The over planning of our cities

I am currently writing an article on temporary structures and the importance to NOT over plan our cities. This will be published this month, September 2018. This follows up the decision of the city of Helsinki to build more office buildings in an area of the city known for its chaos.

Now, is chaos bad? If this is all we have, it most certainly is. If we all live in chaos we become hopeless. But what if we all live in orderly cities where everything works? We then become tyrants. Think about it, order demands you to be strict to yourself and to anyone else, you must become a tyrant.

We aim for perfection, this is both our biggest motivation to stand up in the morning, to improve stuff and ourselves along with it, but also our greatest nemesis as it can never be reached. Over time everything changes, and so the struggle continues. So the quest is to master the emergent chaos and to be strong enough to deal with its difficulties. We must allow chaos to come to us repeatedly, find out what can it bring to us and use it to improve ourselves. Cities need to accept this and specially our urban planners, who so many times lack the humility to acknowledge the known unknowns.

Pedro Aibéo, 07.09.2018, Helsinki