There is a need for a holistic approach to governing the city’s public domain and to develop integrated and feasible solutions to our issues. Kickert (2007) concluded the reason why: “A segmented public administration has to a large extent created segmented reforms”, underlining the implicit need for less segmentation and fragmentation in public governance with an integrated, trans-disciplinary approach.

The need to do so has been underlined more than once by the strong emergence of public risks, the large-scale disruption of shared values, and the intensely felt need for integrated public governance to solve common issues. They have emerged for over fifty years since the Club of Rome report Limits to Growth (Meadows et al., 1972). Public governance needs to deliver in protecting many of our shared values.

A holistic standpoint can be beneficial to see present values, issues and risks in an integrated context. It supports the proper diagnosis. This can generate new ideas for public governance to develop integrated and coherent solutions. Can we learn from the forest? Can ecology be helpful to politology and public administration?

Bibliography

Kickert, W. (ed.) (2007) The Study of Public Management in Europe and the US. Routledge. Taylor and Francis Group, London & New York.

Meadows, D. H., Meadows, D. L., Randers, J. & Behrens, W. (1972) The limits to growth: A report for the Club of Rome’s project on the predicament of mankind. New York: Universe Books.