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The Future of Paris: A Systems Study in Strategic Urban PlanningAuthor(s): H. OzbekhanSource: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical andPhysical Sciences, Vol. 287, No. 1346, A Discussion on the Use of Operational Research andSystems Analysis in Decision Making (Nov. 11, 1977), pp. 523-544Published by: The Royal SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/74965

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Phil. Trans.R. Soc.Lond.A. 287, 523-544 (1977) [ 523 ]Printed n GreatBritain

The futureof Paris: a systemsstudyin strategicurbanplanningBY H. OZBEKHANThe Wharton chool f theUniversityf Pennsylvania,hiladelphia,U.S.A.

(Received11 March 1977)

The paper is based on a study conducted by the author (undercontractto the FrenchGovernment) concerning the possible roles and functions of Paris during the nextthirty years. New findings regarding the interactions which emerge between thedefinition of complex, ill-structuredproblems - the 'problematique' and planningmethodologyarereportedon, and a generalizableplanning approachthat synthesizesthe most recent thinking in the field, both at the theoretical and the methodologicallevels, will be discussed.The introductorysectioncoversthe backgroundof the ParisProject,and elaboratesthe notion of 'problematique'. he second section outlines the deductive-heuristicapproachesthat systemstheoryseems to requirewhen appliedto problemswhich haveoverlappingboundaries.This is followed by a discussionof the relativelynew conceptsof 'normative' planning and 'idealized' design that underlie any strategicconsider-ations when the decision-contextis a situation of great complexity. The concludingportions deal with relations between the ideas of purpose and function, and theimplications of such relationsfor national policy.

INTRODUCTIONEarly in 1971 the French Government asked me to undertake a study on the future of Paris - afuture expected to unfold amid the dramatic changes forecast for the last three decades of thetwentieth centry. In this paper I hope to describe as succinctly as I am able how my colleaguesfrom the University of Pennsylvania and I conducted the work which lasted until the middle of1974.t

It is impossible to relate all, or even most, of the intricate detailing that had to be wrought fromthe situation in order to come up with the analyses, conclusions and recommendations that thesponsors expected. I shall therefore limit myself to describing those aspects of the work that Ibelieve to be conceptually the most interesting, and from which some of what I am forced toleave out may be inferred.I should note at the outset that what was done in no way resembles the typical urban ortypical strategic planning study. It turned out to be something else, something whose nature ismost closely suggested by the relatively new expression 'systems thinking'. It is this differencethat I shall try to emphasize, especially in terms of the study's methodological underpinnings,for it is in the methodology which was developed as part of the research that I find the synthe-sizing principle which might enable me to deal with the subject without getting mired indetails. But first, let me outline the backgroundof the projectand its workingorganization.

t The main study team, that came to be known as the 'Wharton Group', included Professors R. L. Ackoff,H. V. Perlmutter, E. L. Trist, and M. Chevalier (the last from the University of York and Montreal) with myselfacting as principal investigator. A number of students also contributed greatly to the project.

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H. OZBEKHANBACKGROUND

Desire for change, feelings that something needs to be done, and decisions taken often arisefrom rather vague perceptions and assessments of a situation. This state of initial awarenesswhich does not yet involve any real understanding s what I call 'the disquiet'.It was, I believe, the upheavals of 1968 that induced a number of Frenchmen (many inpositions of authority) to realize that despite a remarkable recovery from the wounds of WorldWar II, profound dissonances continued to exist within their country. This feeling soon grewinto a diffuse but massive disquiet which led the French government to attempt to investigatethe main forces that were shaping their polity's development.In the main, these studies tended to indicate that Paris as a city, as an urbanizing region, andas the locus of important events operated as a powerful force in French life. Whatever happenedin Paris seemed to radiate and resonatethroughoutFrance; in one way or another it affectedthe entire country.

Every piece of researchsuggestedthat the future development of France, whatever Francewould stand for, desired to become or aimed to achieve, greatly depended on how Parisevolved. Yet, and this came as something of a surprise,Paris was found to be sufferingfromadministrativeneglect. It had been virtually takenfor granted; that is, ignoredin many subtleways. It had, for instance, escapedthejurisdiction,hence the attention, of D.A.T.A.R. (Deleg-ation a l'amenagemeementu territoireet a l'action regionale)which had done such imaginativeand useful work in territorialmanagement for the rest of France. Paris had been allowed togrow unplanned or, still worse, accordingto a general somewhatconfusedmonothematicplaninspired by what the Frenchcalled 'economic rationality', which seemedto ignore all the otherfunctions,roles and activities that go into the making of great cities.These conditions which the events of May had crystallizednow led the French authoritiesas well as the intelligentsiato focus their attentionon Paris in an effortto understand the innermake-up of the problems besetting the capital. By 1970 this large scale soul searching hadbroughtto light a numberof discreteissues.What the pressdubbed la rognedeParis(an expres-sion whose meaning comes alive if one remembers that rognes translated as 'mange' in thiscontext) can be reduced to the following points:

(1) urbandeterioration,isible in the city's physical degradation ('Paris contains the bestnineteenth century and worst twentieth century architecture in the world'), but also affectingthe city's cultural life and social make-up, its overall style with everythingthis means for thequality of experiencethat had formerlymade Paris so special;(2) lossof a sense f 'rdle',especiallyin the political arenavis-d-vishe expanding E.E.C. (theUnited Kingdom was soon to join it, and this seemed to make the French nervous); the en-hanced importance of Brusselswhere internationalorganizationshad moved thanks to one ofPresident de Gaulle's least comprehensible decisions;the growingcompetitionfromcities suchas Amsterdam,Rotterdam, Frankfort,Zurich, Geneva, Milan and now London within a newand still mysteriousEuropeanorder;

(3) lackofa sense f thefuture, ttributableto myopia regardingthe functionsof Parisand theirrelation to events like the unmistakableevolution of advanced industrialeconomiesinto whathad alreadybeen called 'the post-industrial ociety' - a society groundedon a 'global industrialsystem' in which the Third World must fully participate;(4) lackof a conceptf whatParis 'ought'to be, a lack of vision and purpose concerning thecity's identity or what the Frenchpreferred o call its 'vocation' in a changing world, and also

524

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THE PARIS PROJECTwithin the context of France itself, for Paris was seen as pursuing its haphazard course at vastcost to the country as a whole, disequilibratingthe economic balance by acting as a 'suctionpump' which concentrated a constantly growing share of economic activity and decisionmaking authoritywithin its already unmanageable confines.

These and many other similar issues were sensed but not articulated in detail, nor was it yetgrasped that they might be symptoms of deeper dysfunctions which, being interactive, fedupon each other and thus gained momentum at an alarming rate.

FRENCH GOVERNMENTD.A.T.A.R.

A~~PROJECT SESAME.S.E.S.A.M.E.ROJECT

EVALUATION D.A.T.A.R'sresearch roupA

y> WHARTON GROUP