ABSTRACT
How can more integrated development and more successful places be achieved? The exemplar case studies in this book suggest that, as far as ‘first-order’ design is concerned (see Chapter 2), much is already known about how best to produce sustainable forms of development, at least in the architectural, construction and engineering sense. Instead, the real challenge is one of ‘second-order’ design, and specifically that of restructuring institutional processes so as to modify the decision environments of individual development actors. Second-order design is more highly path-dependent than first-order design, since institutional processes become deeply embedded in regimes of established laws and procedures, in cultural customs and conventions and in the working practices of relevant organisations (Jepperson 1991).
