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.