Urban planning as consensual illusion.

SPONTANEOUS ACCESS: REFLEXIONS ON DESIGNING CITIES AND TRANSPORT by David Levinson

William Gibson's Neuromancer defines cyberspace as a "consensual illusion" obtained when a user "jacks into" the network. Plans for cities are also consensual illusions, a community agreed upon vision of how the city will look at some future date. Planners are but illusionists, creating and shaping a fantasy for a how city imagines itself, and through this consensus, harnessing the positive feedback processes of public and private investments aiming to achieve self-fulfilling prophesies. By promising networks, development will come; by promising demand, infrastructure will come.