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Thus, a model is not just an inadequate representation of how a system behaves; it is a politically-enforced model that ''corrupts'' the behaviour of the system in itself. {{Author|Jane Jacobs}} makes the same observation about the modernist city planners of the 1940s and 1950s. | Thus, a model is not just an inadequate representation of how a system behaves; it is a politically-enforced model that ''corrupts'' the behaviour of the system in itself. {{Author|Jane Jacobs}} makes the same observation about the modernist city planners of the 1940s and 1950s. | ||
But there are all kinds of invisible forces at play | But there are all kinds of invisible forces at play. The formal rules, such as they are, are built on top of them, and work by dint of them. This is true of ''any'' complex organic system: not just a city. Consciousness, a computer network, a club, a tribt, a profession, a workplace. These informal systems grow over time, take root and flourish from the bottom up; make it work; you weaken them (by prioritising imposed rules) at the peril of the whole system. This, we submit, is the folly of private equity Investors, change managers, administrators and reformers. | ||
Informal, unstated, implicit factors condition how individuals behave. Family bonds, friendships, relationships, cartels, protection rackets, understandings, reputations, cultural practices, shared community attitudes. These all shape the daily conduct of commerce more profoundly that regulation. Even in the city. | |||
We can, and high-modernists do, build meta-models of societies which ignore these informal networks. Regulation proactively weakens them: superimposes written codes of conduct over unspoken relationships of mutual trust and social indebtedness. You can build a plausible model of a high-modernist regulation in London, with its systematised, regulated, centrally controlled operation. It is harder to see in, say, the medina in the Moroccan port of Essaouira (from where I am currently writing). It is not that there are ''no'' systems of control or immutable rules of conduct: indeed, the market is highly organised and runs according to strict sequences and behavioural norms. It is just that they are implicit. They depend on trust, not monitoring and enforcement. There are complex interpersonal networks that manage the lettings, labour and supply chains in the medina, but they would not to show up on any administrator’s map. Interpersonal relationships seemed markedly tighter. There is a real sense of community. But unlike London one cannot understand how this economy works without paying attention to these informal networks | We can, and high-modernists do, build meta-models of societies which ignore these informal networks. Regulation proactively weakens them: superimposes written codes of conduct over unspoken relationships of mutual trust and social indebtedness. You can build a plausible model of a high-modernist regulation in London, with its systematised, regulated, centrally controlled operation. It is harder to see in, say, the medina in the Moroccan port of Essaouira (from where I am currently writing). It is not that there are ''no'' systems of control or immutable rules of conduct: indeed, the market is highly organised and runs according to strict sequences and behavioural norms. It is just that they are implicit. They depend on trust, not monitoring and enforcement. There are complex interpersonal networks that manage the lettings, labour and supply chains in the medina, but they would not to show up on any administrator’s map. Interpersonal relationships seemed markedly tighter. There is a real sense of community. But unlike London one cannot understand how this economy works without paying attention to these informal networks | ||