Self-organisation and spatial planning: an editorial introduction

Why self-organization matters to planning. Spatial planning and self-organization is perhaps a somewhat unexpected combination, with planning as a collective manifestation of ‘intent’ while self-organization being a ‘spontaneous’ phenomenon. Nevertheless this combination is recently getting serious attention by the planning community. There are a few empirical incentives such as the global housing, mortgage and financial crisis challenging civil societies to develop alternative planning practices. The repeating failures of large planning projects are another trigger. Such projects cannot be treated as isolated activities, and confronts the planner with a highly interconnected world which evolves through unprecedented non-linear chains of causes and effects. The theoretical incentive would come from a growing awareness of a world beyond the planners’ control, evolving in various autonomous ways, which is being explained by emerging theories addressing complexity, non-linearity, adaptability, co-evolution, transition and self-organization.

[1]  David M. Raup,et al.  How Nature Works: The Science of Self-Organized Criticality , 1997 .

[2]  J. Larson,et al.  An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations , 2015 .

[3]  H. Maturana,et al.  Autopoiesis: the organization of living systems, its characterization and a model. , 1974, Currents in modern biology.

[4]  N. Luhmann.  THE WORLD SOCIETY AS A SOCIAL SYSTEM , 1982 .

[5]  Mark Warschauer,et al.  The information age: Economy, society and culture. , 1998 .

[6]  Georgi Georgiev,et al.  Self-organization in non-equilibrium systems , 2015 .

[7]  J. Scott Spiker.  Cities and Complexity: Understanding Cities with Cellular Automata, Agent-Based Models, and Fractals , 2007 .

[8]  Jean Hillier,et al.  Complexity and Planning: Systems, Assemblages and Simulations , 2012 .

[9]  Michael Batty,et al.  Fractal Cities: A Geometry of Form and Function , 1996 .

[10]  Francis Heylighen,et al.  Complexity and Self-organization , 2008 .

[11]  Manuel Castells,et al.  The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture. Volume I. The Rise of the Network Society , 1997 .

[12]  E. Bonabeau,et al.  Self-organization in social insects. , 1997, Trends in ecology & evolution.

[13]  H. Rittel,et al.  On the Planning Crisis : Systems Analysis of the 'First an d Second Generations ' , 2006 .

[14]  D. Arner.  The Global Credit Crisis of 2008: Causes and Consequences , 2009 .

[15]  E. Koschmieder,et al.  Bénard cells and Taylor vortices , 1993 .

[16]  B. Flyvbjerg,et al.  Megaprojects and Risk: An Anatomy of Ambition , 2004, Perspectives on Politics.

[17]  David Byrne,et al.  Complexity Theory and Planning Theory: A Necessary Encounter , 2003 .

[18]  Stefano Moroni,et al.  Complexity and the inherent limits of explanation and prediction: Urban codes for self-organising cities , 2015 .

[19]  G. D. Roo.  Self-organization and Spatial Planning: Foundations, Challenges, Constraints and consequences , 2016 .

[20]  Politics and economics.  European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy , 2012 .

[21]  G. de Roo,et al.  Urban Land Changes as the Interaction Between Self-Organization and Institutions , 2015 .

[22]  Peter Sanfey.  South-eastern Europe: lessons from the global economic crisis , 2010 .

[23]  J. Borges,et al.  Cities and Regions as Self-organizing Systems: Models of Complexity , 2003 .

[24]  Luuk Boelens,et al.  Self-organization in urban development: towards a new perspective on spatial planning , 2011 .

[25]  M. Cohen.  Cities in Times of Crisis: The Response of Local Governments in Light of the Global Economic Crisis: the role of the formation of human capital, urban innovation and strategic planning , 2011 .

[26]  J. Finnigan.  How Nature Works; The science of self-organized criticality , 2001 .

[27]  V. Isaeva.  Self-organization in biological systems , 2012, Biology Bulletin.

[28]  Planning and Complexity: An Introduction , 2010 .

[29]  W. Ashby,et al.  Principles of the self-organizing dynamic system. , 1947, The Journal of general psychology.

[30]  C. Fuchs.  Structuration Theory and Self-Organization , 2003 .

[31]  B. Boonstra,et al.  Planning strategies in an age of active citizenship: a post-structuralist agenda for self-organization in spatial planning , 2015 .

[32]  P. Allen.  Cities and Regions as Self-Organizing Systems: Models of Complexity , 1997 .

[33]  Hugo Priemus,et al.  Mega-projects: Dealing with Pitfalls , 2010 .

[34]  Elisabete A. Silva,et al.  A Planner's Encounter with Complexity , 2010 .

[35]  C. S. Holling.  Understanding the Complexity of Economic, Ecological, and Social Systems , 2001, Ecosystems.