What kind of a problem is a city?

Cities happen to be problems in organized complexity, like the life sciences. They present “situations in which a half-dozen or even several dozen quantities are all varying simultaneously and in subtly interconnected ways.” Cities, again like the life sciences, do not exhibit one problem in organized complexity, which if understood explains all. They can be analyzed into many such problems or segments which, as in the case of the life sciences, are also related with one another. The variables are many, but they are not helter-skelter; they are “interrelated into an organic whole.”

...The tactics for understanding [the life sciences and cities] are similar in the sense that both depend on the microscopic or detailed view, so to speak, rather than on the less detailed, naked-eye view suitable for viewing problems of simplicity or the remote telescopic view suitable for viewing problems of disorganized complexity.
In the life sciences, organized complexity is handled by identifying a specific factor or quantity—say an enzyme—and then painstakingly learning its intricate relationships and interconnections with other factors or quantities. All this is observed in terms of the behavior (not mere presence) of other specific (not generalized) factors or quantities. To be sure, the techniques of two-variable and disorganized-complexity analysis are used too, but only as subsidiary tactics. (433-440)

That's Jane Jacobs in The Death and Life of Great American Cities. If we take the metaphor of a city as a living organism seriously and recognize cities as emergent phenomenon, then what is the appropriate analytical approach for cities? Although my friends tell me that Jacobs is dated in her understanding of how the life sciences are studied, I think the basic point remains: Cities are not "understandable purely by statistical analysis, predictable by the application of probability mathematics, manageable by conversion into groups of averages."

For me, this is a profound point, especially given the ubiquity of the statistical approach in social science thinking today. What is more, the framing of the problem determines the nature of the solution. Moving forward, the question is, How does one combine the sensibilities of Jacobs' street-level humanity with the empirical rigor of an econometrician?