Abstract: The modernization of urban governance is the cornerstone of that of national governance. As the intelligent upgrading of a city is an important symbol that well tells the concept of “the people’s city”, how to carry out the upgrading scientifically and orderly is concerned with the reform of urban governance system. This paper presents the essence of urban intelligent upgrading—its originating from urban complex system, and the three kinds of disorder risks (the core characteristics) its forms and deals with on the basis of the interaction of different subjects in different stages. According to the self-adaptive logic of “human-machine-network-brain”, the paper puts forward that the upgrading needs to follow the four functional effects of “scale, network, coordination and matching”, the evolution of intelligence itself. The application and practice of the urban brain reflect the coupling change between the traditional urban management system of the local government and the application of digital technology in the upgrading. To promote this coupled change in an orderly manner, local government should make adjustments to its responsibilities, structure and boundaries.

Key words: urban governance, complex logic, intellectualization, urban brain