Global scale predictions of cities in urban and in cognitive planning

Abstract

This chapter presents preliminary research findings regarding the relations between complexity theories of cities (CTC), professional urban planning and cognitive planning—a domain of cognitive science referring to planning as a cognitive ability. Contrasting former findings from each of these domains reveals contradictions between their conclusions about the roles of predictions and plans. On the one hand, limitations on usage and implementation of predictions in planning practice have elicited ‘prediction free’ urban planning solutions. On the other hand, such solutions may ignore the basic human tendency to continuously predict the future, and the future of cities is no exception. Observing these contradictions in the context of cities as complex, self-organizing systems, findings of the current research suggest that global scale city plans (i.e. plans for the whole city, like Master-plans) are not only a technical product of certain ‘prediction based’ governmental mechanisms. The chapter will draw from the broad context of cognitive perceptions of complexity and uncertainty as general phenomena, in relation to individuals’ fulfilling or falsifying behaviors towards urban plans. Specifically, it will suggest the role of urban plans as anchoring or guiding predictions that would further generate individual’s planning behaviors.