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Since the 1980s and due to the ongoing complexity and diffuseness of global networked societies, planners have tried to move beyond classic technocratic and/or sociocratic ideas of planning towards new approaches, which address the multiplicity and fuzziness of our perceptions and actions in time and space. Innovative ideas have been developed concerning discursive, collaborative, informal and post-policy planning, as well as relational geography, multi-planar, non-linear and actor-relational approaches. Nonetheless, techno- and sociocratic approaches remain dominant conceptions for much teaching and practice in Europe and elsewhere. This is partly because these innovative contributions of the past 20 or 30 years have been fragmented and isolated. However, they can also be regarded as the beginning of a bigger transition towards what we call a movement of ‘planning of undefined becoming’. In this article, we will sketch a framework in which these innovative ideas about the planner’s perceptions of fuzzy, complex and co-evolving space and time will in some way be interrelated. From this background, we will also critically reflect on some planning experiments in practice inspired reciprocally and incrementally by these ideas, developing applications for practitioners along the way.

Our existing knowledge of the links between urban growth and commuting patterns are dominated by cases from developed countries. This paper examines the impact of urban growth on workers' commutes using the case of Beijing, which is undergoing rapid economic and spatial restructuring. The results of an analysis of household survey data show that clustered and compact urban development in planned sub-centres is likely to reduce suburban workers' need for a long-distance commute to the city centre when the workers' socio-economic characteristics, the level of transport accessibility and household preferences for residential location are taken into account. Workers employed in the manufacturing sector tend to have shorter commutes and travel within the planned suburban sub-centres. This reveals that the decentralization of employment in the manufacturing sector provides more opportunities to enhance the spatial matches between household residential and job location choices. Household preferences for residential location have an effect on commuting patterns, and high-income workers are likely to accept longer commutes in order to fulfil their residential preferences. Dramatic urban restructuring, in conjunction with changes in lifestyle, is creating new commuting patterns in the rapidly growing cities of China. JEL classification: R14, R23

IntroductionSince the 1980s China's megacities have undergone rapid urban expansion as a consequence of the dramatic development of housing and industry on the city fringes. In Beijing, for example, the size of the built-up areas tripled between 1986 and 2006. In this rapid urban expansion process, much of the new urban development on the city fringe has diverged quite obviously from the traditional compact urban form and shows characteristics of urban sprawl.The direct environmental costs of urban expansion, such as loss of farmland and green space, have already been widely discussed. However, the indirect environmental effects of increasing transportation needs due to urban expansion are often overlooked. Engaged in a rapid urban expansion process, most Chinese megacities are experiencing changes in commuting patterns which include, particularly, increases in long-distance commuting trips between the city centre and suburban areas. For example, data from Beijing's Second (2000) and Third ( 2005) Travel Surveys reveal that the number of commuters who entered the central urban area in rush hour increased by 46.2% between 2000 and 2005 and had reached three times the number of residents living in the centre by 2005 (BTC, 2000; 2005a). During the same period, the travel distance per person increased on average from 8.0 km to 9.3 km. This change has already

The development of cities includes a wide variety of uncertainties which challenge spatial planners and decision makers. In response, planning approaches which move away from the ambition to achieve predefined outcomes are being explored in the literature. One of them is an adaptive approach to planning. In this paper, we argue that adaptive planning comes with a shift in focus. Instead of content and process, it is first of all about creating conditions for development which support a city’s capacity to respond to changing circumstances. We explore what these conditions may comprise and how they can be related to planning. First theoretically, by portraying cities as complex adaptive systems. Then empirically, through an evaluation of the practice of organic development strategies in which development trajectories are only minimally structured. Based on a review of 12 Dutch urban development projects, two of which are analysed in detail in this paper, we identify a series of conditions on spatio-functional configurations and the capacity building of local actors which enhance urban adaptability.