Many urban problems are also complex or wicked problems.  The basic characteristics are:

• There are many system components and interactions. Think about actors,  (incumbent) technology  Actors will have conflicting values and interests.
• There is ‘ deep uncertainty: it is very difficult to predict the outcome of an intervention.  There are many feedback loops, and non Small changes can induce large effects and vice versa (!). You have to be aware of tipping points (points of no return)  and emergent (or bottom-up) behavior.
• Context, history, time, and scale matter.

The key to dealing with complex problems is close monitoring, experimentation,  addressing public values, and thus stakeholder engagement.

The picture below show how complicated stakeholder engagement is if you have to deal with complex urban problems (many stakeholders,  many networks, many interdependencies).
One of the challenges is to think how you determine the boundaries of the ‘ system’.  Who and ad what do you take into consideration, what  not, This is a complex issue in itself!

The picture below shows that there are many differents ways to involve citizens:  from ‘ sending information’ to actual co-design (the focus of this module).

Stakeholder Engagement Steps extracted from the book Stakeholder Engagement in the Smart City: Making Living Labs Work