Developing a Framework to Identify Wicked Problems in Urban Planning

ABSTRACT
Today, new problems in urban planning are considered wicked due to their complexity, uncertainty, and normativity. Despite introducing the wicked problem concept during the last five decades, identifying urban wicked problems and how to encounter them is still an issue at the center of focus and study among urban planning theorists. Therefore, this article aims to develop a framework to identify wicked problems in urban planning. The study’s methodology is a genealogical analysis that examines the phenomena in their historical development and creates a suitable critical position for understanding their current conditions. In this way, the concept of the wicked urban problem has been subjected to genealogical analysis in five stages, including identification, records, discourses, discontinuity analysis, and criticism of the present. According to the proposed framework, wicked urban problems could be identified in two general categories, problem-oriented characteristics and solution-oriented characteristics, which subsequently include features such as uncertainty in definition and configuration, uniqueness, interrelationship and closeness, the impossibility of defining a definitive solution, the inexhaustibility of the encountering process, and the extensive and inevitable consequences of addressing. Meanwhile, the absence of a leading authority, the limited opportunity for encountering, and escalating by those who encounter lead to the emergence of super wicked urban problems. The presented framework to identify wicked problems in urban planning lays the groundwork for a more detailed analysis and, accordingly, more efficient approaches to encounter them for urban planners and policymakers, which will need to be applied and scrutinized in future related thematic and case studies
Extended Abstract
Introduction
During the Industrial Revolution and the years after the world wars, planning focused on problems that were relatively definable and agreeable, called tame problems. Today, new problems in urban planning are considered wicked due to their complexity, uncertainty, and normativity. Despite introducing the wicked problem concept during the last five decades, identifying urban wicked problems and how to encounter them is still an issue at the center of focus and study among urban planning theorists. Therefore, this article aims to develop a framework to identify wicked problems in urban planning. For this purpose, the concepts of the urban problem and the wicked urban problem are explained in the literature review section. Then, due to the details described in the methodology section, the evolution of the concept of the wicked urban problem is explored and analyzed genealogically discussed in the results section. Finally, focusing on the framework developed to identify wicked problems in urban planning, the article will be concluded, and suggestions for future studies and research will be presented.
 
Methodology
This article is considered fundamental review research because it aims to develop a framework to identify wicked problems in urban planning. The study’s methodology is a genealogical analysis that examines the phenomena in their historical development and creates a suitable critical position for understanding their current conditions. In this way, the concept of the wicked urban problem has been subjected to genealogical analysis in five stages, including identification, records, discourses, discontinuity analysis, and criticism of the present. The written sources, including books and articles published from 1966 to 2023, were collected purposefully by searching for the “wicked problem” in the title or keywords. They were subsequently analyzed using the genealogical analysis method. Genealogical analysis, as a distinct research tool for historical inquiry, seeks to find the history of how the phenomena became contemporary subjects and examines them in their historical development. In this way, the historical formulations of the phenomena create a suitable critical position for understanding their current conditions.
 
Results and discussion
The structural complexity of the problem, the uncertainty of casual relationships, the unreliability of solutions, conflict over the nature of the problem, and improper distribution of power are among the characteristics derived from identifying the concept of the wicked urban problem. According to the records of the formation of the concept of the wicked urban problem, the uniqueness of the problem, the connection of each problem with a bigger one, the absence of a specific problem statement, the shortage of a set of definitive solutions and a framework for recognizing the appropriateness of them, the dependence of the solutions on the causes, and finally the lack of an endpoint and the irreparable consequences of facing the problem, become subjects matter. Meanwhile, due to the discovery of discourses in the evolution of the concept of the wicked urban problem, dimensions such as the uncertainty of the causes, the involvement of diverse and different groups, individuals, and organizations and the high time and financial costs in facing the problem, the conflict of values governing the problem, the escalation of the problem by the solvers, the emergence of a new problem following the implementation of the solution, and the formation of the concept of the super wicked problem are raised. The weakness of the profession in facing the problem, the complexity of the system and the uncertainty in the available information about the problem, the normative conflict and goals, and the importance of society’s perception of the problem (situated wickedness), are among the characteristics derived from the discontinuity analysis of the concept of the wicked urban problem. Finally, the current criticism of the concept of the wicked urban problem shows the lack of cleaning criteria for the wicked problem and the possibility of errors, confusion in the theoretical foundations, and subsequently, the need to organize literature, identification criteria, and approaches to dealing with the wicked urban problem.
 
Conclusion
The wicked problem, especially the urban wicked problem, is clarified as a problem in urban planning and development that suffers from many uncertainties and ambiguities both in the definition(s) of the problem and about the solution(s). Thus, there is no agreement between the involved groups on the nature of the problem and how to face it. Therefore, the concept of the wicked urban problem as a problem resulting from uncertainty, complexity, diversity, and normativity was analyzed genealogically, and its characteristics were identified. With such an approach, the necessary foundation was provided to develop a framework to identify wicked problems in urban planning. According to the proposed framework, wicked urban problems could be identified in two general categories, problem-oriented characteristics and solution-oriented characteristics, which subsequently include features such as uncertainty in definition and configuration, uniqueness, interrelationship and closeness, the impossibility of defining a definitive solution, the inexhaustibility of the encountering process, and the extensive and inevitable consequences of addressing. Meanwhile, the absence of a leading authority, the limited opportunity for encountering, and escalating by those who encounter lead to the emergence of super wicked urban problems. The presented framework for identifying wicked problems in urban planning lays the groundwork for a more detailed analysis and, accordingly, more efficient approaches to encounter them for urban planners and policymakers, which will need to be applied and scrutinized in future related thematic and case studies.
 
Authors’ Contribution
All authors contributed equally to the preparation of this manuscript.
 
 
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
 
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
 
Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and constructive remarks.