Editorial

Abstract

Economist Albert Hirschman’s (1984) seminal article on the downsides of ‘‘parsimony’’ and benefits of complicating the economic discourse over thirty years ago left a great legacy for academics and practitioners alike. For economists, it was time to deal not just with the tangible and the obvious, but also with the intangible and the sub-text, yet albeit, real. Until then, economists focused on, in Hirschman’s words, the distinction between ‘‘work’’ and ‘‘pay’’ or ‘‘effort’’ and ‘‘reward;’’ essentially, the unambiguous distinction between cost and revenue, where the former goes to the negative side and the latter into the positive side of the account. His examples of each of these categories clarified what he had in mind: the distinction between the means and ends, or costs and benefits. But as Hirschman explains, due to humans’ complex nature, not everything can be measured in those terms. What is known as ‘‘the labor of love’’ and the satisfaction one gets for doing what he or she wants, regardless of its monetary compensation cannot be easily tallied through process utility or cost–benefit analysis. By distinguishing between ‘tastes’ and ‘values’ or ‘‘instrumental’’ vs. ‘‘non-instrumental’’ values, economists should aim to complicate the economic discourse to theorize complex issues such as ‘‘sacrifice,’’ ‘‘benevolence,’’ or ‘‘collective action’’ as opposed to solely pursuing self-interest. Essentially, Hirschman’s wake-up call for complicating the run-of-the-mill black and white distinctions in the calculus of utility and outcomes has been welcomed and discussed ever since. Urban designers and planners also arguably deal with similar issues. It is perhaps a truism that urban design goes beyond what is visibly tangible and physically present. There are many things in the realm of urban design that affect the planning and design process without being readily noticed. What we understand today from the notion of physical determinism attests to the idea that certain physical urban form decisions entail undeniable social or cultural ramifications. But delving deeper into these hard questions that go beyond the obvious reveals the necessity of deeper insights and more complex analytical rigor well beyond what meets the eye. The present volume introduces a few articles that foster thinking deeper about the values of complicating the urban design discourse. The selected articles cover broad themes from mega events and zoning to urban image building and space syntax. At first blush, finding a common theme among the selected topics in this issue seems awfully difficult. However, taking a hard look at these papers reveals the (conscious or even unconscious) desire for complicating seemingly straightforward matters. The first paper on mega events and urban planning by Simona Azzali tends to complicate the discourse between urban planning and development. Hosting mega events can thrive urban planning and capacity building by strategizing the transferring knowledge and expertise from one context to another. Certain experiments and advancing new prototypes and urban templates, according to the author, cannot be done by implementing small-scale projects. Doha’s 2030 Qatar National Vision, which includes the country’s comprehensible blueprint, has stirred heated debate among planners and policymakers, and has reached a point where the adopted decisions can be made and analyzed with much greater insight as opposed to enacting more typical plans. In this sense, Doha’s plan serves to complicate urban design discourse. The second article by Per-Johan Dahl, focuses on Neil Denari’s HL23 condo tower in West Chelsea, New York, to negotiate bulk restrictions and architectural form. Here again, the complex problem is how to probe the relationship between building form and zoning regulations. The complex relationship between the two variables makes the role of negotiation key and crucial. By unraveling complex and implicit relationship between profitability, design, zoning regulations, the role of design becomes all the more important. Site analysis and the relationship with all the restrictive elements of the work show tremendous lessons that can be learned through negotiation, flexibility, and zoning amendments. Ponzini and Arosio, on the other hand, focus on the role of towers on urban imageability in Doha