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The very rapid urban development which China is presently undergoing will require a complete modernizing of her urban technical systems. Numerous observers believe that importing technologies and methods from the West will solve the problem. This article, based on a study carried out in the municipal services of the city of Chengdu (Sichuan), and assignments in other towns, will show that the process of passing from an administered economy to a market economy will probably be long and complicated. The organization of the city government and the "Construction Committees" in charge of the water, sewage and refuse disposal systems are presented. The article then examines how these entities function together and looks at the underlying concepts of the actors involved. While what is needed appears to be obvious, the idea discussed here is that reforms are not just technological, since they involve the balance of power. The questions are numerous: what is the role of Peking in relation to other cities? the power of planning offices vs. business companies? the place of the "Design Institutes" when confronted with foreign engineers? the political power of the content of the relation with consumers/users? the transformation of the economic circuits of social redistribution by charging fares? In theory, the answers are simple. In practice, reform always takes time, since it touches the essence of practice.

The Passante ferroviario is an underground railway junction of the terminus stations of the two train networks, the Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) and Ferrovie nord Milano Spa (FNM), which provide service for Milan. This rail interconnection is the keystone in a much larger public transportation project which will both suppress the separation between the FS and FNM networks, and assert the complementarity of the different modes present within a new transportation system, which will then be hierarchized and integrated on the levels of infrastructure, fares and management. One specific operator will be named to organize and administer this new regional train service. The project for the Passante emerged during the 60s, and it should be open for service to the public by the end of this century. This somewhat long delay may be explained by an evolution in the decision-making process in which, from an initial determination of a solution to a problem, the situation finally became the redefinition of problems after the various actors had taken over the project. This is a good illustration of the notion of the "garbage can" conceptualized by M. Cohen, J. March and J. Olsen. Using the example of the Passante, interconnection appears to be a process which corresponds to a state of instability, which in turn refers to a territorial imbalance. Moreover, this type of project, between sector (transportation) and territory (on different levels), involving multiple partnerships, would seem to be able to provide the opportunity for setting up innovative mechanisms and/or the local co-ordination of transportation and urban planning.

Network operators, or companies which run and manage technical infrastructure to provide services of general utility, are currently in a period of major transition. The question is, are these companies particularly susceptible to being managed like networks? Case studies of this type of management at EDF, the SNCF et the RATP (Électricité de France [electrical power company], Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer [nationalized train system] and Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens [Paris public transport company]) have shown that, depending on whether or not the dimensions of the enterprise were already aligned with a pre- established set of priorities, the network itself may facilitate the functioning or transformation of the organization. Whether the network would be able to expand, or would have to remain purely local, would then depend more on the strategic importance of the company's functions at any given moment than on the inherent characteristics of the company. Moreover, analysis in terms of functionality shows that a radical transformation of the organizational chart, where a network replaces a pyramid-type diagram, may be more effective in controlling the major functions of the enterprise than making incremental adaptations to local imbalances when they are interdependent. In the first case studied, the network was opposed by its shape to a centralized organization, but maintained the same major functions. In the second case, the combined consequences of imbalances produced network effects which brought the very existence of the company itself into question. A policy of dissociating technical infrastructure management from service management could, in the final analysis, bring about more strategic change over the long run than would simply restructuring the organization or its management.