There are two types of lessons to be learned from AUICK's work of the past decade. One concerns process, the other substance. The process is one in which the City of Kobe joined with a series of other international and national organizations to develop a network of people addressing urban issues in a concerted fashion. This network includes the UNFPA and other UN regional organizations, Japanese universities, universities in other countries of Asia and the US, and scores of urban administrators throughout Asia. This network has been one in which new information was generated and shared, providing one basis on which a more effective urban administration can be built.

From the list of activities undertaken -- conferences, workshops, meetings, reports and newsletters produced, and training courses provided it is evident that the network has indeed generated a considerable amount of activity. It is also easy to see that this activity has been highly focused on modern urban problems and especially on ways urban administrators can work to address those problems.

It is far more difficult, however, to assess impact of this activity. To what extent has it helped urban administrators to do a better job? To what extent has it helped international organizations to provide more effective assistance to cities? These will always be difficult questions to answer, but they will always be a necessary part of the activities themselves. Looking ahead requires that we ask these questions so that we can increase those activities that prove to be useful and alter or discard those that appear less useful. Much of what we present in this second chapter will deal, directly and indirectly, with the questions of assessment.

Part of the answer to the question of the impact or utility of the network activities lies in the substantive lessons learned from the studies and inquiries. Some of these lessons may appear self-evident and easily predicted, but it is important to demonstrate these conditions empirically, since their opposites could also be predicted. It is quite evident throughout Asia that family planning programs have indeed reduced fertility and population growth rates, thus we could easily predict that urban administrators would perceive this condition in their cities. But until we ask the urban administrators and discover what their perceptions are, we really do not know whether they see success in this area or not. Thus providing empirical evidence is an important first step in assessing the impact or utility of this network's activities.

We can summarize these substantive lessons under three headings. Lessons on urban
administration and urban conditions come directly from what the administrators have told us, both in the broader surveys and the in-depth studies. But there is a third lesson as well, which we have drawn indirectly, by interpretation. This concerns the methodological issue of city size.