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Are you interested how behavioural science influences urban design?
Our debate today works with the article titled Integrating behavioral science into urban planning: a framework for human-centered spatial design from 2025, by Mohamed M.E. Khogali, Eman Ahmed Mohamed Ali, and Abbas Ramdani, published in the Frontiers in Psychology journal.
This is a great preparation to our next interview with Jeff Siegler in episode 404 talking about the need to include behavioural science into urban planning.
Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see the connection between behavioural science and urban planning. This article shows that cities informed by behavioural insights foster social cohesion, economic prosperity and environmental sustainability.
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Welcome to today’s What is The Future For Cities podcast and its Research episode; my name is Fanni, and today we will introduce a research by summarising it. The episode really is just a short summary of the original investigation, and, in case it is interesting enough, I would encourage everyone to check out the whole documentation. This conversation was produced and generated with Notebook LM as two hosts dissecting the whole research.
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Speaker 1: today, we’re dissecting the invisible forces that shape our lives. We’re looking at a really fascinating framework proposed in a 2025 paper by Kigali Ali and Ramani titled, integrating Behavioural Science Into Urban Planning,
Speaker 2: and this research poses a question that might make you look at your morning commute a little differently. Are cities just collections of concrete and steel, or are they, as the paper calls them active agents that psychologically determine who we are?
Speaker 1: Exactly. So the central inquiry here is whether urban planning needs to stop obsessing over engineering for efficiency and actually start engineering for the human mind. I believe the evidence in this text is just undeniable. The built environment is a psychological determinant. We have to aggressively integrate behavioural science to ensure social wellbeing,
Speaker 2: and I see why you’d frame it that way. It’s certainly the provocative angle. However, I’m reading the same paper and I’m coming to a very different conclusion. I think we need to exercise extreme caution against what I would call environmental determinism, while Kigali and his colleagues offer a compelling framework. I am just wary of the implication that planners should be in the business of engineering our behaviour. My argument is that the city should be a provider of functional enablement of autonomy, not a tool for behavioural manipulation.
Speaker 1: Okay. Let’s dive right into that tension because that stage metaphor you’re implying suggests a passivity that I just don’t think exists For decades, urban planning was dominated by this rational actor model from the mid 20th century. The assumption was that humans are basically logical computers, right? If you build a straight road, a person will use it efficiently
Speaker 2: because they’ve calculated the costs perfectly. Yes,
Speaker 1: but Kigalis team argues that this model is fundamentally broken. They posit that the urban form acts as an architecture of choice. It means the built environment isn’t just a backdrop. It creates specific spatial conditions that while they dictate social interaction, the paper is quite explicit about this. Poorly planned environments can exacerbate abnormal behaviour, social unrest, even moral decline. So if we accept that we have a moral imperative to use frameworks like bounded rationality,
Speaker 2: okay, but hang on. This concept of abnormal behaviour is where I start to get concerned.
Speaker 1: It comes from Herbert Simon’s work, which the paper highlights. Simon recognized that individuals don’t make optimal choices. We don’t have the brain power or the time we make Satisficing choices, we pick the first option. That’s just good enough. And because we’re fallible, our cities in a way need to hold our hands.
Speaker 2: See, I’m just not convinced by that because it risks stripping the individual of agency. You’re citing the idea that the environment dictates interaction, but the source material also references the concept of ecological contingency, and this is a crucial distinction. It suggests the physical environment makes certain behaviours probable, but it doesn’t guarantee them it deals in likelihoods, not certainties.
Speaker 1: But isn’t probability the only thing that matters at scale? If I can make it 80% probable that you’ll walk instead of drive, haven’t I succeeded?
Speaker 2: Not if you ignore the why. The text references this great historical debate between John Archer and Alexander Christopher Archer argued that conduct was determined by urbanization. Basically that suburbs made people behave a certain way. But Christopher countered saying, look, if the environment makes good behaviour, unachievable a city with no sidewalks, then yes, behaviour fails. But that doesn’t mean the environment causes the behaviour. It prevents the positive, but it doesn’t manufacture the negative. It’s subtle, but it’s a massive difference.
Speaker 1: That’s an interesting philosophical stance, but let’s look at the practical application. I don’t see it as manipulation. I see it as responsive design. Let’s go back to bounded rationality. If we know people are overwhelmed and just take the path of least resistance, the city has to intervene to make the good choice, the easy choice.
Speaker 2: And who defines the good choice? The planner. That’s the danger.
Speaker 1: The collective wellbeing defines it. The paper shows this perfectly with Copenhagen. The text discusses research on that path of least resistance. They found that linear expansions and bicycle paths just creating the opportunity fundamentally altered the culture. The infrastructure itself changed the calculus. It shifted the effort versus the reward. That’s nudge theory action as defined by Fowler and Sunstein, by altering the physical parameters. Planners engineered a sustainable culture. If we can design health into the pavement, why wouldn’t we?
Speaker 2: That is a compelling success story. I’ll grant you that. Copenhagen is the poster child for this, but, and this is a big, but have you considered the flip side of nudge theory within the context of self-determination theory? Desi and Ryan who are cited here say, humans have these innate needs for autonomy and competence. When you view the city as an architecture of choice designed to nudge people, you’re creating a power imbalance. You’re treating the citizen as a subject to be managed.
Speaker 1: I think that’s a harsh way to look at a bike lane. It’s hardly oppressive.
Speaker 2: It’s not about the bike lane itself. It’s about the philosophy of the planner. The paper mentions Ali’s concept of active problem solution. This suggests that behavioural reactions are complex cognitive processes. It’s not a simple stimulus response where you widen a street and poof, everyone’s a cyclist. People are actively solving problems. Copenhagen worked because the culture and the infrastructure moved in tandem, not just because the asphalt dictated behaviour.
Speaker 1: I see why you think that, but let me offer a different take on active problem solution. I’d argue that people can’t actively solve problems if the environment is actively working against them. The paper discusses environmental stress theory, the idea that dense urban environments cause sensory overload, leading to what the authors call abnormal behavior, aggression avoidance. This isn’t about robbing people of autonomy, it’s acknowledging biological limits.
Speaker 2: Biology dictates limits. Absolutely. But I want to drill down on this abnormal behaviour claim because labelling behaviour as abnormal is a very slippery slope.
Speaker 1: It’s a central point of the research, though the text links it directly to design failures. If a space creates sensory overload, the human responses withdrawal or aggression. So the paper suggests that by integrating biophilia, our innate affinity for nature. We aren’t just decorating, we are fulfilling a biological necessity. Wilson and Keller’s work isn’t about aesthetics, it’s about mental health. The theory of reasoned action also mentioned links, emotions like happiness or fear directly to trust in the city. So if the design makes you miserable, you can’t trust the environment and social cohesion collapses. Therefore, the planner must act as a psychologist,
Speaker 2: I’m sorry, I just don’t buy that. The planner can be the psychologist. The text explicitly notes a disconnect here. Planners are trained to be verbal and conceptually oriented. While designers are visual thinkers, neither group is trained in clinical psychology. Summer points this out in the source. When planners try to diagnose abnormal behaviour and treat it with architecture, they risk overstepping their competence,
Speaker 1: but they have the data, now they have the framework. Why shouldn’t they use it?
Speaker 2: Because having a framework and having the nuance are two different things. Look at Kevin Lynch’s image of the city, which is referenced heavily. Lynch talks about nodes, paths, edges. These are tools for way finding. They’re about making the city legible so a person can navigate it. I’d argue these are functional tools, not tools for emotional therapy. If I’m stressed because I can’t find my way. The solution isn’t necessarily a biophilic intervention to soothe my soul. It’s clear signage. Let’s not confuse wayfinding with counselling.
Speaker 1: I think you’re underestimating the emotional weight of image ability, though it isn’t just about reading a map, it’s about feeling a sense of belonging. But let’s move on to something more tangible security. The paper brings up Jane Jacobs and her concept of Eyes on the Street. This is the quintessential argument for the built environment, determining social behaviour. She argued safety is created by natural surveillance. So I argue that mixed use high density areas aren’t just about economic efficiency. They’re about creating the social signalling system mentioned in the text. Social identity theory shows how our personal identity is tied to group membership. The built environment must facilitate that or we’re left with isolated, fearful individuals.
Speaker 2: That’s a strong argument, and I love Jane Jacobs, but have you considered protection motivation theory? The paper introduces it to explain how we respond to danger. It suggests that environmental threats trigger protective behaviours. So you might look at a neighbourhood where people have barred windows and call it abnormal behaviour. I call it a rational response to a threat. The issue isn’t always the architecture. It’s often that basic infrastructure lighting, policing is failing,
Speaker 1: but the design often causes the failure of the infrastructure. Blind corners, dark alleys, those are design flaws.
Speaker 2: Not always. You can have a perfectly designed space that becomes a crime hotspot if the social variables aren’t there. The text also discusses random utility theory, which is key. It says, we can only predict the probability of choosing one alternative over another, never with certainty. So when you claim design dictates safety, you’re ignoring the sheer unpredictability of human agency.
Speaker 1: Of course there’s unpredictability, but that’s exactly why we need these new tools. The paper discusses beige in theory, which lets us update our beliefs based on new spatial information. We can model how people infer what the environment allows them to do. It reduces uncertainty in the design process. Why would we accept more uncertainty by ignoring these tools? We’re trying to create a probability of wellbeing, not a probability of misery.
Speaker 2: I agree with using data, but I return to ecological contingency.
The environment is a container. It has limits, but the paper acknowledged that human activity simultaneously influence urban structures. It’s reciprocal. You seem to view the arrow of causality pointing mostly one way from brick to brain. I argue the arrow points just as strongly from brain to brick. We shape our buildings and then they shape us. Yes. Then we keep on shaping them.
Speaker 1: I accept the reciprocity, but I think you’re downplaying the power of the initial condition. The spatial conditions set the rules of the game. Look at the walkability index mentioned in the source. We know empirically that people in areas with high walkability scores are healthier. This connects to the theory of planned behaviour. Your intentions are influenced by your perceived control. If the city makes walking impossible, the intention to walk just dies. You can’t autonomy your way across a six lane highway with no crosswalk in that moment. The concrete is absolutely determining your behaviour.
Speaker 2: In the extreme case, you’re correct. That is a hard constraint. But most planning decisions are more subtle. They’re about urban quality or the mix of housing. Here, the theory of interpersonal behaviour becomes relevant. It emphasizes habit and emotion. You can build the walkway, but if the community’s habit is driving or if the emotion tied to that street is negative for social reasons, the concrete changes nothing. If we just focus on the physical nudge, we might pave a beautiful path that no one uses because we didn’t ask why they weren’t walking in the first place.
Speaker 1: That is precisely why the paper recommends institutionalizing participatory design methodologies. The framework explicitly calls for integrating the lived experiences of the dwellers, but, and this is the key, the planner brings the behavioural science to interpret those experiences. The resident knows they feel stressed. The planner, armed with environmental psychology knows why the spatial arrangement is causing that stress. It’s a partnership.
Speaker 2: I support that, absolutely. But I want to check the expert label. The paper itself mentions a knowledge gap. The danger of applying these theories is that they’re models of human minds, not models of traffic flow. They’re messy. When the paper suggests using digital twins and AI to model behavioural responses, I get nervous modelling. Mobility patterns is one thing. Modelling social cohesion or happiness is another. We risk optimizing for the metrics we can measure and just pretending we’re optimizing for the ones we can’t. Like joy or belonging.
Speaker 1: Let’s bring this to a head. The Kigali framework looks at seven domains, urban form, built environment, infrastructure, and so on. In every single one, they identify behavioural determinants. My position is simple. If we know these determinants exist, we are negligent. If we do not use them, we have to use bounded rationality To accept that people need help, we have to use biophilia to ensure their mental health. To do otherwise is to leave the psychological health of our cities completely to chance.
Speaker 2: And my position is that while we should inform our designs with these theories, we have to remain humble. We should view the city through the lens of self-determination, theory, prioritize designs that allow for autonomy, giving people tools to shape their own environment rather than shaping the environment to mold the people. We need to remember the ecological contingency that the environment sets the stage, but the actors write the play. The architecture of choice should be an open door, not a funnel.
Speaker 1: I think we found the core of our disagreement, but we can both agree with the paper’s conclusion that the future requires interdisciplinary cooperation. We need the sociologist, the psychologist, and the engineer all in the same room.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. The days of the solitary master builder are over. We need to use new data, but use it to empower, not just to predict.
Speaker 1: Urban environments are not neutral. That’s the takeaway for me. Every curb height, every tree, it’s a psychological cue. Ignoring behavioral science is simply designing with a blindfold on. We have to embrace a human-centered approach to create cities that are, as the tech says, economically prosperous and socially cohesive.
Speaker 2: And I will leave our listeners with the thought of ecological contingency. Look at your own city. Ask yourself, does this street make me walk? Or do I choose to walk? Does this park make me happy, or do I bring my happiness to it? The city is a stage for action, not a script for behaviour.
Speaker 1: We encourage you to observe your own architecture of choice the next time you step out your front door.
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