This is undoubtedly the most difficult question to answer, largely because any urban problem is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. It has many different causes, and it is unlikely that any single or simple project could itself "solve" that problem. Even when we do see improvement in any given situation, it is often difficult to determine all or even the most important causes of that progress. Moreover, often when we design a project to address a certain problem, it is difficult to establish what impact that project has, what is its direct and unique impact, and what other unintended consequences the project might have. These are all common and well understood problems of planning and evaluating impacts. Attempting to link AUICK activities to the solution of urban problems runs into all of these obstacles and more.

We shall argue that any attempt to use AUICK information gathering capacities to affect urban planning must be based on a long term relationship with planning offices in specific cities. Such a long term relationship might be built if AUICK undertook to develop a limited set of "associate" cities and office with which it would work over a period of years. Then the training AUICK could provide, and the information it could gather could be designed to be specifically appropriate to the needs of specific urban planning activities. It would also be possible to develop a network of city planning offices that could work together under AUICK auspices to help design both training and information gathering that would be tailored to the specific problems urban administrators face.