ABSTRACT
The management of urban conflicts needs at the very least an attitude of openness to the public by governmental institutions. Most actors use strategies for maintaining or increasing their power position. Other important strategies are diminishing uncertainties or deliberately running risks. The actors’ positions can change as a result of their own strategic behaviour or because of the behaviour of other actors. Those actors who can gain control over various sources of power can create a powerful position for themself. A general lesson seems to be that the planning and decision-making concerning large scale changes in the physical environment around big cities should be better managed. Governmental institutions, especially representative councils, often have to play the role of representing the institutions’ interest as well as the role either of arbiter or of executor of directives of higher public institutions. The policy-network perspective tries to be objective in its description and analysis of the dynamic social facts.
