When will local governments stop being “entities that have the answers” – From now on, local governments will have to face “wicked problems”

When did administration become an “entity that has the answers”?

Opening‑hour windows, maintenance of walking trails, revitalisation of downtown areas, infrastructure upkeep amid population decline, child‑rearing policies, welfare restructuring – most of the challenges that today’s local governments face cannot be solved by desk‑top calculations. There are as many values as there are stakeholders, and even what counts as “success” cannot be defined at the outset; only by trying does one see what the real problem was.

Yet many local governments (at least when compared with the total number nationwide) still try to act on the premise that they already have the correct answer, treating citizens as “participants to be invited”. As a result, simply adding a citizen‑participation platform without changing anything else may fail to energise either the public or the staff, and even when submissions are collected they may never be fed back into policy.

The “it doesn’t work after we’ve introduced it” wall that is common to all digital tools for participation and dialogue – not just Liqlid – stems not from the tools themselves but from misreading the very nature of the problem.

In the first place, this is a “wicked problem”.

Social scientists Rittel and Webber pointed out in a 1973 paper that many policy issues are not technical (tame) problems but “wicked problems”. Wicked problems have five characteristics: the problem definition itself is unsettled; each stakeholder has different values and “right answers”; causal relationships are complex and there is no single correct solution; learning can only happen by trial (rehearsals are ineffective); and solutions often generate new problems.

That is exactly the kind of problem local governments grapple with every day. There is no “right answer” for downtown revitalisation. The optimal window‑service schedule differs for weekday commuters and families caring for older people. Even the purpose and intended users of a walking trail become subjects of debate. Yet the traditional administrative etiquette has been optimised for tame problems – problems whose outlines can be defined and whose solutions can be calculated by experts. Councils, policy‑drafting committees, public comment periods, and legislative bodies are all organised as procedures that lead to “the correct answer”.

However, when the etiquette for tame problems is applied to wicked (ill‑defined, no‑single‑solution) problems, it inevitably backfires somewhere. The problem definition may turn out to be off‑target after implementation. Unexpected groups may react strongly. Lines that were thought to be set are redrawn immediately. These “invisible reworks” quietly but surely raise the total cost of administration.

In rural areas, both public and private actors are thin on the ground, leaving no room to evade wicked problems. In urban areas, as resource constraints tighten, the limits of approaches designed for tame problems are drawing closer. Every local government faces the question not “whether to face wicked problems now” but “when to start facing them”.

The only way to deal with wicked problems is through “co‑evolution”.

Addressing wicked problems cannot rely on a linear “analysis → design → implementation” chain. What is needed is a loop of co‑evolution, where understanding of the problem and the solution deepen together. Throw a provisional problem definition at a prototype solution, learn from the outcome, redefine the problem, and evolve the solution. Liqlid is built precisely as the foundation that supports this loop. Its permanent discussion space, AI‑driven issue visualisation, staged consensus building, and diverse participation pathways all require the operators to adopt a stance of “the answer is not yet fixed – we learn while we act”.

Conversely, if the operators cling to the premise that they “already have the answer” from the start, Liqlid’s structure becomes a wasted treasure. If the problem is fixed, co‑evolution never starts, AI‑driven issue sorting remains decorative, and citizens see through the token participation and lose interest. This is not a failure of the tool itself but a failure of mindset.

What is required is a stance of “being ready to acknowledge the wickedness”.

Here, the decisive factor is the stance of the local government. The order in Article 1 of the Local Autonomy Law – “democratic and efficient” – is not decorative. If efficiency is pursued while democracy remains vague, wicked (ill‑defined, no‑single‑solution) problems are treated as tame (well‑defined) ones, leading later to backlash, extra coordination work, and ultimately eroding efficiency itself. The costs of re‑doing work, friction, and loss of trust – i.e., the future cost of rework – increase the overall cost of administration.

Therefore, co‑creation should be repositioned not as an idealistic notion but as a practical technology that lowers decision‑making costs and curbs rework.

Local governments that truly internalise this see a dramatic shift in action. They bravely pose the three core questions – “What is the real issue?”, “Who will pay for it?”, and “Who decides?” – and open up the issues, constraints, cost structures, comparative information, and future outlook. They verbalise the line they have drawn, melt it down, and redesign the process with the willingness to redraw it. This is a willingness to admit, “we do not have the answer either”, which is precisely what it means to confront the essence of wicked problems.

Liqlid is a device that turns wicked problems into “touchable” problems.

But resolve alone does not become a system. Co‑creation that relies on the goodwill or enthusiasm of individual staff disappears with a simple personnel transfer. If it is not institutionalised, the method is not passed on and the operation collapses. This has been the reality in many local governments.

Here the meaning of Liqlid changes. Liqlid is not a “box for collecting citizens’ voices”; it works as a mechanism that locks the local government’s stance into a permanent structure. A standing dialogue space visualises the premise that “dialogue is not a one‑off event but everyday life”. AI‑driven issue visualisation creates the circuit that “feeds the accumulation of discussion back into the next policy”. Staged processes embed a multi‑layered opinion‑gathering routine into the organisation rather than a one‑time poll.

In a previous separate essay, I introduced the opinion‑gathering effort for Toyooka City’s trial reduction of public counter opening hours. Using Civic Toyooka (the Toyooka‑city version of Liqlid), the project captured both “experience of the trial period” and “behaviour of using alternative services” at high resolution, soliciting ideas without falling into a binary opposition, to address the wicked (no‑single‑solution) “optimal form of window service”.

For the renewal of the Inukawa walking trail in Nagaokakyo City, the wicked (value‑conflict) question “for whom is this public space?” was tackled by gathering residents’ experiential knowledge before construction and, using Voice NAGAOKAKYO (the Nagaokakyo‑city version of Liqlid), opening a dialogue early about physical infrastructure improvements that cannot easily be undone.

The Sakata City Downtown Grand Design addresses the regeneration of the central urban area, a wicked (multi-layered and intertwined) challenge, by diversifying participation pathways through tools like Sakapos (Sakata's version of Liqlid) and in-person workshops at private facilities. This approach mitigates opinion bias and is laying the groundwork to attract diverse stakeholders toward the opening of an area platform from fiscal year 2026 onward.

All of these are examples that do not reduce wicked (tricky) issues to tame (solvable) ones, but instead transform them into forms that can be handled while remaining wicked (tricky).

Moreover, the very meaning of co-creation evolves over time. In the short to medium term, it serves as an accountability mechanism for handling wicked (tricky) issues. In the long term, it functions as a mechanism to generate "satisfactory solutions as the cost of democracy" amidst population decline and enriching quality while scaling down. While the purpose changes, the need to face wickedness (trickiness) does not disappear.

From 'Not Touching' to 'Starting to Touch'

The greatest trap of wicked problems is the approach of "not touching them because they are difficult" or "postponing them because they are unsolvable." However, local governments are increasingly losing the luxury of escaping from wicked problems. What is being asked is the resolve to accept that trickiness now, and the mechanisms to support it.

Liqlid is not a magical tool that instantly solves unsolvable problems. However, it is a mechanism that transforms unsolvable problems into "problems that can be touched." It involves reaching out to provisional problem definitions, testing small-scale prototype solutions, and learning from them to reframe the problem itself. It is an approach to sustain the loop of "co-evolution" between questions and solutions as an organizational mechanism, rather than relying on individual staff members.

Tools without a stance spin their wheels, and stances without tools cannot scale. Only when resolve and mechanisms are in place can local governments truly "start to touch" wicked problems. Is this not the realistic first step toward new administrative reform in the future?

With this conviction, our company has begun and continues to work with local governments who share the same vision. If you share this vision, please feel free to contact us.

(Author: Hiroyuki Kurimoto, Representative Director and CEO)
Note: This article is based on public information and reflects the author's personal opinions; it does not represent the views of the local governments mentioned herein.