the article, we adopted questionnaire and interview survey research methods to explore the answers to these three questions, of which the individual behaviour and group behaviour of Nanluoguxiang development process and the understanding of the system are obtained mainly through interviews. How social effects, planning and system design brought from self-organizing development playing a role in self-organizing mechanism are mainly obtained through questionnaire.

Around three research questions, this article divided Nanluoguxiang evolution from founding to three phases: the first phase is to Tenement courtyard; the second stage is the illegal building and environmental degradation stage; the third stage is organic and update "gentrification" stage. Analysis showed that self-organization mechanism was an important mechanism for promoting Nanluoguxiang evolution. When condition's change breaks the balance of some macroscopic system, the individual in the system will spontaneously respond. Such behaviour has fast, self-interest and unconscious characteristics; accumulation of individual behaviour will form a collective effect, and ultimately lead to mutation effects on macro-level. formed in tenement formation, commercialization and gentrification trends of Nanluoguxiang are all related to this mechanism. However, in the process of self-organization, aimed at planning and control system design actually play a balanced role to break the system, which has become a self-initiated "switch" to cause organizational changes. Although the self-organization in complex science is a mechanism to promote the formation of a order, the survey results show that the results caused by self-organization in the city could be negative, so the appropriate use of planning system "switch" is to an important way to promote the development of a healthy city.

Article illustrates the general mechanisms of self-organizing mechanisms in urban evolution, namely the system balanced break - individual behaviour in response - collective behaviour pattern - Macro mutation effect, clear the relationship between individual behaviour, social behaviour, institutions and planning design, which provide a support for planning decisions under complex urban conditions.

Public Management scholar description:Zhang Shu-Hai, teacher of land management ddpartmenyt of SPAP of Renmin University of China, PhD of Peking University and Groningen University, and his research direction involves spatial planning, land use and so on. He has published papers in SSCI magazines and other European planning studies, planning practice and research, published a monograph in English, participated in land use planning of Zhangjiakou, Zhengzhou spatial development topics such as strategic planning, and served as anonymous reviewer for magazine Cities.