Developing an ICT-enabled, anti-prophetic approach to sustainable cities

Cities serious about achieving sustainability need to consider what the role of information might be for them, while acknowledging their municipalities as being more complex than the sum of the physical infrastructure. This paper argues that predicting the future is not a useful mechanism for city planning, and claims that this can actually be disruptive to sustainability because adaptability, differentiation and cultural development are effectively designed out. We argue that the ICT-enabled sustainable city will be an emergent consequence of a variety of factors, a System-of-Systems, including bottom-up design by creative citizens. The paper uses systems thinking to outline core principles for city leaders in dealing with the inherent complexity of delivering successful sustainable cities.