Sensemaking for entangled urban social, ecological, and technological systems in the Anthropocene

Our urban systems and their underlying sub-systems are designed to deliver only a narrow set of human-centered services, with little or no accounting or understanding of how actions undercut the resilience of social-ecological-technological systems (SETS). Embracing a SETS resilience perspective creates opportunities for novel approaches to adaptation and transformation in complex environments. We: i) frame urban systems through a perspective shift from control to entanglement, ii) position SETS thinking as novel sensemaking to create repertoires of responses commensurate with environmental complexity (i.e., requisite complexity), and iii) describe modes of SETS sensemaking for urban system structures and functions as basic tenets to build requisite complexity. SETS sensemaking is an undertaking to reflexively bring sustained adaptation, anticipatory futures, loose-fit design, and co-governance into organizational decision-making and to help reimagine institutional structures and processes as entangled SETS.

Automated summary

Our urban systems are currently designed to only provide limited human-centered services, without considering the impact on the resilience of social-ecological-technological systems (SETS). Adapting a SETS resilience perspective can lead to new approaches to adaptation and transformation in complex environments. We propose reframing urban systems as entangled rather than controlled, embracing SETS thinking for creating responses that align with environmental complexity, and employing SETS sensemaking to build the necessary complexity. This sensemaking process involves incorporating sustained adaptation, anticipatory futures, loose-fit design, and co-governance into decision-making to reimagine institutional structures and processes within entangled SETS.