The Use of Semiotic Modelling Principles in Managing the Development of a City as a Large System

Abstract

This paper presents one variant upon the use of models in the processes of managing a city as a large system.

It outlines the advantages and the field of application of semiotic modelling, whose methodology makes it possible to build up semiotic (sign) models of the objects to be managed on the basis of textual materials expressed in natural language. Its advantages lie in the possibilities for a combination of ‘human’ management mechanisms with the particular abilities of the computer, on the one hand, for handling the vast masses of information that are being utilised, and on the other, for evaluating the multitude of permissible management variants.

The paper describes the basic categories of words and phrases which constitute the language for generating and using semiotic models in the computer memory. An iterative procedure has been devised for simulating the execution of development directives, and thereby reproducing the managed development of the city as a large system.

There is a description of the dialogue that takes place within the iterative procedure of simulating the development of a city when it is under management, a procedure which facilitates the preparation of recommendations and decisions. It is envisaged here that correctives will be introduced periodically into the management trajectory in response to the real functioning of the urban system. From the point of view of the executive organs of city administration, such correctives serve as the medium for refining and enhancing the balanced long-term development processes of the city.