Planning, Design and the Complexity of Cities

Abstract

Whereas cities are recognised as being quintessentially complex, planning has historically been associated with a reduction in complexity—and not necessarily for the better. The task of city planning becomes how best to generate and maintain the functional complexity possessed by cities. To address this, we need to understand both the complexity of cities, and the ways in which functional complexity could be generated through planning. This chapter first discusses three ways in which urban complexity could be considered beneficial: through perceptual richness, functional capacity and synergy. Then, four kinds of organised complexity are suggested—‘artefactual’ complexity, system complexity, biological complexity and ecological complexity—within which the nature of urban complexity may be articulated. Three consequences of complexity are then discussed: these relate to the unknowability of the system as it is, the unknowability of effects of intervention, and the unknowability of an optimal future state. Finally, the chapter considers how planning could generate functional complexity. It is argued that a system of planning that involves not only design (master-planning) but coding and development control (involving increments of generation and selective feedback) can be recognised as an ‘engine of complexity’, creating something ‘organic’, intricate, iterative, adaptable, and hence functional—but more like evolution than design. It is suggested that recognising the positive benefits of a complex system of planning, capable of generating functional urban complexity, could help avoid mistakes of the past so that ‘planning’ is itself not part of the problem, but part of the solution.