In the case of urban management, the object is the city or town and only indirectly is management concerned with the institutions trying to manage. Urban management is not the management of local government. Nor is it the management alone of resources, or of development, or of public services, or of urban growth, or of any other partial urban concern. It is no less than management of the activities of human settlements. And, contrary to what is sometimes said, management is not separate from planning or from development, but encompasses both of these.
A prerequisite for taking any responsibility is to know that it is there and to understand what it entails. Hence, the substance of urban management must be clearly identified, if its responsibilities are to be accepted or assigned and if they are to be carried out. A principal cause of weak management of urban areas in developing countries may be this lack of awareness of what urban management is, what it entails, and who then must do it or might benefit from doing it. Local and regional cultural and historical differences may lie behind very different degrees of awareness, giving rise to some of the variations in the quality of urban management from one place to another.