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G. Franck:
"Rhythmen der Stadt. Vom Denken in dauerhaften Strukturen zum Denken in stabilen Prozessen";
Talk: Computerunterstützte Raumplanung CORP, Wien; 2001-02-14 - 2001-02-16; in: "CORP 2001. Beitraege zum 6. Symposion zur Rolle der Informationstechnologie in der Raumplanung", M. Schrenk (ed.); Institut fuer EDV-gestuetzte Methoden in Architektur und Raumplanung der TU Wien, Wien (2001), ISBN: 3-901673-05-9; 11 - 16.

For urban planning, time is as important as space. Until now the planners? focus has been mainly on space, however. This bias is at odds with the dynamic nature of the activities planned for. It becomes the more obsolete the more dynamic society grows. In the information age, the dynamics of the social process undergoes overall acceleration and multifarious destabilisation. The paper asks how the planners? view could be adapted to this change of affairs. The suggestion is an approach to modelling cities as entities that behave like organisms. Organisms are complex mixes of processes that vary, among other things, in stability. When looking at cities and urban structures this way, they show to be both very stable and exhibiting constant change. They are stable concerning the rhythms of daily, weekly and seasonal exchange characteristic of the basic processes underlying their spatial structure. They are constantly changing regarding the information dynamics of the unstable and even chaotic processes that are locked into the stable processes. The paper closes with suggesting a stability analysis of urban processes as novel planning tool.

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