Post-COVID cities: some reflections on planning in uncertain times

21st Century has brought an extraordinary increase in uncertainty in urban systems. Much of this uncertainty seems to lead to an increase of mechanisms of control, even violence, inferred by the social system itself. Hereby we present a proposal for a conceptual turn in urban planning to face uncertainty: Instead of an increase of control, another possible answer in complex systems (such as cities and regions) is to increase the range of possible futures by increasing complexity, degrees of freedom and the evolvability of each element and of the structure of the whole. If complexity is necessarily inseparable from a deficit of knowledge and, therefore, of security, it is necessary to adapt our planning structures to a new paradigm, in which it is essential to introduce a non-exclusively deterministic perspective in the spatial production of the city.
Postprint (author's final draft)