From the City as a System to the System of Cities: The Systemic Approach to Urban Planning

Formulated by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, the general systems theory was quickly put to use in many other fields of science and technology, as well as in geography and spatial management, including urban and regional planning, but on a relatively modest scale. This article, theoretical and methodological in character, presents selected aspects of the application of this theory in planning the development and spatial land use of territorial units with particular emphasis on cities¹. A city, which is the subject of the research, and also the sets of cities gaining global importance called world cities, creating an urban system, are treated as a system, and specifically, a territorial social system. Next to the presentation of a general system model, systems approaches, the conception of a territorial social system which is a city, as well as an organicist systemic model of a city and the related functioning of it, understood as its life, a systems approach was referred to the urban system, the elements of which are cities–territorial systems. The study also invokes other theories and concepts that allow determining the structure and functioning of territorial units (Leontief’s input–output; gravity and potential models) and operation of systems (Prigogine’s self-organisation). In addition, next to theoretical and methodological, the publication also includes a practical aspect, which is the possibility of using a systems approach in planning the development and spatial land use of cities and solving occurring problems².