And there are more nefarious examples, like the 1968 RAND project to reduce fire response times in NYC, resulting in an estimated 60,000 fires in impoverished sections of New York, as "faulty data and flawed assumptions" triggered the replacement of fire stations in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx with smaller ones. The coup de grace here was the politicization of the supposedly "scientific" project, where clever RAND officials, realizing that rich folk in well-to-do neighborhoods would not tolerate the effects of "efficiency" using their (flawed) simulations, placed such neighborhoods outside the scope of the project.
And on and on the story goes. Unintended consequences are simply part and parcel of the development of causal or predictive models using quantitative data gleaned from messy, complex systems. The real folly, however, in the Pegasus project and so many others like it, is not in the (basically correct) idea that quantitative analysis can provide useful information when devising strategies, for urban planning or otherwise, but that the human element can therefore be eliminated. That latter claim does not follow, and taking it too seriously will almost certainly guarantee that among the lessons we learn from the "Center for Innovation, Testing, and Evaluation", one of the most important is likely to be that innovation, testing, and evaluation is not enough.
Article comments
1 - PJ
I saw this experiment more as a failure to recognize that the best cities tend to grow organically, and all of these tools should merely be used to improve (and not control) how people behave and interact with their environment.
To be fair, the "geeks from Pegasus" are engineers and programmers, and not planners. Engineers strive for maximum efficiency (naturally), and planners strive to make the best recommendations using that "data" while having to deal with politics and human behavior.
2 - Igor
Good article. Optimization problems in urban planning has a long history, and demonstrates over and over that it is not enough to just have lots of data and a theory. That would be the ´geek´ way and it doesn´t work very well. Better to have a combination of Applied Engineering and Art, because each is more flexible and forgiving.
3 - Erik
Point taken on distinction between "urban planners" and programmers. As a programmer myself, I respect the distinction. (; Spot on about Applied Engineering and Art, that's exactly what I've been thinking. Fusion is harder than one or the other, alas...
4 - Igor
Fusion is pretty easy if you have the right leadership.