Cities, Vol. 21, No. 1, p. 29–39, 2004  2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain 0264-2751 $ - see front matter www.elsevier.com/locate/cities doi:10.1016/j.cities.2003.10.007 Planning Just-in-Time versus planning Just-in-Case Nurit Alfasi* Department of Geography and Environmental Development, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, 84105 Israel Juval Portugali ESLab (Environmental Simulation Laboratory), and Department of Geography and Human Environment, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, 69978 Israel In this paper we introduce a distinction between two forms of planning: Just-in-Case planning versus Just-in-Time planning. The first refers to the traditional mode of planning as currently practiced in most urban and regional planning agencies, whereas the second, is what planning in a self-organizing system might be. The key notion behind this distinction is Just-in-Time— a method of production and management that marks the current transformation from 20th century Fordism to 21st century post-Fordism. In our paper we relate this distinction to the Israeli planning experience and suggest preliminary principles for a new, Just-in-Time, plan- ning approach.  2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Israel, Housing, Beer-Sheeva, Tel-Aviv Introduction Two main areas of criticism can be identified in cur- rent planning thought. The first, the post-modern approach, rejects absolute truth and reason. It chal- lenges modern thinking by condemning attempts to rationalize reality as being false and irrelevant. In regards to urban planning, the postmodern claim is that science is incapable of controlling society and space, and should not try to do so. If it is not the immediacy of creating local delight that replaces the just and rational objectives of city planning (Harvey, 1989; Soja, 1989; Goodchild, 1990; Cooke, 1990; Portugali, 1994, 1999), than it is talking and com- municating. Hence, the communicative approach, well presented in the writings of Forester (1989, 1999); Healey (1992, 1993, 1996) and Innes (1996, 1998), attempts to make planners aware of the uses of discussion, communication and information delivery, while promoting the value of “pragmatic judgment in planning” (Forester, 1999, 190). The second is the self-organization approach, which refers to systems (such as the city) that are * Corresponding author. Tel.: +972-66-386036; e-mail: nurital@ bgumail.bgu.ac.il 29 complex and open in the sense that their boundaries allow a flow of material and information, and are dif- ficult to predict or govern. Order and stability spon- taneously emerge from within the system, through a process called “self organization”. The city, from the self-organization point of view, is full of planning; a huge number of planning actors, including individ- uals, families, firms of all sizes and official city plan- ners operate in the city, preparing plans for a variety of built elements: farmhouses and residential build- ings, offices and industrial structures, shopping cen- ters, neighborhoods, roads, parks. The spatial order of the city is seemingly innate, as a result of the ongoing relationships between the various plans with each other, and the built environment. Therefore, the aim of urban planning to regulate or make order out of what occurs in the city is doomed to fail (Portugali, 1994, 1999). Most commentators on western planning systems, as well as Israeli planners and administrators, are of course aware of these approaches. The fact is, how- ever, that most existing planning systems, including the Israeli, are still modeled on modern rational plan- ning theory. Planning today, as shown in legal and bureaucratic frameworks of planning, is procedural and comprehensive. This is also the case with the