A city is never produced in a single stroke.
It is always the outcome of thousands of decisions taken at different scales, in disconnected timeframes, by multiple actors.
Hence the question is not only: what shape should the city take?
But, more deeply: how can we organise a system in which these distributed decisions across time and space can still create a coherent urban fabric?
Yesterday, I introduced three regimes of urban‑fabric production — duplication, incrementality, recursiveness — and examined their formal and functional properties.
Today I add a fourth: large projects.
All four can be compared through the way they organise and distribute decision‑making.
Four ways to distribute decisions in making the urban fabric:
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Centralisation concentrates design within a single governance. Choices are then cascaded and imposed on everyone.
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Duplication distributes work plot by plot, but under very strict, standardising rules.
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Incrementality adds unsynchronised, autonomous, tailor‑made projects, adapting shared rules to local variations.
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Recursiveness goes beyond adaptation: every project restructures the context in which the next will intervene.
Let’s look at them one by one.
P&MA, Anyoji Beltrando, My Lucky Pixel
Image 1: Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, a "sustainable neighborhood" in the heart of Paris, France
Image 2: Nad Al Sheba, Dubai, UAE
Image 3: Gdansk, Poland
Image 4: Vodnjan, Croatia
1. Centralisation & large projects
Coarse granularity — Synchronous production — High inertia
Everything is designed in one piece; the plan is fixed; decision‑making is centralised. Think large housing estates, super‑blocks, new districts or cities.
Sometimes efficient in the short term but scarcely adaptable. When uses change or needs shift, the fabric cannot adjust: you have to demolish, restructure, or tolerate obsolescence.
Decision‑making is concentrated upstream; any later transformation has to return to that centre.
2. Fine‑grained but standardised duplication
Autonomous plots — Strict rules — Minimal diversity
Operations are independent, yet forms are nearly identical — suburban subdivisions, tract housing. The fabric repeats without adapting.
Decisions are distributed but without real autonomy: they are bound to a rigid model.
3. Fine‑grained incrementality
Distributed decisions — Local adaptation — Progressive transformation
Each project responds to a specific context. The framework is shared yet flexible. The fabric evolves through successive adjustments.
Decisions are autonomous, desynchronised, situated — but with little direct interaction between projects.
4. Fine recursive granularity
Evolving context - Emergent coherence - Indirect regulation.
Each project modifies the framework of the next.
These four regimes can, of course, be combined in practice, as required.
What they teach us is that the key question is: who decides?