ABSTRACT
During my entire academic life, I have been concerned with building symbolic representations of cities in terms of their spatial structure and dynamics while simultaneously researching planning processes conceived of as problem-solving in which such tools might be made applicable. This has meant building “models” of the phenomena and implementing them using digital technologies. In this quest, I have learned that models are abstractions, simplifi cations; they do not pretend to describe or simulate a world in all the detail we can imagine, but they distil the essence of that world, leaving out much that others might consider signifi cant.
