ABSTRACT
Citizenship may have developed from early privileges of powerful groups in the process of state-making, yet a conception of rights developed only in early cities. Various measures or indices have been created to help urban managers and others to assess the success of cities as places to live. One specific opportunity to assess, understand and influence urban processes and dynamics is proposed by Manfred Rolfes and Jan Lorenz Wilhelm in their contribution via the idea of systems theory. Understanding cities as complex systems of communication, they apply this general framework to practices of urban development and planning and show how a collaborative basis of co-design is indispensable in order to deal with urban complexity successfully. Similarly, Monica Budowski and Sebastian Schief address issues of urban complexity and the relationship between macro- and micro-levels through an analysis of the Social Quality of cities.
