Linking MPBN and system of system thinking: To improve outcomes in urban environments using Chinese worker villages as a test case

Abstract

Urban environments are composed of a multitude of systems that actively engage with each other to maintain, grow, and define the physical forms of the city. These individual aspects can be divided up into a series of system trees that form distinct entities, but together they corm a complete matrix of systems that influence and affect the urban context. These systems fall under two significant categorizations of flows either those mostly affecting the physical world and those that are more confined to the virtual or non-physical world. Often the boundary between these two systems, or elements within them, are not neatly contained to themselves as they intermingle and create uncertain and stochastic edgeless systems. This paper is to focus on the coupling of the Material – Product – Building – Neighborhood system, and the system-of-systems thinking for logistical systems for a single material pathway.