Journal on Policy and Complex Systems
compounded by the significant range of professional , social science , political , and land use issues that planning endeavors to engage and order ( Fainstein & Campbell , 2011 ). The value of the current research will increase to the extent it can support meaningful integration rather than increased fragmentation . By their nature , planning and policy are undertakings that operate at the intersection of a significant number of competing interests and enterprises , such as engineering , politics , ecology , sociology , commerce , and so on . It is critical that new research and practice enable diverse , but coherent , integration in order to make progress on perennial challenges ( e . g ., the complex relationships among transportation , land use , and social policy ) ( Irwin , 2010 ). The division of practice and theory in planning can be coherently bridged by recognizing that systems of social interaction have independent existence in a critical realist philosophical framework .
There are patterns for planning practitioners to identify and learn alongside theorists who develop additional questions for investigation ( H . Putnam , 1988 ). These patterns merit scientific attention that can lead to new knowledge and insight , even if the systems display stochastic features . The Social Imaging Project , therefore , is not an esoteric exercise . A science of cities has the potential to grow fresh impetus not as a non-reductive , over-simplifying enterprise , but as a knowledge-driven process of gathering intelligence , identifying patterns of systems , and forming potential solutions with creative policy applications . This will need ongoing investment in theory , hypothesis formation , and testing focused on a synthesis of diverse and new data sources ( Serres , 1995 ). If policy is guided by reductive paradigms of investigation , however , it is likely that the public appetite for the knowledge we desperately need will wane and we will fail to meet the demand for increased ingenuity :
The experimental method is neither a self-contained nor a self-sufficient technique for discovering causal laws . The strict controls which scientists use to elicit nature ’ s law-like properties produce only limited , idealized knowledge . Positivist canons can suffice only in the closed domain of the experimental setting . These law-like regularities with their clarity and order often disappear when taken from the laboratory and used to explain outcomes in the open world of everyday life . ( Reed & Harvey , 1992 , p . 356 )
Cities and the social structures that constitute them are certainly part of “ the open world of everyday life ” ( op cit ). Developing a more integrated , sophisticated , and open approach to science that is transparent about contingencies and open to real learning will lead to concrete gains in understanding difficult phenomena , including social systems phenomena ( Batty , 2012 ). Global urban demands require these gains if we are to succeed in providing for greater human flourishing , rather than compounding human misery ( Burdett & Sudjic , 2011 ).
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