Shaping Knowledge: Complex Socio-Spatial Modelling for Adaptive Organizations

Shaping Knowledge

Complex socio-spatial modelling for adaptive organizations

First Edition

Jamie O’Brien

Table of Contents

Cover image

Title page

Copyright page

Dedication

List of figures and tables

Figures

Tables

Acknowledgements

Preface

About the author

1: Introduction and case study

Abstract

General introduction

Space and knowledge

Dimensions of knowledge

Knowledge representation

A case study in socio-spatial change

Overview of the book

2: Innovation, agency and technology

Abstract

Spatializing knowledge

Space and innovation

Knowledge as technology

Knowledge as innovation

Patterns of innovation

Space, knowledge and power

Conclusion

3: The dynamics of innovation

Abstract

The social life of innovation

Regional dynamics

Complexity and modularity

Patterns of adoption

Flows

Waves

Bifurcations

Criticality

Conclusion

4: Modelling knowledge dynamics

Abstract

Information and knowledge

Ecologies of innovation

Ecologies of human development

Network dynamics

Network graphs

Innovation networks

The topology of regional knowledge

System dynamics of innovations

Conclusion

5: Modelling socio-spatial agents

Abstract

Agency and action

Manifolds and mess

Elements of agent behaviour

Agency and autonomy

Coalitions and decisions

Resource allocation

Search and decision-making

Modelling with games

Conclusion

6: Case studies in socio-spatial change

Abstract

Micro-level socio-spatial change: slum sanitation

Micro-level change agents

Meso-level socio-spatial change: remote long-term care services

Socio-spatial inclusion and mobile platforms

Meso-level knowledge integration

Exo-level socio-spatial change: Arctic urbanization

Exo-level instability and infrastructure

Agency and adaptation

Dilemmas and homophily

Bidding and voting

Knowledge systems

Conclusion

7: Reasoning with graphs

Abstract

Representing knowledge flow

Visualization as science and art

Visualizations as thought experiments

Drawing relationships

Logic, symbols and computing

Computing for simulation

Community models

Spatial distance functions

Complex data modelling

Spatial data structures

Surface-network analysis

Conclusion

8: Decisions and arguments

Abstract

Constructing knowledge

Decisions and representation

Experience and arguments

Basics of argumentation

Argumentation schemes

Deriving arguments

Applying argumentation

Conclusion

9: Directions for adaptive planning

Abstract

Principles of adaptation

Adaptation in human systems

Managing knowledge complexity

Directions for planning

Directions for research

Planning with implicit knowledge

Calibrating models

General summary

General conclusions

Glossary

Sources for socio-spatial argumentation

Bibliography

Index

Copyright

Chandos Publishing

Elsevier Limited

The Boulevard

Langford Lane

Kidlington

Oxford OX5 1GB

UK

store.elsevier.com/Chandos-Publishiag-/IMP_207/

Chandos Publishing is an imprint of Elsevier Limited

Tel: +44 (0) 1865 843000

Fax: +44 (0) 1865 843010

store.elsevier.com

First published in 2014

ISBN 978-1-84334-751-4 (print)

ISBN 978-1-78063-432-6 (online)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014948443

© J. O’Brien, 2014

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publishers. This publication may not be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without the prior consent of the publishers. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The publishers make no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in this publication and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions.

The material contained in this publication constitutes general guidelines only and does not represent to be advice on any particular matter. No reader or purchaser should act on the basis of material contained in this publication without first taking professional advice appropriate to their particular circumstances. All screenshots in the publication are the copyright of the website owner(s), unless indicated otherwise.

Typeset by Domex e-Data Pvt. Ltd., India

Printed in the UK and USA.

Dedication

To my parents,

Terence and Joan O’Brien

List of figures and tables

Figures

1.1 Nested networks 8

1.2 A hierarchical tree shown in (i) plan view and (ii) cross-section 9

1.3 A simple network graph 9

1.4 An (abstract) spatial grid subdivides a surface into its components 10

1.5 A photograph from Ken Grant’s ‘Benny Profane’ series (1989–96) 13

2.1 Knowledge as a system 29

3.1 Physical laws apply to social behaviours 42

3.2 Social life of innovations 44

3.3 Peripheral legitimacy 44

3.4 A schema for geographic regions 46

3.5 Self-similarity in regional networks 47

3.6 Simple surfaces (i) adjoin to form a surface network and (ii) interconnect to form a zone of attraction 47

3.7 Knowledge is diffused hierarchically from main to peripheral branches 49

3.8 An S-shaped curve of demand plotted against supply 50

3.9 Innovation adoption curves 50

3.10 Models of equilibrium and disequilibrium 51

3.11 Pólya’s urn 52

3.12 The carrying capacity of supply is overcome by demand 55

3.13 A Kondratiev cycle of long-term trends 56

3.14 Forest fire distribution 61

4.1 Ecological complexity 73

4.2 Adaptation through recombination 73

4.3 Network flows 77

4.4 Links in the network are connected unequally 77

4.5 Network attractors 78

4.6 Attraction produces sub-networks of greater density 80

4.7 Sub-network centroids 80

5.1 Social physics 92

5.2 Probabilistic distribution 93

5.3 Network closures around agents and non-agent entities 96

5.4 A standard schema for Prisoner’s Dilemma 100

5.5 A standard schema for Stag Hunt 100

5.5 Network value 102

5.7 Nash equilibrium 103

5.8 Schelling model of segregation 104

5.9 Finding optimal combinations 106

6.1 A Bio-Center Initiative toilet block in Kibera, Nairobi 116

6.2 Current innovations in slum sanitation 117

6.3 Smart phones provide a range of functions for the management of daily life 120

6.4 Schema for mobile platform participation 121

6.5 Value is added dynamically within a value network 122

6.6 The Arctic Circle 123

6.7 Levels of ecological complexity based on interactions 126

6.8 Games of socio-spatial complexity 129

6.9 Participant interactions based on slider widgets 132

6.10 Sensor networks connect people, products and places 135

6.11 New architecture in the polar regions 136

7.1 Cantor correspondence 148

7.2 The problem of recursion 149

7.3 A symbolic construction of a verbal phrase using logic 149

7.4 A symbolic construction of the verbal phrase using numbers 150

7.5 Humans can think symbolically using mathematics 150

7.6 Examples of socio-spatial events 153

7.7 Standard methods for measuring distances 156

7.8 Rummel’s vector space of conflict or resolution 157

7.9 A ‘scree’ plot of eigenvalues and their factors 159

7.10 Projection of factors 160

7.11 Rotation in factor analysis 161

7.12 Data denormalization allows several semantic relationships among database nodes 162

7.13 Database aggregates support the allocation of multi-layered description keys to its various nodes 163

7.14 Materialized paths 164

7.15 Data structures of graphs 166

7.16 A simple triangulated mesh 168

7.17 Surface networks represent complex social and spatial structures joining the critical points in a landscape 168

7.18 Searching graph relationships 169

7.19 The Dijkstra algorithm 170

7.20 The A* algorithm 171

7.21 A susceptibility graph 172

7.22 Triangle centroids as identifications of flow 173

8.1 An example schema for a decision tree 179

8.2 A basic schema for a hierarchy of human needs 180

8.3 A conceptual view of representation 187

8.4 A standard schema for representing arguments in terms of their premises and objections 188

8.5 Constructing the argumentation table 197

8.6 An argumentation schema for slum development, following the pattern shown in Figure 8.4 198

9.1 A semi-lattice model of human needs 210

9.2 A simple layout template for morphological analysis 211

Tables

2.1 Trends in technological change 24

2.2 Key ideas in the economics of innovation 32

2.3 Johnson’s model of conditions for innovation 35

7.1 Variables and factor loadings 158

8.1 Policy domains 178

8.2 Policy consequences 179

8.3 Manfred Max-Neef’s schema for the non-hierarchical model of human needs 181

8.4 Arguments about sanitation systems in slums 190

8.5 Arguments about remote care of chronic illness 192

8.6 Arguments about urbanization in the Arctic 194

Acknowledgements

Jamie O’Brien Spring 2014

I am very grateful to the many people who have offered advice and support in completing this book. Colleagues at University College London have generously given advice and other guidance relating to the range of topics covered. I would especially like to thank Tony Hunter for his detailed comments, and also Dejan Mumovic, Alan Penn, Anthony Steed, Sophia Psarra, Andy Hudson-Smith, Martin Zaltz Austwick, and Kai Syng Tan for creative inspiration. At Lancaster University, I am grateful to John Urry for supporting my honorary status at the Centre for Mobilities Research. I am grateful to the diligent staff at UCL’s libraries, as well as to my former colleagues at the library of the London School of Economics. I am very grateful to the photographer Ken Grant for his kind permission to use an image from the Benny Profane series, and to Hugo Ahlenius for use of his Arctic map. I am also grateful to Ben Graham and the mapping project participants at Headway East London. I would like to extend special thanks to Tom Booth and Alex Urdea-Booth, to Ruard Absaroka and all at Mercers, and to Richard Wiseman, for hospitality and late-night conversation. For professional advice I would like to thank Caroline Dawnay and Olivia Hunt. At Chandos, my editors Ruth Rikowski and George Knott read several early drafts, helping to form the project and keep up the momentum. I am also grateful to Glynn Jones for accepting the initial proposal and to Peter Williams for his careful copyediting. I am indebted to my wife, Lynsey Hanley, the debt is simply eternal, and to our son Peter, who inspires pride and purpose in everything. I dedicate this book to my parents, Terence and Joan O’Brien for nurturing my love of learning.

Preface

There is today a pressing need to capture, organize and represent knowledge of our rapidly changing living and working spaces. The cities of developing economies are growing at a rate faster and wider than those of Europe in the nineteenth and North America in the twentieth centuries. Technological advances mean that many people in rich countries and, increasingly, in developing countries expect a good standard of living and to enjoy a long life. Even in the poorest neighbourhoods of developing-economy cities, there is improved access to work, homes and services. In the most advanced industrialized countries of the northern hemisphere, technological drivers are transforming citizens’ participation in services for health and education, while patterns of work are changing as the week is split between home, workplace and transit.

The picture is not, however, one of eternal improvement or technological utopia. Economic and industrial development is precarious. Information and communication technologies lead to the casualization and distribution of work. Expectations for living standards lead to greater rates of consumption, thus to intensive pressure on farmland and pasture and to increases in the level of industrial waste. Mobilities technologies help people travel greater distance with greater frequency, but this leads to unsustainable rates of urban growth, to a global competition for work and resources, and to problems in security and criminality, including narcotics, arms and human trafficking, as well as to the diffusion of disease.

This book has been written to help organizations deal with the opportunities and challenges of rapidly changing environments. An organization’s capability to adapt to change is based on its use of knowledge: its know-how, know-what, know-where, know-why and know-who. Organizations work at the intersections of knowledge and space: they achieve adaptation by applying knowledge in such a way that spaces are improved, and these spaces further inform the knowledge base. This book assumes four guiding principles for a new kind of organizational adaptation. Firstly, organizations have opportunities to transform operationally complex spaces in which the interactions of people and things are critical to sound practice and management (think of a busy accident and emergency unit, or the contentious difficulties of policing a mass protest). Secondly, organizations add value to their broader landscapes but, unlike a business in a supply chain, they achieve this as part of a network of social and economic actors. These ‘value networks’ involve many different kinds of organizational actors, each innovating in specialized parts of the network. Thirdly, the diverse nature of value networks requires the representation of relationships as part of the knowledge base. It is no longer sufficient to treat knowledge as, for example, an inventory of stocks and capacities. Organizational knowledge must represent readiness and capability, and also the interrelatedness of people and things. Fourthly, the perspectives of individuals must be incorporated into the organization’s system design. Organization systems are efficient and self-regulating, but only in so far as they work synergistically with their participants. Planners and designers must find ways of including personal experiences in the organizational flow.

In short, Shaping Knowledge addresses ways in which organizations, as manifold interactions of people, places and things, can be represented in models. People are represented as actors in a network as they enact their relationships, as agents as they act with autonomy, and as participants in social and technical systems. Things can be non-human agents as, like robots, they also act with autonomy (albeit with prescribed or programmed conditions), or as entities in the sense that they exist in reality but do not act autonomously. Throughout the book, the phrase ‘agents and entities’ describes any sort of set of people and things that generally comprise socio-spatial knowledge domains. The present author is also referred to in the time-honoured third person. The purpose of this is to demonstrate the collectivity of a book, as the product of dialogues and shared endeavours among a broad community of knowledge. The book’s contents are, however, the sole responsibility of the author, as are any errors or inaccuracies.

About the author

Jamie O’Brien is a senior researcher at the Space Syntax Laboratory, University College London. He holds an engineering doctorate from UCL’s Bartlett School of Architecture and has held posts at the London Business School, V&A Education and the London School of Economics library. His current research advances novel methods in the visualization of socio-spatial inequalities based on graph data structures applied to argumentation. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Member of the Institute of Engineering and Technology. Shaping Knowledge is his first book.

The author may be contacted at:

jamie.o'brien@ucl.ac.uk

1

Introduction and case study

Abstract

Knowledge is produced and developed in social and spatial settings, such as communities and networks. Knowledge and its spaces are complex and dynamic, which poses a problem to the modeller of monitoring and representation. In this chapter, the elements of knowledge and space are introduced with the purpose of developing a pragmatic approach for professional practice. Knowledge and space are discussed in terms of their interrelatedness, hierarchy and dimensionality. We continue to approach methods of representation by outlining key themes in frame and data analysis. These ‘abstract’ notions are given greater substance by way of a provocative case-study example of social and spatial change relating to a refuse disposal site in Merseyside. Finally, an overview of the remainder of the present book is provided.

Keywords

knowledge representation

spatial form

frame analysis

data analysis

Bidston Moss Merseyside

General introduction

Change is inevitable and adaptation is necessary. This book is an argumentative response to these guiding principles as they apply to space and society. Change and adaptation pose a range of problems in these areas, to individuals and to organizations. Changes in space and society can produce innovations in technological advancements, urban forms and regional and social networks; these changes can also bring challenges to the public good. People adapt to change when they share knowledge and enjoy the rewards of their endeavours as part of an organization. People suffer by change when they seek to isolate knowledge by way of codes and protocols that reflect individuated interests. Organizations are social and economic; they include families, workplaces, technology-enabled groups; they constitute strategic alignments, rankings and hierarchies. Sometimes they don’t work to the benefit of all their members and require, we would argue, constant monitoring and assessment. Organizations are arranged to deal with certain environmental conditions. As environments change, so organizations must change. Change requires knowledge, and knowledge is built by gleaning information, as well as the careful management and representation of that information.

An organization’s knowledge is arranged as models of its real world, which comprises the summation of its requirements and resources. The phrase ‘real-world problem’ is commonly understood to mean a matter of concern relating to the allocation, distribution or balancing of things that people need, depending on the order of priorities for those needs. Any model of the real world must help to secure the effectiveness of an organization in achieving these goals. The problem for the organization is that its own knowledge can be influenced by vested interests, or culturally specific perspectives, that weigh one set of priorities against another. An organization’s reading of the ‘real world’ will be affected by those interests and values, as well as by the methods of analysis selected for the task of gathering knowledge. We argue that knowledge is not brought to an organization ready for use, but is shaped by the organization’s own demands and pressures.

Real worlds are spatial, in the sense that their requirements and resources have dimensions. So, too, organizations make up some aspect of space in terms of their underlying structures and flows of knowledge. It is important to recognize that organizations do not simply ‘occupy’ some part of a space (although people do need physical environments in which to live and work). Space is the product of interactions between people and things, and organizations produce their own spaces in terms of the constant rearranging of people and things.

As organizations combine inseparably the social and the spatial, we describe organizations as being socio-spatial. Organizational spaces also involve the cooperation of and competition between people. Cooperation and competition are not value judgements over good and bad behaviours, but represent kinds of social activity that strive towards either grouping or defecting from the group. Cooperation and competition bring about distinctive social patterns; they are the basic drivers of socio-spatial change.

In this book, we aim to help organizations improve their knowledge-building. We offer a range of contrasting methods for turning information into knowledge. We explore ideas from social science, geography, economics and physics to offer various perspectives on the ways in which space and society change. The book is intended for a non-technical, professional audience. Many subjects are covered in rudimentary terms, with the expectation that interested readers will continue to explore these topics in greater depth. The work of other authors is referenced throughout the volume, and demonstrates the very many fields of research expertise and technical specialism that contribute to addressing this book’s basic concerns.

We have drawn from specialisms in agent-based modelling, including aspects of multi-agent systems, system dynamics, adaptive systems, spatial simulations, data management and argumentation. Each of these areas has excellent and up-to-date introductions, written by experts respective to these fields, including (but not limited to) Wooldridge (2009), Sterman (2000), Miller and Page (2007), O’Sullivan and Perry (2013), Robinson et al. (2013) and Walton (2013). Guidance on experimental design for visual systems has also been offered by Cunningham and Wallraven (2012), while O’Sullivan and Perry have also provided an outstanding web resource of spatial models based comprehensively on standard analytical and simulation methods.¹ The present author is indebted to these thorough-going and accessible introductions to their specialist fields, as well as to the range of freely available software upon which much of their contents can be implemented or tested practically (the present book does not cover aspects of software implementation). This book is intended as a broadly based introduction to diverse methods for modelling; its unique contribution is to bring these many approaches together into a single volume. Readers may also strengthen their background knowledge by exploring good introductions to logic, statistics, reasoning and discrete mathematics.² Our focus is on combining these various approaches so as to achieve robust and responsive organizational knowledge. Ultimately, this book is about professional approaches to building and testing models.

Effective model-making is key to effective planning. Planning constitutes an organization’s capability to adapt to changing environments. Adaptation must occur as and when it is necessary. Adaptation cannot be forward planned and then deployed at some pre-selected moment. Adaptation requires from the organization ad hoc and dynamic adjustment based on current knowledge. Knowledge requires constant calibration and renewal, continuous shaping and reshaping.

This book approaches the shaping of knowledge along theoretical and practical lines. The theoretical components of the discussion, dealing with agents, systems, topologies and patterns, are illustrated and explored through a series of case studies. Later in this introductory chapter, we provide a case study of spatial change in the United Kingdom (specifically in an area close to the author’s home). Chapter 6 later provides three more case studies, which broaden the scope of our enquiry in geographic and historical terms. The themes of these four case studies have been selected carefully for their representation of social spaces that are particularly sensitive to current environmental and demographic trends: industrial decline, rapid urban expansion in developing economies, ageing populations in advanced industrial economies and urban formation in response to climate change. Each of these trends has an expression in urban contexts (such as the spread or retreat of cities). However, this book remains focused on the socio-spatial knowledge that drives these urban forms.

We continue our introductory discussion in the next section with a theoretical outline of space and knowledge, before introducing issues in dimensionality and representation of knowledge. The middle section of the present chapter comprises a case study in the representation of socio-spatial change, including basic issues in data modelling. Finally we provide an overview of the book as a whole, including the subsequent chapters.

Space and knowledge

The spaces of our lived environments are complex and manifold, and so too are the many ways in which we can describe and define them. Knowledge – the means by which we transform space – also bears a diversity of forms, meanings and contentions. For the purposes of clarity and convenience we can identify two areas of meaning for ‘space’: as a set of geo-located data that refer to a region of the Earth’s surface, and as the way in which we navigate our worlds by making use of things, facts and their relationships (Pfeffer et al., 2010). In similar terms, ‘knowledge’ may be a scientifically derived corpus, which can be configured to influence policy for design or governance. Knowledge can also be everyday competence that is so commonplace as to go disregarded.

This book addresses the ways in which space and knowledge assert formative forces upon each other, seeming to separate into specialized systems. In other words, it is about the co-evolution of space and knowledge. Co-evolution relates to the dynamic interplay of knowledge, in the forms of our skilled actions and the social and technological landscapes upon which they work. Co-evolution ultimately relates to the ways in which our knowledge adapts to landscapes that human agents have transformed through our social and technological activities.

Understanding the co-evolution of space and knowledge is important because it helps us develop better models of humans’ collective influence upon spatial change. Better models help us make better decisions that support policies for infrastructural service design and deployment, resource allocation and sustainable development. Key spatial changes include urban growth, ageing populations and climatological effects such as retreating sea ice, rising water levels and desertification. Spatial changes are driven by knowledge, and have direct impacts on services and human environments. Knowledge of commercial opportunities drives population movements, leading to the expansion of cities into informal settlements (generally called slums); knowledge of medicine, health and well-being advances longevity, which leads to a greater number with age-related illnesses and impairments that put pressure on care services; knowledge of science and engineering applied to industry leads to carbon emissions, which lead to a warming climate and geological changes. Each of these examples provides powerful case studies for the co-evolution of space and knowledge and are treated in greater depth throughout this book. The key issue is that change brings about opportunities for development and growth and the potential for new wealth; it also brings about pressures on services and the environment. This means that the public and commercial networks that underpin growth can become overburdened by the multifarious needs of populations. Hence our models of spatial change must include a broad range of interacting needs and resources.

Space and knowledge are available to populations unequally. Space is sanctioned explicitly by market dynamics and political protections. In the private realm, exclusive housing and commercial properties are won by the highest bidders, thus maintaining the hold of wealthy elites over land uses. In the public realm, facilities are allocated to land controlled by universities or government agencies. In many cases public and private agents cooperate, for example as university spin-outs or healthcare providers, but they do not converge as a pure kind of ‘third space’: the public and the private remain in conflict over profit versus welfare outcomes.

Space is also protected implicitly through cultural modes of behaviour that distinguish access for one group to the exclusion of another. Cultural values distinguish space for men and women, for young and old, for workers and elites, for healthy and sick, and so on. Space is demarcated through modes of design, including architecture, fashions and allegiances.

Similarly, knowledge is sanctioned explicitly through access to schools and universities, as well as through professional institutions that uphold modes of communication not accessible to the general public (for example, the use of esoteric language in the legal and medical professions). Knowledge is protected implicitly through more colloquial modes of communication, such as culturally specific points of reference, or through power-relationship courtesies and undertones. In this way, knowledge has an immediate spatial dimension or, conversely, space is driven by knowledge. This is true of elite and general