Abstract
This chapter is meant to demonstrate the single-case approach suggested in Chap. 5, providing accounts of three cases of Emergent Nested Systems. The case studies were carried out in the urban system of the city of Lviv, with the aim in mind to exemplify studying single Emergent Nested Systems.
Eine Stadt, die fähig wird, über sich zu sprechen ... hätte die Kompetenz, zu beschreiben, was die Stadt heute sein könnte: vermutlich etwas Neues ...
Schlögel 1988, p. 96 in an essay about Lviv.
A city which becomes able to talk about itself ... would have the ability to describe what it could be today: probably something new... (my translation).
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Notes
- 1.
I’m well aware that producing results that appear plausible to the reader is a weak support for a theory only.
- 2.
All information presented in this chapter is based on interviews, unless I refer to my own observation or I provide literature reference. Information is based on interviews with 28 individuals, 11 of which were interviewed in small groups of two to four persons. Information on system qualities, based on only one interviewee’s statement, is indicated as such in the text; otherwise, information has been confirmed. For nested system relations derived from single statements, I used the subjunctive mood of verbiage.
- 3.
Haase et al. (2011, p. 82) made the challenge of understanding post-communist cities—with respect to the “complexity of the current development”—explicit: “In our conceptualization, post-socialist transition” consists of the simultaneity and interrelatedness of a number of processes. The recognition of the complexity of the current development ... leads to the conclusion that, to date, the spectrum of terms and explanatory approaches has to be challenged again ... to come closer to what is really happening in the respective societies ... Often, it is impossible to say what has influenced a particular process of change.”
- 4.
President Yanukovych governed Ukraine at the time of my studies and until February 2014, when he fled after public upheaval.
- 5.
The fate of their parents and grandparents are the stories of the kind that have influenced novelists like Catalin Florescu. In his novel Zaira (Florescu 2008), he describes the fate of a feudal family’s daughter from East Central Europe living through the second half of the 20th century.
- 6.
My translation from: “Das ist eine Vergangenheit, die die Zukunft daran hindert, sich zu verwirklichen.”
- 7.
My own first-hand experience, however, was different. For both my stays, I received, without asking, a formal invoice from the owner of the tourist apartment I had rented.
- 8.
This leads to the question of how to best change or even break up—perhaps using the toolbox presented in Chap. 4—the enclosing communist cultural system. The theory and methods presented in Chaps. 1–5 provide the tools for understanding this important topic throughout CEE and for finding levers to change it. In particular, in Chap. 4, I outlined a top-level toolbox for influencing ENS.
- 9.
According to its organizer, the British Council, the Future City Game “is a team-based process designed to create new thinking and activities to improve quality of life in cities” (British Council 2014). In Lviv, the game was hosted by the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe (Lviv Center 2009).
- 10.
The people in the communist high-rise buildings don’t exist as a homogeneous group in CEE cities: Social groups and income levels are very heterogeneous today, since “living in large housing estates is considered to be a good and normal living arrangement for most people, including those of higher social status” (Haase et al. 2011, p. 259, see also, e.g., Milstead 2008, pp. 62, 63, 89, and Vais 2009).
- 11.
Indeed, there are coffee shops that try to reconnect with the famous, end-of-the-19th-century Viennese coffee shop culture, e.g., the Wiener Kaffeehaus and the Strudelhaus, but such shops can be found in many countries. Furthermore, while editing this text, I came across an announcement for a workshop titled “From idea to matter. 3D printing [of a] monument to Franz Josef” (Museum of Ideas 2014a).
- 12.
The reverse argument, of course, is not implied; i.e., not everybody who engages in citizen initiatives is necessarily guided by the liberal cultural system.
- 13.
In fact, some of my interviewees—young university teachers—claimed that even with dual-income households, they could hardly ever afford to buy a car, since the rent for a flat consumes one salary by itself. In another interview, a sociologist added that the basic expenses for food amount to another 50 % of one salary.
- 14.
The number of tourists visiting Lviv has increased from 0.6 to 1.7 million p.a. between 2007 and 2013 (GIZ 2011b, p. 36 and Lviv Convention Bureau 2013).
- 15.
The distance between Lviv and the most eastern parts of Ukraine is about as large as the distance between Lviv and Frankfurt (Main) in Germany, i.e., slightly more than 1,000 km. This, of course, doesn’t imply similar, cultural closeness.
- 16.
Much remains to be done in the field of infrastructure, however. Train rides may be slow. For instance, it took me more than five hours to travel the 270 km over the Carpathian to the border with Slovak republic. It took me another three hours (including much waiting time) to cross the border by train. The train ride to Warsaw takes half a day or longer. Since Ukraine is not in the European Open Sky agreement, only Ukrainian-registered airlines can pick up passengers. An agreement with the EU had been prepared (European Commission 2013) but was then postponed (Kyiv Post 2014a). The airports are owned by the central government that regulates access and fees (see, e.g., LWO aero 2014 for references to national resolutions concerning airport fees).
- 17.
When the founder and head of Lypneva was hired by the municipal government, the activities of Lypneva were discontinued.
- 18.
I visited Lviv the first time in the summer of 2009. My perception was that about 80 % of the coffee shops (not restaurants) that were open for business during the winter of 2013 did not exist in 2009.
- 19.
Cf. my reference to Christaller’s Central Place theory in the introduction to this book (Chap. 1).
- 20.
One exemption is the Electron Corporation. It has established joint ventures with Western European companies and extended its product portfolio to include assembly from sourced parts of, e.g., tramways. Despite its transition from a communist business to a market-oriented business, the Electron Company was not mentioned much by my interviewees. Consequently, the guiding role of this (type of) business in the local economic system appears to be less powerful.
- 21.
Often, my interviewees referred to the private Catholic university as a good example. It is perceived to offer a good learning environment.
- 22.
A culturally motivated, unfriendly relation between the bus company (or in particular, its Russian owner) and the city (or more particularly, some city officials) was reported to me. This report was confirmed by a newspaper article (Centre for Transport Strategies 2014).
Further, I was told that the bus company did not pay taxes in Lviv, and it was said to deliver the good buses to eastern Ukrainian cities, leaving Lviv with experimental models—some built with full-price, lower-quality, southeast Asian parts.
- 23.
I suggest that these viewpoints show that the current, superordinate, guiding systems in Lviv—and probably in many other CEE places—have not yet overcome the post-communist phase. They are not emancipated from their past, and they largely operate via reference to the ‘bad’ communist habits that need to be replaced by ‘good’ ones.
- 24.
I suggest that this situation was not like those in other countries—a result of two established, almost equally strong, catch-all parties. Rather, the situation in the city council was the result of a political quality that had emerged, over time, from citizens’ and politicians’ activities, and it was influenced by the different cultural enclosing systems of Lviv.
- 25.
Indeed, TRK Lux is reported to be “close to the city mayor of Lviv” through “a long-standing business partner” and the mayor’s wife, who holds shares in the media company (Internews 2012, pp. 17–18).
- 26.
The report by a hired consultancy firm on the public transport system is largely ignorant of the guiding rules of the central government, to which the local government has to submit (Berger 2011). However, the decentralization of power to local governments is key on the agenda of the mayor’s own party (Boy 2014).
- 27.
This is the beginning of what can be a way of effectuating the city; I will briefly come back to this approach in Sect. 7.4.
- 28.
Throughout history, however, it has been attempted to rule economic systems by political will, i.e., with long-term political rule; Ukraine was one of such countries. Eventually, the activities of individuals, who were guided by the ideas of cultural and economic systems, were able to break up the political system. Trade, the exchange of goods, and the creation of businesses were longer-lasting qualities than the enforced rules, which intended to make production a state affair.
- 29.
The competitiveness strategy is a document informed by the study of a consultancy firm in 2008; the study identified tourism, as well as BPO, as key to the economic development of Lviv (Foundation for Effective Governance 2009 and Lviv City Institute 2010a). In 2013, another study, carried out by a local institute financed through the Canadian government, identified different key sectors (City Institute 2013a).
- 30.
The housing project is targeted at young IT professionals and their families, offering houses on the urban fringe for people who can afford owning one or more cars.
- 31.
Generally, what triggers outward is also equally rule-setting inward, and vice versa, in nested systems (cf. Sect. 2.3).
- 32.
Such anticipation of change in an enclosed system may have an effect on the emergence of the enclosing economic system—yielding new rules, according to which Lviv’s citizens, politicians, and economic actors, such as investors, carry out their activities. But also, (anticipated) change in an enclosed system, e.g., the political system, may disturb the enclosing economic system, with the decline or emergence of significantly different economic systems. For example, the emergence of new business sectors was seen after the fall of communism in Lviv and other CEE cities.
- 33.
This outward influence relates to what is known in everyday language as being a good example and/or being a trendsetter . While neither role implies the rule-setting or even enforcement of activity, both roles are those of individuals who may trigger change. In this sense, their activities lead to situations and propensities, out of which novelty in the enclosing system may emerge. Only if a new trend or fashion reaches a critical mass does autopoietic regeneration between nested systems set in.
- 34.
Since the cultural system emerges from and encloses, inter alia, the political system, an effective cultural strategy needs to focus on triggering activities, rather than setting rules for them.
- 35.
Thus, changing the framing rules requires negotiations with the national government. As a result of such negotiations, the airport fees for airlines were removed within their first year of operating a route to Lviv, in order to attract airlines bringing in tourists from new destinations.
- 36.
The basketball games should have taken place in Ukraine, but the decision was reversed in 2014, due to the conflict in the east part of the country (Lviv City 2014).
- 37.
The bid to host the Winter Olympics has been withdrawn, as of summer 2014 (Kyiv Post 2014b).
- 38.
Of course, the activities that aim to be rule-setting inward are also influencing outward. The activities of the municipality related to built-heritage protection support emerged cultural images and economic qualities, in particular the tourism industry’s promise to bring prosperity to Lviv—a city with a beautiful, Central European Old Town.
- 39.
The covered river is the reason for controversial discussions about its future—leave it underground or not—and it was the theme of the” Poltva—stink or inspiration” student workshop in 2011 (Museum of Ideas 2011), as well as of further workshops and publications (Museum of Ideas 2014b).
- 40.
In line with my theory of ENS, which suggests a powerful role in the relatively slowly changing cultural rules, I hold that perceptions of citizens are very important for any further development to occur. Not even a quantitative argument presenting the city as clean (e.g., compared to other cities of similar size) could be as powerful as the citizens’ own perceptions . Their perceptions are guided by their habits , their activities, and, thus, their relations to their public spaces (Quite in contrast to my interviewees’ perceptions , I observed the city’s public spaces as clean, and Lviv’s citizens actually putting their garbage in garbage cans. However, since I’m not living, acting, and communicating in Lviv in the long term, my perception is not quite as relevant as its citizens’ perceptions .).
- 41.
The story goes that an Austrian investor lost his money on the construction of a hotel in a feigned corruption deal. Although I could not verify this story through any source, I hold that such stories are part of the strong, post-communist cultural system.
- 42.
This intervention has also lent the name of the market square to the Lypneva citizen initiative. All in all, it was certainly not a wise move to just physically eradicate the merchants’ market stands, since the use of Lypneva square as a place to sell and buy products was a part of the local cultural, economic, and technical systems.
- 43.
This is about twice as much as in western European cities, and about the same share as in other post-communist cities.
- 44.
The brief overview provided here is insufficient for a good understanding of the complex system. Thus, in order to understand the habits of use—the operation of a complex technical system, and the images that guide such activities—a more comprehensive study of activities between individuals and the technical artifacts is required. Two such exemplary studies are provided in Sects. 6.3.1 and 6.3.3.
- 45.
A major upgrading project is being supported by EBRD funds (EBRD 2014 and Usov 2013).
- 46.
Once people start looking for co-working spaces and/or wireless connections in coffee shops, these habits become economic factors as well, triggering change in the enclosing economic system.
- 47.
This is an ideal case of how a devised—not emerged—rule in an enclosing system, i.e., the political system, successfully guides the activity in enclosed systems. In such ways, the resulting activities in the enclosed systems maintain the rules, perhaps even leading to the emergence of a locally particular use-pattern or cultural understanding. For decision-makers in Lviv, it would be of interest how newly devised rules affecting the public transport infrastructure could be similarly successful. With the case study in Sect. 6.3.3, I am providing an example of an analysis of the urban transport system to show how insights for decision-making can be created.
- 48.
Each case-study system is enclosed and, thus, guided—though to varying degrees—by all four superordinate systems: cultural, economic, political, and technical. It is, thus, an important suggestion of this work that any enclosed system in a city can hardly be labeled as being purely a cultural, economic, political, or technical system; they are, by their very nature, mixed systems. Thus, in regard to purposive interventions, each complex (urban) system has to be analyzed by utilizing methods that span across multiple disciplines.
- 49.
Having the general analysis of these enclosing CEPT systems in mind from Sect. 6.2, I will present only the (additional) aspects that specifically relate to the enclosed system of built heritage.
- 50.
Both this case study and the third case study (about Lviv’s public transport system) may leave a first impression of dealing with nothing else but technical systems. I.e., the qualities that are emergent from the activities between citizens and technical artifacts are no more than qualities of technical systems. However, I suggest that such an understanding of complex (urban) systems is insufficient. As argued in footnote 47, each and every complex urban system is influenced by guiding rules of enclosing systems, e.g., the E-CEPT systems. Thus, these enclosed systems have to be understood, not only from relatively short-lived trends , such as using technical artifacts , but also through long-standing cultural norms, as well as economic and political rules.
- 51.
Indeed, Professor Bevz has already built up an amazing collection of photos and sketches of details found on old houses; he calls them “inventory cards.”
- 52.
Since it was set by the law of privatization after communism, ownership structure may be the largest impediment of built-heritage renovation. Furthermore, apartments have been ‘sold’ for symbolic prices to individuals since the end of communism. Thus, in order to carry out a proper renovation of the built structure, one has to deal with a number of individual apartment owners. The legal guide of privatization also kept the common areas—corridors, staircases, basements, roofs, facades—and the common grounds the property of the municipality.
- 53.
The Department for the Protection of the Historic Environment of Lviv was not considered to have adequate expertise by some of my interviewees. Rather, the Department’s first task had been seen as engaging in media campaigns.
- 54.
Besides the historical value, wooden window frames are more permeable to humidity, while plastic window frames may lead to mold on walls.
- 55.
The principle of active stirring is evocative of the energy input required for new forms to shape in dissipative systems (Nicolis and Prigogine 1977).
- 56.
I learned about a similar emergence in the ecosystem surrounding the volcano Mount St. Helens in Oregon, USA. After the volcano erupted in 1980, the former flora and fauna had been eradicated. In an amazingly fast transformation, life reoccupied the devastated area. In a video called “The Landslide and Return of Life,” an interesting aspect of the ecological development of the area is mentioned: A couple of years after the outbreak, life of all kinds was flourishing again; the variety of species—flora and fauna—had actually been enlarged (NOVA 2010). Since then, the variety is diminishing again (U.S. Department of Agriculture 2015). In analogy to the time of turmoil after the end of communism in CEE, the time after the outbreak of the volcano involved little enclosing, emergent quality and rules. Thus, all sorts of activities were possible, and flora and fauna of many kinds developed. From these activities emerged an ecosystem—a whole of many faster and slower, enclosed and enclosing systems—specific to that area (and different to the one that had been there before). The particular qualities of that ecosystem allowed for some species to stay; others vanished.
- 57.
The Startup Club matured and started to organize six formal conferences per year, centered on themes of specific interest to Lviv’s startup founders, such as game development, social media, e-commerce, internet marketing, and services of outsourcing companies (all of which relate to qualities of the particular, emergent, startup system in Lviv). Also, the Lviv Startup Club gave presentations at the university to inform students about ways to become an entrepreneur. Today, the Startup Club still facilitates, advises, and finds investors by means of more informal, individual meetings; the organizer of the Startup Club acts as a business angel and mentor.
- 58.
The growth of Lviv’s IT and BPO companies began when a first company was founded around 1995 by professors and assistant professors of the technical university. They had taken courses at international IT companies, and they then won initial projects for, e.g., General Electric. Subsequently, IT outsourcing businesses had grown to about 4,000 employees by 2011 (Sergiychuk 2012).
- 59.
In contrast, many citizens of Lviv who are predominantly guided by the post-communist cultural system are not in a situation to become entrepreneurs. They say, e.g.: “It is impossible, you can’t do it!” For them, the image of a Western (and thus particularly non-communist) way of life drives them to earn money as employees after graduation, in order to soon be able to maintain a family, buy a car, and own a house outside the city. Other citizens guided by the post-communist cultural system, such as a student who has a job in a bar, call and wait for a “change from the top” to happen first, since they perceive that the government discourages starting a business.
- 60.
Thus, due to their (autopoietic) support of the liberal cultural system, activities of entrepreneurship may be highly welcome in Lviv, in order to overcome the (post-) communist way of thinking.
- 61.
The post-communist cultural system may seem to drive certain individuals into entrepreneurship and self-employment. These are individuals who attempt to ‘turn away’ from the former, communist, large-scale industrialization—especially regarding mass employment. Thus, they may choose to start up their own economic activities, even if they are guided by the post-communist cultural system.
- 62.
A local economic quality may be identified as a particular way of doing business in a certain place at a certain time in history.
- 63.
A graduate programmer has the choice between being hired—subsequently earning a salary that could be four times as high as the average local salary—and beginning a startup business—not earning anything at the beginning.
- 64.
Also, there is already a scarcity of IT staff. Of the approximately 2,000 annual graduates of the technical university, only about 400 are said to become programmers. Established IT companies absorb a large share of the qualified graduates, offering high salaries, modern offices, sports centers, showers, good working conditions, and relatively safe and stable jobs. Overall, programming jobs grew from a few hundred at the beginning of the millennium to about 10,000 a decade later.
- 65.
Thinking in terms of the theory of ENS, I suggest that, as long as the quality in the political system emerged from the activities of citizens, there is less risk of lacking autopoietic support—and of an expensive but ineffective intervention. This is as compared to policies devised after, e.g., international best practice (see also Sect. 7.4.4).
- 66.
The same activities of the Innovation Center may also trigger change in the economic and cultural systems, since activities of any nested system have both inward and outward influence. E.g., the Innovation Center is guiding—by means of incentives, such as training offers and investor contacts—individuals toward carrying out entrepreneurial activities. At the same time, these activities of the political system may trigger change in the existing economic quality.
This ability to trigger change via activities of the political system in enclosing systems may be exemplified by a complicated tax regime, which is the generative basis of a shadow economy. Once the political system changes this tax regime, it will no longer be supported by individuals’ activities. Then, these changes in individuals’ activities lead to situations and propensities, out of which different, new, local, economic qualities can emerge.
- 67.
Looking at the experience of Berlin or, more recently, Leipzig, one might think that these old, run-down houses near universities—with many coffee shops within a short distance—were an ideal environment for an entrepreneurial community to emerge. However, due to different guiding rules, in particular Lviv’s economic system, I do not think that this experience can be transferred to Lviv.
- 68.
Where inward influence of enclosing systems is guiding activities, these activities may appear to be guided by an ‘invisible hand.’ This is not just valid for economic systems; for example, the coherent light emitted within the “enslaving” rules of a laser demonstrate such guiding influence as well (Haken 2012, p. 9).
- 69.
According to my interviewee, the “ecosystem” is comprised of about 50 relevant educational and research institutes, as well as the city council, which guides town hall’s activities in supporting whatever is related to a ‘knowledge economy.’
- 70.
Such a breakup of guiding qualities may allow for a greater diversity to prosper, as in the case of the ecosystem after a volcano erupted, mentioned in footnote 55. It is not my intention to imply that this breakup needs to be a radical destruction of the existing systems—as it was in the case of the volcano eruption—or even a ‘velvet’ revolution —as in the case of the end of communism in CEE. Quite in contrast, even in times of comparably stable enclosing (political) systems, it may be possible for new quality to emerge and guide the activities of decision-makers, as in the case of Lviv’s Innovation Center. In this case, there were no (or few) convictions, ideologies, laws , rules, or planned competing activities by the municipality—that could suppress the emergence of entrepreneurial quality.
- 71.
This brings about the question of how spatial density may influence emergence. Since activities within a system are key when creating new situations, there should be a link between the frequency of propensities and the spatial density . As with many other measures, a correlation between novelty and spatial density depends on the locality itself; it cannot be compared across cases. E.g., the population density of innovative hotspots, such as Silicon Valley, is only 1/10 of the population density of Lviv’s prototypically compact, European inner city. I.e., it is still less than 1/2 of the population density of the entire city of Lviv (Elbert et al. 2009, p. 13 and GIZ 2011b, p. 18). In summation, density alone does not make for novelty, and, thus, densifying a city will not necessarily yield variety .
- 72.
Aligning activities by guiding rules is evocative of the analogy of coherent laser light (again, cf. footnote 68).
- 73.
Various estimates of the number of public transport rides—divided by about 1 million citizens living in Lviv and in close vicinity to the city—range from 163 to 303 trips per person per year (Berger 2011, pp. 16 and 22 f.). In the EU, the average number of trips amounts to 132 per person per year, but this figure is already inflated (as compared to the Western European average) by the inclusion of CEE countries, where the average number of trips is often more than 150 per person per year (UITP 2014, p. 2).
- 74.
This example shows that, wherever the political system sets rules, these rules influence the economic activities of individuals. The economic activities of individuals may then lead to the emergence of new rules in the enclosing economic system. However, since the economic system encloses the political system, the rules of the enclosing economic system may restrict the activities of the political system, i.e., the possibilities of political influence.
- 75.
These commonly identified failures stem from the same way of thinking that led to this inconvenient situation. When cultural guiding rules are neglected, why should the managerial and technocratic approach to public transport reform have been successful, even with improved communication and an e-ticket system?
- 76.
Route networks are available on some websites; however, these websites, such as Easyway (2015), mainly rely on users entering and updating information. They are, thus, not reliable sources of information. E.g., when I arrived at Lviv, the bus line connecting the airport with the city center did not follow the route displayed online.
- 77.
The emerged transport system is only one possible system that could have emerged from these or other activities of users—under these or other guiding rules of enclosing systems (cf. Sect. 8.1.3).
- 78.
Although this might be interpreted as a purely economic matching of supply and demand, I suggest that the activities of users of the public transport infrastructure are also guided by cultural rules and political qualities, and that the outcome is emergent from the situations guided by all of these enclosing systems (cf. also the quote preceding Chap. 3).
- 79.
Public hearings have been organized for the revision of public transport schemes, as well as for the planned introduction of electronic tickets. The latter are seen as key to the hub-based system, assuring that users may transfer without paying for another ride. One interviewee, who had engaged in a citizen initiative, told me that those who attended the public hearing understood neither the goal nor the advantages of electronic tickets.
- 80.
This description is not to imply that being open to inspiration, influences, and specific experiences from elsewhere is wrong. Rather, the point is that, in a nested system with previously emerged rules, the deliberate introduction of new rules has to consider how activities in the enclosed system would need to change—in order to support the new rules in the enclosing system, as well as keep in mind whether or not such change appears to be feasible (see also Sect. 7.4.3). Without this kind of regard, new rules might provoke activities of rejection—guided by rules of existing, emerged, enclosing qualities.
- 81.
16 routes—among them all 4 routes passing through the center—are now being served by the publicly owned transport company that also operates Lviv’s 9 tramlines and 11 trolley-bus lines. The other 36 routes are operated by private operators.
- 82.
The many minibuses passing through the center were identified as one cause of the notoriously congested streets around the historic center. As a solution, the goal is to eventually establish a hub-based network. A part of this solution is that large vehicles should pick up their passengers at transfer stations, dotted along the ring road. These transfer stations are to be served by other buses, including minibuses, transporting passengers to and from the residential high-rise neighborhoods and the suburbs. Reducing the number of vehicles passing through the center (left Photo 6.22) also aims at decreasing inner-city congestion, as well as redundancies with tramlines and trolley lines. However, even after the public-transport reform, streets remain congested (right Photo 6.22).
- 83.
According to the hired advisory, one goal is to protect the investments (to be) carried out by the municipality, in order to “ensure that... competition remains fair” (Berger 2011, pp. 22, 35, and 65). For example, by cutting down direct minibus connections into the center and by prohibiting minibuses from stopping in between assigned bus stops, private operation will be made more uneconomic. This is an absurd logic that must feel like a slap in the face to all those citizens who have successfully fought off the planned, economic structures of communism. The same document suggests continued subsidies for public transport, i.e., a planned dependency of the municipality on external donors (both national and international) (Ibid., p. 21).
- 84.
Alternatively, a more radical approach to triggering change in a nested system could be guided by yet another question: What would it take to break up the existing guiding rules and trigger change (without knowing what actual change will occur, of course)? Radical and resource-intensive as it may be, this, too, is a very different approach from looking at best practices from Western Europe.
- 85.
Minibuses are operated in many cities in CEE, as well as in the developing world. E.g., in the Slovak city Košice, two minibuses were recently put into service in 2010 and 2011 (Zoznam 2015).
- 86.
In the Romanian city of Iaşi, some lines are served by both larger buses and minibuses. Some people wait for the next larger, more comfortable bus; others choose the—sometimes faster—minibuses; many don’t care which one they take.
- 87.
One interviewee, who is connected with the municipality, told me of the achievement of nicer bus stops with fewer kiosks. However, my perception is that these micro-shops have become part of the local culture over the past decades, and, along with more attractive transfer stops, more—not fewer—kiosks might be supportive. A professor from the technical university favors the hub-based system and suggests making the hubs points of interest for, e.g., shopping.
- 88.
Whether hub-based or point-to-point connections are to be preferred is undecided. This is true even on the international scale in the aviation industry. Some aircraft manufacturers and carriers believe in hub-based connections (i.e., building or operating large aircrafts); others believe in the point-to-point connections (i.e., building or operating regional-sized aircrafts). However, both coexist.
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Walloth, C. (2016). Guiding Rules and Emerging Novelty in the Urban System of Lviv. In: Emergent Nested Systems. Understanding Complex Systems. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27550-5_6
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