Planned Anarchy: Can Urban Planning Foster a Voluntary Society?

Beyond Coercion, Toward Voluntary Action

"Planned Anarchy." The term itself is deliberately provocative, a seeming paradox. Anarchy, in the common understanding, conjures images of chaos and disorder. Yet, in its original 19th-century political philosophy, anarchism envisioned something quite different: a voluntary society. A society where individuals are so empowered and self-reliant that they cooperate voluntarily to achieve shared goals, without the need for coercion or hierarchical structures.

Now, fast forward to urban planning, a field often associated with top-down regulation and government-led initiatives. Can these two seemingly disparate concepts—“planned” and “anarchy”—actually be reconciled? Can urban planning, paradoxically, become a tool for fostering a voluntary society? Let’s explore this intriguing possibility, delving into practical steps planners can take to encourage citizen-led cooperation, empower communities, and cultivate a sense of shared ownership in shaping the urban environment.

Beyond Money: A Systems View of Economics for Urban Planners (and Everyone Else)

Economics as Resource Transformation, Not Just Money

Economics. The mere mention often brings to mind images of stock tickers, interest rates, and a whirlwind of figures revolving around dollars and cents. But what if we redefined economics not as being solely about money, but rather about the transformation of resources? At its core, economics is about how societies convert resources—natural, human, intellectual—into wealth. Wealth, in its broadest sense, extends beyond financial accumulation. It encompasses the value derived from economic activity and the transformation process itself, which meets societal needs and creates value from available resources.

Adopting a systems dynamics approach reveals the economy as a web of interconnected chains, where the end products of one activity become the starting resources for another. Ideally, these chains are circular, efficient, and sustainable, though every economic transformation requires resources and results in some waste. The essence of this approach is that economic activity, by creating societal wealth, enhances conditions over time. Let’s explore how this systems-based perspective on economics can inform urban planning and decision-making.

The Planner's Oath: Toward a Moral Compass for Urban Development

Beyond Technical Expertise, Toward Ethical Purpose

Urban planning is often presented as a technical discipline, a matter of zoning codes, infrastructure investments, and data-driven decision-making. While technical expertise and multidisciplinary knowledge are undeniably crucial, at its heart, urban planning is a deeply moral and ethical endeavor. We are shaping the environments in which people live, work, and interact, making decisions that have profound and lasting impacts on their well-being, their opportunities, and their very lives. This inherent ethical weight demands a clear moral compass, a set of guiding principles to anchor our decisions and ensure that our actions serve the greater good. The idea of a “Hippocratic Oath” for planners is a good starting point, but let’s push further. Let’s postulate a more comprehensive Planner’s Oath, a set of foundational principles upon which we can build a truly ethical practice of urban planning. As a starting point, let’s consider a few core principles that I believe should be at the heart of any such oath.

Town, City, Metro, Megalopolis: Lost in the Urban Lexicon (and Why It Matters)

A Personal Quest for Urban Definition

Do you live in a town or a city? A metropolis or a megalopolis? Are you downtown, in the urban core, a suburb, or perhaps an exurb? First ring or periphery? Is that your neighborhood or your district? And just how big is your city anyway? Mid-sized, mega-city, or something in between? Hamlet, village, mill town, farming community – the list of ways we categorize and describe urban areas seems endless, almost intentionally designed to create maximum confusion. It’s enough to make you feel utterly lost in the urban lexicon. Because when we try to talk about cities – about urban planning, urban problems, urban solutions – we often stumble right out of the gate, tripped up by the very words we use. Are we even talking about the same thing when we say “city”? Do your definitions match mine? And does any of this even matter? Well, yes, it does. Because this terminological messiness hinders clear communication, muddies policy discussions, and makes it harder to have any meaningful conversation about the urban world we inhabit. While we might not be able to entirely clear up this urban vocabulary soup, let’s at least take a nod to the difficulty, acknowledge the confusion, and try to offer a few working definitions to improve, even just a little, our shared understanding.