Turbulence and Uncertainty

Abstract

This chapter determines the current societal environment as turbulent. It illustrates that depending the type of environment in a certain period, both urban patterns and the way spatial planning and design is practiced change accordingly. This timeframe is characterised by the free exchange of products, goods, information and values between consumers, who are also producers. It brings society beyond turbulence and in an uncertain timeframe. Uncertainty, which is often treated with the search for more certainty though gaining more knowledge, is however not always reduced in this old-fashioned way. Uncertainty, and more specifically moment uncertainty can be better approached through increasing self-organisation of the system. Learning from swarms, capable of increasing resilience through collaborating in smart groups, can inform spatial planning in a way that the spatial system, a complex adaptive system, also performs swarm behaviour and organises itself in smart collaborating groups of spatial elements.